What about reading fluency? What about "experts" who say that children need sight words as well as phonics to achieve fluency and confidence? They are mistaken. The only sight words that children should practice with flash cards are the ones that they have already sounded out with phonics. The flash cards would just help them speed up reading time after they already know the WHY of the words. Using sight-words without knowing the why is like using a calculator when you have no idea what adding or subtracting really means. You may get a right answer most of the time at first, but as your learning becomes more complex, you really trip yourself up without knowing the WHY.
In the article (on www.donpotter.net), Miscue Analysis: Training Normal Children to Read Like Defective Children, Dr. Samuel Blumenfeld observes,
“Back in the early 1900s, when the professors of education were working overtime to find “scientific” justification for changing reading instruction in American schools from alphabetic phonics to the look-say, sight, or whole-word method, many studies were done to see what kind of effect the new method would have on children’s reading ability.
“One study done by Myrtle Sholty, published in the February 1912 issue of the Elementary School Teacher, revealed that the two methods of teaching reading produced two different kinds of readers: objective and subjective. The alphabetic-phonics method produced fluent, accurate, objective readers while the sight method produced impaired subjective readers who guessed at words, omitted words, inserted words, substituted words, and mutilated words. The sight readers’ lack of phonetic knowledge put them at a distinct disadvantage. They were unable to accurately decode the words since they looked at them as whole configurations, like Chinese ideographs, with no connections to the sounds of the language.
And so it was well known by the top psychologists involved in creating the new look-say or sight reading programs that these whole-word instruction methods produced inaccurate subjective readers. Despite this, the professors proceeded to devise and publish the textbooks based on this very defective methodology.”
In the November 1914 issue of Elementary School Teacher, Clara Schmitt observed,
“The child who learns words in this way [sight] only is always dependent upon his teacher since he can acquire for himself no new or unfamiliar word from the printed page… [The errors made] were calculated to fill in the context. The defective child reads, for instance that the fox saw a vine with berries (instead of grapes) on it.
“The normal child progresses in his knowledge of phonetic values to such an extent that he becomes independent of the teacher in so far as the illogical complexities of our English spelling permit. At the fourth grade the normal child is able to work out new and unfamiliar words with approximate phonetic correctness.”
In other words, it was easier for the defective [non-phonetic, sight-reader] child to substitute a word which fitted the context than to decode the word accurately. And that is the way many children are being taught to read today, in the 21st century!
Whole-language guru, Frank Smith, mistakenly wrote in Reading Without Nonsense [what an ironic title],
“Children do not need a mastery of phonics in order to identify words that they have not met in print before.... Once a child discovers what a word is in a meaningful context, learning to recognize it on another occasion is as simple as learning to recognize a face on a second occasion, and does not need phonics. Discovering what a word is in the first place is usually most efficiently accomplished by asking someone, listening to someone else read the word, or using context to provide a substantial clue.”
The difference between Clara Schmitt and Frank Smith is that Schmitt came to her conclusions after observing real children in a real classroom, whereas Smith writes from theory alone. All that glitters is not golden. What is clear is that the two teaching methods – phonics and whole word – turn out two different kinds of readers. Phonics methodology produces accurate, objective readers. The whole-word approach produces error-filled, subjective readers.
Why is the U.S. educational system continuing to decline, regardless of how much money we funnel into it?
In summary, the repercussions of over four decades of the whole-language fiasco, et al, are still being felt in our public schools. The school system won’t turn around until the universities change what they teach the teachers to teach. We experimented with 22 teaching models on U.S. children from 1967 to 1995. Only one of those worked. The other 21 models were abject failures, such as whole-language, yet proponents were able to get them legislated into most state curricula. Many are still being used today.
This is why it is up to parents to give their children a sure foundation of reading at home before they start kindergarten. Only parents can turn the downward educational trend for their children. Waiting for schools and legislators to change will only waste your child’s quickly-passing window of opportunity to succeed.
A couple of FAQ:
What are the author’s credentials? (education, research, and experience)
Shannah B Godfrey was a gifted child herself because her dad took the time to teach her to read by phonics when she was only 3 years old. Her successful school career led her to a successful college career and then to a successful aerospace career. She is also the parent of many children – adopted, step, and natural (14, not counting the foster children) – and understands how to prepare, nourish, and stimulate young minds, to open up the world of possibilities to them.
Was Shannah B Godfrey really a rocket scientist? (most-searched Google question about TGM)
Yes. She worked as a Research & Development (R&D) Chemist on Solid Rocket Motors (SRM) for almost ten years at Alliant Techsystems (formerly Thiokol Corp). She co-developed several cutting-edge technologies that were presented to the Joint Army Navy NASA Air Force (JANNAF) Conference in 2007.
The Author, Shannah B Godfrey, with her aerospace science and engineering group (expecting her 14th child)
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