Thankfully, school is almost out. My daughter is reading above first grade level, according to the report card in April, and has successful skills for decoding unfamiliar words according to the teacher's comments. But what surprises me is that the homework coming home for the last month or so has concerned blends such as st, sw, sl, and similar combinations. I'm really not sure why blends which seem so fundamental to me would be addressed so late in the year.
We have not been reading every single night as the sports season has become more intense for us - 3 nights a week and Saturdays between the sports for the two kids. And, when we sat down to read a challenging chapter book tonight I caught my daughter guessing again. I had to make her once again focus on the letters in the words. I also told her that I realize they are letting her guess at school, but that her guesses are most of the time wrong when sounding out gets it right most of the time. And, I told her that i am telling her she is wrong because I love her and I want to help her and I know she can do it. I also wouldn't let her give up either and I cut the guessing off. Cutting her off wasn't easy because the guesses were coming at 4-5 guesses in seconds. She even asked me one time if she could go back and read the rest of the sentence and figure out the word that way (context clues)and I told her no and helped her sound the word out. If I wasn't there to track her reading accuracy, she would have just gone on thinking the words were right.
This really just lets me know that I'm not going to be able to let my guard down on this guessing. It is really going to take a long time to get rid of - they've let her use the easy way out which is wrong. What kid is going to rise to the challenge if they aren't given a chance but instead are cut off at the knees because accuracy has no role. She's so incredibly capable of more and it really burns me that the school gave her this practically handicapping crutch.
I'm just so thankful that school is almost out. Perhaps I can drill this out of her before the beginning of the next school year.
My next goals are to work on prefixes and suffixes. I think I might also work on spelling because I've noticed that she is doing really well at the spelling and I think her process of thinking out how to spell helps her reading.
As for my son, who is starting kindergarten this fall, I'm not sure what to do. His interest in working with me is sporadic and is limited when he is interested. If I can show him a video he's more likely to pay attention than he would to me. In the worst case scenario, I will working with him on each sight word as it comes out and show him how to sound it out - except the few that are not really phonics based, and I mean FEW.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Bogus Self-Esteem
Our gifted-education advocates group for our school district had a national speaker in today to speak about inspiring creative and critical thinking in our children. I did not necessarily agree with everything, but there were a quite a few take-aways from the presentation.
The one that resonated with me the most was his view that there seems to be this movement lately to establish a "bogus self-esteem." According to our speaker, the teachers are afraid to tell the students they are wrong because that might damage a student's self-esteem. He believed this to be wrong because it does not prepare a child for the challenges to come later in life, and that such an invalid view does little to challenge a child to reach his or her potential. He also stated that he believed this lead to sloppiness and bad habits.
I posed "invented spelling" (which I sometimes mistakenly call "creative spelling) as an example of the fear of telling a child he or she is wrong. I mentioned how my daughter actually, to my surprise, did not realize that when she knew how to spell a word correctly she should do so, rather than write however she wanted.
The response I got was that my question involved two issues. The first was about the extent to which I should be taking over some or all of my daughter's education for any area that I felt was not being adequately addressed, and the answer to that was yes - every time. The other issue was that there had been a problem with transitioning for my daughter between invented spelling and starting to use correct spelling.
As to the first part of the answer, it only reaffirmed what I am coming to believe; that I will be teaching my children quite extensively through out their school years. As to the second, the transition issue was that either no one had told my daughter that when she knew how to spell a word correctly that she should do so or she did not hear or did not listen.
Another take away was his view that children need to be trained to pay attention and to focus. I wish I had raised the question of how not telling the children they are wrong; and the use of invented spelling, and whole language/balanced literacy affects a child's focus and attention to detail. As you know from reading my blog, I believe these methods do create such problems, and do instill bad habits.
And yet another take away was the speakers view that the "drill and kill" theory that keeps some teachers from having their kids memorize math facts so that these are known by rote is a fallacy. I agree with this and will be doing my drill and learn with my daughter over the summer. To me this is the same fallacy that keeps teachers from teaching phonics - because the kids might get bored.
One last thing of note --- when I asked my invented spelling question, I heard a gasp from the other side of the room. I did not see the source, but it came from the direction of a person who I suspected to be a teacher, based upon a question she had asked. I could be wrong on both counts, though.
The one that resonated with me the most was his view that there seems to be this movement lately to establish a "bogus self-esteem." According to our speaker, the teachers are afraid to tell the students they are wrong because that might damage a student's self-esteem. He believed this to be wrong because it does not prepare a child for the challenges to come later in life, and that such an invalid view does little to challenge a child to reach his or her potential. He also stated that he believed this lead to sloppiness and bad habits.
I posed "invented spelling" (which I sometimes mistakenly call "creative spelling) as an example of the fear of telling a child he or she is wrong. I mentioned how my daughter actually, to my surprise, did not realize that when she knew how to spell a word correctly she should do so, rather than write however she wanted.
The response I got was that my question involved two issues. The first was about the extent to which I should be taking over some or all of my daughter's education for any area that I felt was not being adequately addressed, and the answer to that was yes - every time. The other issue was that there had been a problem with transitioning for my daughter between invented spelling and starting to use correct spelling.
As to the first part of the answer, it only reaffirmed what I am coming to believe; that I will be teaching my children quite extensively through out their school years. As to the second, the transition issue was that either no one had told my daughter that when she knew how to spell a word correctly that she should do so or she did not hear or did not listen.
Another take away was his view that children need to be trained to pay attention and to focus. I wish I had raised the question of how not telling the children they are wrong; and the use of invented spelling, and whole language/balanced literacy affects a child's focus and attention to detail. As you know from reading my blog, I believe these methods do create such problems, and do instill bad habits.
And yet another take away was the speakers view that the "drill and kill" theory that keeps some teachers from having their kids memorize math facts so that these are known by rote is a fallacy. I agree with this and will be doing my drill and learn with my daughter over the summer. To me this is the same fallacy that keeps teachers from teaching phonics - because the kids might get bored.
One last thing of note --- when I asked my invented spelling question, I heard a gasp from the other side of the room. I did not see the source, but it came from the direction of a person who I suspected to be a teacher, based upon a question she had asked. I could be wrong on both counts, though.
Vocabulary Issue
My daughter is doing well with her sounding out. Sometimes, she does try to guess still, but when I ask her to figure out the sounds she does sound out the words. I have discovered though that with the harder level books, there are expressions and vocabulary with which she is not familiar. The vocabulary issues become evident to me when I can see that she is saying the right sounds but still can't seem to piece the word together. I have been wondering as a result if I should get some books for vocabulary building, to catch her vocabulary up with her reading level. The other option is to let this happen more naturally and keep explaining the words, helping her to build her vocabulary as we read. It is only the occasional word, though. One example that I recall was "parental" as in "parental permission." Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I don't want to push her too hard, but I do want to help her grow by appropriately challenging her.
Btw, the expressions to which I referred above are actually "idioms." I did a search on idioms and went through a few with my daughter, such as letting the cat of the bag, and in the doghouse. She knew the one about something smelling fishy, so that was a good example for her.
Also, it is ironic to me that the school is sending my daughter home with books like Biscuit Goes to School, which are so incredibly easy for my daughter that they seem hardly worth it. I wonder how much of it is teacher assigned, though, versus the teacher letting her pick her own books. At home we have been working on the Diary of Wimpy Kids, which is a 5th grade level. We also read, Pinkalicious, Purplelicious, Silverlicious, and some other books, which are 2nd grade level and higher.
Btw, the expressions to which I referred above are actually "idioms." I did a search on idioms and went through a few with my daughter, such as letting the cat of the bag, and in the doghouse. She knew the one about something smelling fishy, so that was a good example for her.
Also, it is ironic to me that the school is sending my daughter home with books like Biscuit Goes to School, which are so incredibly easy for my daughter that they seem hardly worth it. I wonder how much of it is teacher assigned, though, versus the teacher letting her pick her own books. At home we have been working on the Diary of Wimpy Kids, which is a 5th grade level. We also read, Pinkalicious, Purplelicious, Silverlicious, and some other books, which are 2nd grade level and higher.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
The Next Step: Fluency
I did not post back then, but in January, we received a new set of instructions from the school explaining how we should work on fluency.
The instructions explain how fluency means using the appropriate pitch, pace, phrasing and expression. The instructions explain that this kind of fluency "aids comprehension."
The sheet explains 5 different methods parents can use at home to increase reading fluency.
1. Echo reading: You read one line and the child reads the same line. Increase the number of lines at a time to 2 and so on. This should be done at least once a week.
2. Choral reading: You and your child read the same text aloud together. Choral reading should be done at least twice a week.
3. Partner reading. You read a sentence and your child read the next and so on. When the child's reading improves, you read a page and your child reads the next page and so on. This should be done at least once a week.
4. Repeated reading. Read the same book or story more than once in the same week.
As you can guess, I was busy actually teaching reading, so I chucked these instructions to the side. Frankly, in my opinion, fluency comes with actually knowing how to read. And, some of these instructions seemed to me as if they were actually a deceptive way to disguise that the books have gone beyond the child's memorized words. After all, if the parents are reading the text first, that tells the child what the words are so that the child doesn't have to figure them out. That's even so with the choral reading, because I would bet that some children will be slightly behind the parent - like when you're singing a song you don't know the words to.
And, I just love that there was an assessment at the bottom giving guidance on determining the fluency of a child's reading. For example -
Needs work - Reading is word by word, slow, and choppy, with some words missed and not enough expression to show an understanding of the text.
Finally, I really don't care if my daughter can read the three little pigs and use the wolf's voice for the wolf. I'd rather that she can actually read the words.
The instructions explain how fluency means using the appropriate pitch, pace, phrasing and expression. The instructions explain that this kind of fluency "aids comprehension."
The sheet explains 5 different methods parents can use at home to increase reading fluency.
1. Echo reading: You read one line and the child reads the same line. Increase the number of lines at a time to 2 and so on. This should be done at least once a week.
2. Choral reading: You and your child read the same text aloud together. Choral reading should be done at least twice a week.
3. Partner reading. You read a sentence and your child read the next and so on. When the child's reading improves, you read a page and your child reads the next page and so on. This should be done at least once a week.
4. Repeated reading. Read the same book or story more than once in the same week.
As you can guess, I was busy actually teaching reading, so I chucked these instructions to the side. Frankly, in my opinion, fluency comes with actually knowing how to read. And, some of these instructions seemed to me as if they were actually a deceptive way to disguise that the books have gone beyond the child's memorized words. After all, if the parents are reading the text first, that tells the child what the words are so that the child doesn't have to figure them out. That's even so with the choral reading, because I would bet that some children will be slightly behind the parent - like when you're singing a song you don't know the words to.
And, I just love that there was an assessment at the bottom giving guidance on determining the fluency of a child's reading. For example -
Needs work - Reading is word by word, slow, and choppy, with some words missed and not enough expression to show an understanding of the text.
Finally, I really don't care if my daughter can read the three little pigs and use the wolf's voice for the wolf. I'd rather that she can actually read the words.
Rhyming
I remember from my daughter's early first grade days that there was a big focus on rhyming. But at the time I wondered why this was so important in first grade. As far as I was concerned, rhyming is relevant to writing rhyming poetry. It seemed unnecessary for first grade.
I have since read that rhyming is considered by some to be helpful for children learning how to read. But to me it seems like reading should come first and then rhyming. For instance, how does a child look at the words "red" and "said" and know that they rhyme unless the child can actually read the words. Also, although words like "bed" and "red" will probably appear to a child to rhyme, even if a child can't read the words, how does this help a child to actually read these words. I realize that the thought is that if the child knows the word "red" but not the word "bed", that through rhyming the child should know the word "bed." But this does not help children at all when the sounds are the same but the spellings are vastly different.
My daughter, for instance, brought home this terrible rhyming assignment in the first month or so that had words my daughter could not read at all and she was supposed to be able to pick out the rhyming words. It was the most horrendous and frustrating assignment for my daughter all year. And, she didn't learn anything from it, nor would I have expected her to.
I have since read that rhyming is considered by some to be helpful for children learning how to read. But to me it seems like reading should come first and then rhyming. For instance, how does a child look at the words "red" and "said" and know that they rhyme unless the child can actually read the words. Also, although words like "bed" and "red" will probably appear to a child to rhyme, even if a child can't read the words, how does this help a child to actually read these words. I realize that the thought is that if the child knows the word "red" but not the word "bed", that through rhyming the child should know the word "bed." But this does not help children at all when the sounds are the same but the spellings are vastly different.
My daughter, for instance, brought home this terrible rhyming assignment in the first month or so that had words my daughter could not read at all and she was supposed to be able to pick out the rhyming words. It was the most horrendous and frustrating assignment for my daughter all year. And, she didn't learn anything from it, nor would I have expected her to.
Friday, March 11, 2011
We Teach Phonics
I recently asked my daughter's school district what the district policy is on the teaching of phonics and here's what I received in response:
As recommended by the district, state and current evidenced-based research on best practices, the first grade teachers at *** use a balanced literacy approach that includes components of alphabetics, vocabulary, and sight words. Students are immersed in alphabetics daily which includes both phonemic awareness and phonics (sound isolation, identity, categorization, blending, segmentation, phonemic deletion, and onset-rime). Systematic strategies are taught to teach students how to isolate and manipulate phonemes in words (beginning, middle, and end). Vocabulary instruction is taught through three components: oral, listening and speaking, within context at students’ independent and instructional level. Research informs us that vocabulary is best learned when taught explicitly, when students are engaged in class discussion and conversation, when read aloud to, and when they read on their own. Sight word recognition is taught through systematic instruction based upon evidence that quick and effortless recognition of words is necessary for readers to read fluently. In addition, in acknowledgment of research that indicates alphabet and phonemic awareness are the two best indicators of how well children will learn to read, the **** First Grade teachers work hard to provide individualized instruction through scheduled word work, Intervention Block, Guided Reading, Reader's Workshop and Writer's Workshop.
I see a lot of phonemic awareness, but where is the phonics? What is described as phonics parenthetically is virtually only a list of phonemic awareness topics.
As recommended by the district, state and current evidenced-based research on best practices, the first grade teachers at *** use a balanced literacy approach that includes components of alphabetics, vocabulary, and sight words. Students are immersed in alphabetics daily which includes both phonemic awareness and phonics (sound isolation, identity, categorization, blending, segmentation, phonemic deletion, and onset-rime). Systematic strategies are taught to teach students how to isolate and manipulate phonemes in words (beginning, middle, and end). Vocabulary instruction is taught through three components: oral, listening and speaking, within context at students’ independent and instructional level. Research informs us that vocabulary is best learned when taught explicitly, when students are engaged in class discussion and conversation, when read aloud to, and when they read on their own. Sight word recognition is taught through systematic instruction based upon evidence that quick and effortless recognition of words is necessary for readers to read fluently. In addition, in acknowledgment of research that indicates alphabet and phonemic awareness are the two best indicators of how well children will learn to read, the **** First Grade teachers work hard to provide individualized instruction through scheduled word work, Intervention Block, Guided Reading, Reader's Workshop and Writer's Workshop.
I see a lot of phonemic awareness, but where is the phonics? What is described as phonics parenthetically is virtually only a list of phonemic awareness topics.
Friday, February 18, 2011
How Not to Teach Context Clues and I am a Phonicator
This is a follow-up to my most recent post on context clues gone bad, in which I provided my own observations on the proper use of context clues.
I came across this interesting blog post today on the use of context clues:
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/how-not-to-teach-context-clues/
According to this article, I am a Phonicator. The author defines a Phonicator as a person who "de-emphasize[s] the use of context clues to “guess” the meanings of words and teach[es] students to decode words in and out of context." That must be me, because the "guessing" aspect is what in my opinion has caused the most problems for my daughter and what is my biggest pet peeve over how the school has taught my daughter to read.
The author, feels that context clues should not be used as a primary strategy for determining unknown words for a beginning reader and that instead context clues should serve as a backup after applying phonics principles.
I came across this interesting blog post today on the use of context clues:
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/how-not-to-teach-context-clues/
According to this article, I am a Phonicator. The author defines a Phonicator as a person who "de-emphasize[s] the use of context clues to “guess” the meanings of words and teach[es] students to decode words in and out of context." That must be me, because the "guessing" aspect is what in my opinion has caused the most problems for my daughter and what is my biggest pet peeve over how the school has taught my daughter to read.
The author, feels that context clues should not be used as a primary strategy for determining unknown words for a beginning reader and that instead context clues should serve as a backup after applying phonics principles.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Context Clues Gone Bad
My two cents for today ---
As I think back, I remember that when I taught my brother and two sisters how to read I used context as an aid in reading. But my use of context was connected with phonics and was only to assist a reader who was close with the sounding out, but just not there yet, particularly when there might be alternate ways to say the word. At that point, it sometimes makes sense to think about context to get to the right sounding out. And the reader's reasonable expectation of being correct in such a case, in my opinion, should be very high. So, I think context should play a part, including the rest of the words in the sentence but only when phonics rules have been applied first and only when the reader is having a lot of trouble.
But using the context, such as the first letter of the word, the ending sound, the relative length of the word, the text in the rest of the sentence, and pictures, if available, seems almost destined to have an exponentially high error rate. For instance, one time, my daughter read biting as bringing. Both start with b, and both end in "ing." And, I don't remember the sentence, but bringing made perfect sense to my daughter as a correct word. If she had applied phonics, then bringing would not even be considered as an option. She might have instead read the word as bitting, and then realized her mistake by the fact that it's not a word she knows (not a word at all) and it doesn't fit in with the story, but biting which sounds close would have fit into the story and is the only other alternative because there's only two possibilities for the word if you know phonics. Further still, if you knew that biting was made from bite with the e removed and ing added, your level of certainty would be 100%.
So, I remember saying back all those years ago, "Does that make sense" when a sibling had sounded out a word incorrectly and did not make a correction. I have resisted that statement with my daughter, but it does make sense to me to make the statement (no pun intended) but only judiciously. But as to the other context clues used by proponents of whole language, such as using the first letter, a picture and even the last sounds of a word (while ignoring everything in the middle) are not appropriate.
As I think back, I remember that when I taught my brother and two sisters how to read I used context as an aid in reading. But my use of context was connected with phonics and was only to assist a reader who was close with the sounding out, but just not there yet, particularly when there might be alternate ways to say the word. At that point, it sometimes makes sense to think about context to get to the right sounding out. And the reader's reasonable expectation of being correct in such a case, in my opinion, should be very high. So, I think context should play a part, including the rest of the words in the sentence but only when phonics rules have been applied first and only when the reader is having a lot of trouble.
But using the context, such as the first letter of the word, the ending sound, the relative length of the word, the text in the rest of the sentence, and pictures, if available, seems almost destined to have an exponentially high error rate. For instance, one time, my daughter read biting as bringing. Both start with b, and both end in "ing." And, I don't remember the sentence, but bringing made perfect sense to my daughter as a correct word. If she had applied phonics, then bringing would not even be considered as an option. She might have instead read the word as bitting, and then realized her mistake by the fact that it's not a word she knows (not a word at all) and it doesn't fit in with the story, but biting which sounds close would have fit into the story and is the only other alternative because there's only two possibilities for the word if you know phonics. Further still, if you knew that biting was made from bite with the e removed and ing added, your level of certainty would be 100%.
So, I remember saying back all those years ago, "Does that make sense" when a sibling had sounded out a word incorrectly and did not make a correction. I have resisted that statement with my daughter, but it does make sense to me to make the statement (no pun intended) but only judiciously. But as to the other context clues used by proponents of whole language, such as using the first letter, a picture and even the last sounds of a word (while ignoring everything in the middle) are not appropriate.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Fascinated by the Dictionary
Tonight I told my daughter that sometimes I run across a word that I don't know. She was surprised. I told her that I look in a dictionary and the dictionary tells you how to say a word and what it means. I also gave her a children's dictionary that someone gave us awhile back that at the time we thought was too old for her. She loved it. We even looked up some words together. I think it would be too confusing though to explain to her the how the pronunciation symbols work.
Need To Practice the Vowel Combinations More
My daughter had been doing so well with her reading but this past weekend it looked like she had taken some steps back. This evening I discovered that the problem was a need to review the sounds like aw, au, ay, ai, oy, oi, etc. It only takes about about 10 minutes to review everyday. We also need to do more practice with the silent "e." It was better tonight after the review.
Not sure what we are going to do with the ough sound....
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_different_ways_can_you_pronounce_ough
7 different sounds. I think we can wait for that one and that schwa sounds for that matter. We'll do those when she's a bit older.
Not sure what we are going to do with the ough sound....
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_different_ways_can_you_pronounce_ough
7 different sounds. I think we can wait for that one and that schwa sounds for that matter. We'll do those when she's a bit older.
Mommy, Why was the Alphabet Invented?
Yesterday my 6 year old daughter asked me why someone invented the alphabet. I told her that long, long ago people used to communicate by speaking and drawing pictures. Then I mentioned that drawing a picture helps for some things, but there are just some things you can't communicate with a picture. As an example I asked her to suppose that I wanted her to clean her room and I drew her a picture of a messy room. I said that she might just think I wanted to draw a picture of her room and she may not know that I wanted her to clean her room. She seemed to understand and laughed. Then I told her that some smart person decided that if we had a system of symbols to represent sounds that words could be put down in writing. So that when we speak the sounds and put them together we make the words that we speak.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
My Mom Taught Me
I have pleasant memories of my mom teaching me phonics. Unbeknownst to my mom at the time, because I never told her until I was an adult, I had been terrified of my kindergarten teacher because she yelled constantly. So no wonder I had not learned how to read at all in kindergarten.
My mom used yellow sheets of lined paper upon which she wrote words like ball, cat and dog down on the paper and showed me how to read each one. She was successful in teaching me and I went on to first grade. I wished I could remember how my reading instruction went from there, but I do remember my teacher in 1st or 2nd grade writing the word "enough" on the board and asking anyone if they knew the word. I remember being proud of myself because I was the only one who raised a hand and knew the word. I don't remember how I knew that word, but I went on to read well in advance of my grade level.
I was the oldest of 5 children, and in my adolescence, I taught the youngest 3 children how to use phonics to read. My mom even took me to the library so I could help my brothers and sisters pick out books. We would play school and I would teach and they would learn. I now know from my current research that I had taught them some of the vowel combinations, such as ow, oo, er, or and ar, but I had not taught all the other sounds that are possible. Each of them knew basic phonics reading when they went to school. The school must have continued to teach phonics, because all went on to be good readers, and one is a postdoctoral fellow in a specialized science, and at least two remember being taught phonics.
Anyway, I mention all of this because when it came to my daughter I wanted her to learn to read before she went to school. At first, she did not want to learn from her mom. So I purchased some DVDs for her to watch. That got her interested and she started to ask me how to spell words and she started to spell words herself. She could read some 3 and 4 letter words, but I could not yet get her to read a book with me. But I was patient and did not push. Given that she had the basics of reading, I expected that she would do well with reading in school when someone other than her mom would be teaching her. And, I expected that the school would use phonics to pick up where I left off. But that just didn't happen. And, now I'm wondering just how long I will be teaching her in order to fill in the gaping gaps in her education at school. I suspect at this moment that it will be through her all her public school years.
My mom used yellow sheets of lined paper upon which she wrote words like ball, cat and dog down on the paper and showed me how to read each one. She was successful in teaching me and I went on to first grade. I wished I could remember how my reading instruction went from there, but I do remember my teacher in 1st or 2nd grade writing the word "enough" on the board and asking anyone if they knew the word. I remember being proud of myself because I was the only one who raised a hand and knew the word. I don't remember how I knew that word, but I went on to read well in advance of my grade level.
I was the oldest of 5 children, and in my adolescence, I taught the youngest 3 children how to use phonics to read. My mom even took me to the library so I could help my brothers and sisters pick out books. We would play school and I would teach and they would learn. I now know from my current research that I had taught them some of the vowel combinations, such as ow, oo, er, or and ar, but I had not taught all the other sounds that are possible. Each of them knew basic phonics reading when they went to school. The school must have continued to teach phonics, because all went on to be good readers, and one is a postdoctoral fellow in a specialized science, and at least two remember being taught phonics.
Anyway, I mention all of this because when it came to my daughter I wanted her to learn to read before she went to school. At first, she did not want to learn from her mom. So I purchased some DVDs for her to watch. That got her interested and she started to ask me how to spell words and she started to spell words herself. She could read some 3 and 4 letter words, but I could not yet get her to read a book with me. But I was patient and did not push. Given that she had the basics of reading, I expected that she would do well with reading in school when someone other than her mom would be teaching her. And, I expected that the school would use phonics to pick up where I left off. But that just didn't happen. And, now I'm wondering just how long I will be teaching her in order to fill in the gaping gaps in her education at school. I suspect at this moment that it will be through her all her public school years.
Clarification
I should clarify the previous post. All through this process after I discovered the existence of this problem - when the facade of my daughter having excellent reading skills crumbled away - I have been reading more than the school assigned books and have been reading more time with her. I had been doing this practically every night except for one night of the week when my daughter has gymnastics. We've read books leveled between 2nd and 5th grade.
But this week, I let up a little and just read the school assigned books. I did not review the phonic sounds with her - which, I had been doing periodically. I was tired and we were generally busy. But just that small amount of time of letting up and just doing the school assigned work was enough for some of the bad habits to creep back, even though my daughter knows better. Fortunately, she knows and understands her phonics. It is just a matter of training her to consistently apply them.
My daughter was pretty consistent before this week, but I suspect the teacher, whether knowingly or unknowingly, has worked to undue some of my work. I don't know if she knows what I've been doing at home with the phonics but I believe she probably does know based upon how my daughter reads now. For instance, she was recently moved into the group that reads the chapter books. And, you can hear her sound out words while she's reading.
But this week, I let up a little and just read the school assigned books. I did not review the phonic sounds with her - which, I had been doing periodically. I was tired and we were generally busy. But just that small amount of time of letting up and just doing the school assigned work was enough for some of the bad habits to creep back, even though my daughter knows better. Fortunately, she knows and understands her phonics. It is just a matter of training her to consistently apply them.
My daughter was pretty consistent before this week, but I suspect the teacher, whether knowingly or unknowingly, has worked to undue some of my work. I don't know if she knows what I've been doing at home with the phonics but I believe she probably does know based upon how my daughter reads now. For instance, she was recently moved into the group that reads the chapter books. And, you can hear her sound out words while she's reading.
The Guessing Game Lingers
As I posted, I have read with my daughter every night but mostly just the school assigned books. Reading last night with my daughter showed my lowering of intensity. The guessing game was back, although not as severe. The guesses were closer but involved adding an "r" or "l" that was just not in the word. Also different was that I could get my daughter to stop the guessing and look at a word more carefully and realize her mistake. Before I couldn't even get her to look at the letters in the word.
This makes me realize just how hard this battle is going to be from now through June to keep my daughter reading appropriately and not falling back into the bad habits that she gets coached to use at school. If I could take her out and home school her, I would do so.
I also really wish I could tell the school not to do any reading instruction with my daughter all and that I will teach that area. But not only would I expect to be told its their way or the highway, but from what I can tell the methods are so pervasive, that it's not just the reading problems, but it's the invented spelling as well.
This makes me realize just how hard this battle is going to be from now through June to keep my daughter reading appropriately and not falling back into the bad habits that she gets coached to use at school. If I could take her out and home school her, I would do so.
I also really wish I could tell the school not to do any reading instruction with my daughter all and that I will teach that area. But not only would I expect to be told its their way or the highway, but from what I can tell the methods are so pervasive, that it's not just the reading problems, but it's the invented spelling as well.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
The Silent E - Is it my Friend?
The silent "e" rule is one that I think most parents will remember from their childhoods' if taught by a phonics method. But the silent "e" rule, I think, requires some refinement. First, there are exceptions like "come" and "have" to contend with. Second, where the "e" and the other vowel are separated by more than one consonant, some sources indicate that the silent e rule may not apply. An example is the word "antler" or "spotted." The silent "e" is also sometimes invisible entirely, such as when the "e" is replaced with an "ing" as in "bite" and "biting." Third, silent "e" sometimes is found in the middle of a word such as a compound word (two words put together to make a new word).
I think the silent "e" is still our friend, provided we understand that it is not always an exact science. First, we just have to recognize there are some exceptions and not teach the rule as if it is absolute. I just tell me daughter that certain words are "weird" because they do not follow all of the rules. Second, I have told her that sometimes the silent "e" does not work when there is more than one consonant between the first vowel and the e. And, I did show her the biting example - although I think a refresher course is in order.
Another issue I've run across is the -ed - d ending situation. For instance, baked is just "bake" with the d added. But then there is a word like "spotted," and its not a silent "e" but "spot" with an extra t and an -ed. I'm still working out how to explain fully these situations - except that in "spotted," I can use the two consonant between the e and vowel explanation.
If anyone has any observations on how better to explain the silent "e" conundrum or would like to add further observations, please do post a comment.
I think the silent "e" is still our friend, provided we understand that it is not always an exact science. First, we just have to recognize there are some exceptions and not teach the rule as if it is absolute. I just tell me daughter that certain words are "weird" because they do not follow all of the rules. Second, I have told her that sometimes the silent "e" does not work when there is more than one consonant between the first vowel and the e. And, I did show her the biting example - although I think a refresher course is in order.
Another issue I've run across is the -ed - d ending situation. For instance, baked is just "bake" with the d added. But then there is a word like "spotted," and its not a silent "e" but "spot" with an extra t and an -ed. I'm still working out how to explain fully these situations - except that in "spotted," I can use the two consonant between the e and vowel explanation.
If anyone has any observations on how better to explain the silent "e" conundrum or would like to add further observations, please do post a comment.
National Right to Reading Foundation's Steps to Teaching Reading
Combined with this being a busy week and my daughter rebelling slightly at so much nightly work, we have not done as much reading this week together as I would like. That and between trying to be a full-time career woman, keeping a house, making meals, teaching reading and researching for methods for teaching reading better, I am simply tired. It is all worth it, though, when I see my daughter reading better and actually having fun with her reading; and to see my son starting to learn how to sound out words. So, a small break (not a total break) will hopefully result in a recharge for all of us.
I plan for us to pick up again over the weekend. We have some new books from Scholastic through the school for my daughter and we'll alternate between those and the Diary of a Wimpy Kid (DOWK). That should give us some variety and maybe a mix of levels since DOWK has some very challenging words for a 1st grader.
My son, however, has shown even more interest in reading this week. We have some new phonics-based reading books from my recent order from Scholastic through the school. The stories are a bit more interesting than what we have from the Bob Books. Both sets have some of the sight words, which we are sounding out together instead of memorizing. My goal is for my son to know as many of the sight words before school as possible - but not from just memorizing them, but from learning them from sounding them out as we come to them. For sight words that can't be sounded out, we will examine as much of the word as possible and I'll show my son how the word is just weird, so to speak.
Also, I have some new ideas for my son from the following website at the National Right to Reading Foundation's website:
http://www.nrrf.org/PhonicsPrimer.pdf
Based upon my son's knowledge so far and progress, I think we'll focus a bit on step 5 and see how much my son already knows and fill in the rest. He knows some of the step 6 combinations from the Leap Frog videos, which teach th, ch, and some others.
I do not intend, however, not to introduce books to him in the meantime, as suggested in Step 13. I already have lots of phonics groundwork laid with respect to my son. So, I plan to keep the books simple - the type of words that can be read using skills in steps 2 -4 of this list. Also, I have read some sources that recommend that the books you have your children read should contain only "decodable words." That means that you want your child to know the phonics rules necessary to sound out all the words in the book. So, before you get to books with new types of decoding issues, you have to teach the decoding skills.
What I find most interesting about this step by step approach by the National Right to Read Foundation is Step 7 which provides some suggestions for teaching some of the sight words which are not fully decodable with a more phonics appropriate approach. I plan to try this suggestion. The rest of the sight words, according to this site, are decodable, so they can be learned using phonics. As I mentioned above, hopefully, my son will learn as many sight words using phonics as possible before the school tries to get him to memorize them.
I plan for us to pick up again over the weekend. We have some new books from Scholastic through the school for my daughter and we'll alternate between those and the Diary of a Wimpy Kid (DOWK). That should give us some variety and maybe a mix of levels since DOWK has some very challenging words for a 1st grader.
My son, however, has shown even more interest in reading this week. We have some new phonics-based reading books from my recent order from Scholastic through the school. The stories are a bit more interesting than what we have from the Bob Books. Both sets have some of the sight words, which we are sounding out together instead of memorizing. My goal is for my son to know as many of the sight words before school as possible - but not from just memorizing them, but from learning them from sounding them out as we come to them. For sight words that can't be sounded out, we will examine as much of the word as possible and I'll show my son how the word is just weird, so to speak.
Also, I have some new ideas for my son from the following website at the National Right to Reading Foundation's website:
http://www.nrrf.org/PhonicsPrimer.pdf
Based upon my son's knowledge so far and progress, I think we'll focus a bit on step 5 and see how much my son already knows and fill in the rest. He knows some of the step 6 combinations from the Leap Frog videos, which teach th, ch, and some others.
I do not intend, however, not to introduce books to him in the meantime, as suggested in Step 13. I already have lots of phonics groundwork laid with respect to my son. So, I plan to keep the books simple - the type of words that can be read using skills in steps 2 -4 of this list. Also, I have read some sources that recommend that the books you have your children read should contain only "decodable words." That means that you want your child to know the phonics rules necessary to sound out all the words in the book. So, before you get to books with new types of decoding issues, you have to teach the decoding skills.
What I find most interesting about this step by step approach by the National Right to Read Foundation is Step 7 which provides some suggestions for teaching some of the sight words which are not fully decodable with a more phonics appropriate approach. I plan to try this suggestion. The rest of the sight words, according to this site, are decodable, so they can be learned using phonics. As I mentioned above, hopefully, my son will learn as many sight words using phonics as possible before the school tries to get him to memorize them.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Scrabble
Although the game is listed for ages 8 years and up, Santa Claus brought a Scrabble game to my 6 1/2 year old daughter this year. We've played a few times since Christmas. But we play on a low key kind of basis. First of all, we don't do any scoring at all. Secondly, we don't hide our letters from one another. Our letters are visible to each other. I show my daughter how I work out different word possibilities and I help her with her word tries. Each game is better than the last. I can see her sounding our possible combinations. Also, sometimes for short periods of time my 4 year old son will join in. He can join in when he wants and leave when he wants.
Phonics Book
I've been looking for resources to further define my phonics teaching, since I am not working with a hooked on phonics or any similar program. Much of my phonics so far has come from refreshing my memory using a 2nd grade phonic workbook that I had my daughter use for learning and practice, or just running into them while we read. It's working as my daughter is reading quite well and sounding out words, but I want to refine my instruction further. There are a number of words that just don't follow the phonics rules and by further refining to make sure I'm not missing anything, I am hoping to reduce the number of these "strange" words, or to perhaps explain them better.
The following is a list of phonemes - in a nutshell, sounds that you find in the English Language. For the most part I agree with this chart, but there are some that I will point out below that I question.
The following is a list of phonemes - in a nutshell, sounds that you find in the English Language. For the most part I agree with this chart, but there are some that I will point out below that I question.
The left column in the table below shows a particular sound. Capital letters represent the long vowel sound - effectively just saying the name of the vowel. The second column provides examples, and the third column (which I pretty much ignore) shows a name that is supposed to help you remember the phonemes - such as for long A, Fonzi's AAAA...
As for what I'm not sure I agree with.... For the OO sound, ue should be included, as in blue, glue and due. I'm also not sure about hw, which too mean just seems like an example of a silent h. And, the zh sound seems as if it should just be a z sound, showing where a s sounds like a z.
One thing I have done is to work the chart backwards, taking the combinations in the second column, such as for "ow" listing the sounds that ow can make, as in cow and blow. I think it is easier to remember what ow says than to focus on a sound with a list of all the letter combinations that can make those sounds. I taught most of these on the list to my daughter that way, with flash cards that I use every so often (not every day) as a reminder/refresher. I've also made some combination that are not on this list, such as eigh, which has a long A sound. Using this list, I am accurate because the ei sound is in the list for A and the gh are silent. But we have found it easier to make a rule out of eigh. That helps us with neigh, neighbor, eight, and numerous other words. We've done something similar for tion, which we've learned as shun and cious, which we've learned as shush. That's easier than isolating the ti and the ci sounds as this chart would have us do.
My other recent resource is a book I purchased from Amazon.com, "Phonics from A to Z" by Wiley Blevins, published by Scholastic. I have been through a good part of the book, but am still reviewing it. But from my initial impressions, although it is geared more towards a teacher, it is a good resource for parents with little or no phonics rules recollection or parents who need to make sure they are covering everything necessary. The book has helpful word lists for the various sound combinations as well as useful explanations. It also contains a list of the blends with word lists, such as bl, sl, st, br, cr, and others. There's a list of the 15 most common silent letter combinations, some of which we have covered, some we have not yet.
My new phonics book also has discussion of teaching reading by the use of "phonograms" which you may have heard referred to as "word families." The author agrees that there is a proper role for using these but cautions using them as a sole focus of early reading instruction where the students are taught these phonograms by sight and without analyzing the vowel/consonant sound relationships, such as where they just learn "at" as in "cat" without learning to put the "a" and "t" sounds together. In such cases, the children also focus a lot on the first consonant sound (sound familiar?).
The author also recommends against early readers that have a high number of phonograms for content, such as "Fat cat. Fat cat sat on a bat." The Bob books that I use with my 4 year old, at least the beginning ones, appear to do that a little, but not as much as that sample statement. We have not focused together directly on the phonograms. But I'll have to think about this some more, evaluate the later books in the series, and then decide whether these books are ok given the white board work we do too.
Another gold mine in this Phonics A to Z list, is a list of the various "rules" that are often used, such as when two vowels go walking the first one does the talking and the silent e. The book lists 45 different rules and identifies, as a percentage, how reliable they are to use. I am finding this very helpful not only because I'm finding new rules but the reliability rates are helpful as well. The author does recommend, as well, that in teaching reading the teacher should be careful to be selective and not to use too many rules, and states some other precautions in using the rules.
There are also so many other things in this book that I did not mention that I find are or will be helpful to me. Overall, I am very pleased with this book.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Snow Day and a Little Humor
Yesterday was a snow day. We had face the threat of large amounts of snow and sheets of ice, so school was cancelled and I was home from work. We didn't do as much reading work as I would have liked. But the kids have to have some free time too.
My daughter finally brought a J book home from school. She told me that she had told the teacher that her mom wanted her to bring harder books home. This J book, however, was hand picked by the teacher and did not require much sounding out. But it's a start to getting the harder books from school. But even so, we have harder books at home we can use anyway, plus there's always the dry erase board. We have, for instance, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which is providing lots of challenging words to sound out as well as a lot of humor.
In addition to re-reading the J book, we read a day in the Diary of Wimpy kids. The Diary of a Wimpy kid, according to Scholastic, the company which sells books through the schools, is a 5th grade level book. It has very few pictures and the pictures that it does have show additional meaning and do not in any way operate as context clues. There are some pretty big words in the book, some which sound out pretty easily and others that require a little extra help. But my daughter loves the book - she finds it humorous. So, as long as she wants to read it, I'll help her when she gets stuck with her sounding out but not by just telling her the word.
We also practiced the spelling words for the week. Yes, finally, in the month of January, spelling words started coming home. Although there is no direction or even encouragement for us to actually "study" the words, I have my daughter practice anyway. So, today with her spelling word "by," I pointed out to my daughter that there are two other ways to spell the word and asked if she could name them. I was thinking of by and buy, but she wrote by and bye. So, I laughed and told her that there were actually 3 ways (Mommy is not perfect) and I showed her buy. I asked her if she knew what each one meant and she could identify the correct meaning for each version. I mentioned then to her that these were homonyms and I gave her some more examples. I think that is a pretty important concept to know, particularly if a child is going to be having spelling tests using a word with homonyms. I explained to my daughter that is why I have been using the words in a sentence. She told me the teacher uses a sentence too.
As for my son, he is a bit hit or miss as to whether he wants to read, so I haven't pushed too hard. I tried to get him to read this morning but he did not want to, so later in the day I put on Leap Frog's Talking Words Factory DVD and then later in the day he wanted to read. It was at bed time though, so perhaps her just wanted to stay up later. But that's one ploy that will work with me right now.
We have been reading the Bob Books which my son says are "stupid." But I have been giving him a lot of praise so he's been reading with me a bit. I've also told him that when we get farther and farther with harder words that the stories will become more interesting. We don't do these books every night, though. I use the dry erase board with him other nights. We're going a bit slow at the moment, which I think is ok.
Every so often I continue to look for interesting reading material about whole language vs phonics. I found the following enjoyable piece:
http://www.nrrf.org/satire_WL_at_Fork.html
Ok, now that you're done laughing, here's a more serious article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070801091500.htm
From a study of 11 adult readers (a small sample, I think), an NYU professor of psychology and neural science found that 62 % of an adult's reading speed comes from phonics, 16% from "holistic word recognition" (recognizing words from their shape) and 22% from whole language (recognizing a word from the context of a sentence). Admittedly, I have not YET read the study, but the article indicates that this means there is a role for whole language teaching in conjunction with phonics. In my opinion, assuming the study results to be accurate, this study was based upon adult reading and not the reading of a child. Adults, in my opinion, probably do learn to just recognize some words over time after having read them for a long time. Further, my guess is that when an adult uses a context clue, it is only a momentary guessing of a word because the word is anticipated and then a quick either holistically or phonetically for accuracy. But that is something that adults with many, many years of experience may have developed. It is not evidence of whole language being a viable method for children. Moreover, if the results are accurate, they show that even with an experienced adult reader, the knowledge of phonics plays a large role in reading. So, in my opinion phonics should not play a backseat or little or no role in reading education, it should have a primary role.
My daughter finally brought a J book home from school. She told me that she had told the teacher that her mom wanted her to bring harder books home. This J book, however, was hand picked by the teacher and did not require much sounding out. But it's a start to getting the harder books from school. But even so, we have harder books at home we can use anyway, plus there's always the dry erase board. We have, for instance, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which is providing lots of challenging words to sound out as well as a lot of humor.
In addition to re-reading the J book, we read a day in the Diary of Wimpy kids. The Diary of a Wimpy kid, according to Scholastic, the company which sells books through the schools, is a 5th grade level book. It has very few pictures and the pictures that it does have show additional meaning and do not in any way operate as context clues. There are some pretty big words in the book, some which sound out pretty easily and others that require a little extra help. But my daughter loves the book - she finds it humorous. So, as long as she wants to read it, I'll help her when she gets stuck with her sounding out but not by just telling her the word.
We also practiced the spelling words for the week. Yes, finally, in the month of January, spelling words started coming home. Although there is no direction or even encouragement for us to actually "study" the words, I have my daughter practice anyway. So, today with her spelling word "by," I pointed out to my daughter that there are two other ways to spell the word and asked if she could name them. I was thinking of by and buy, but she wrote by and bye. So, I laughed and told her that there were actually 3 ways (Mommy is not perfect) and I showed her buy. I asked her if she knew what each one meant and she could identify the correct meaning for each version. I mentioned then to her that these were homonyms and I gave her some more examples. I think that is a pretty important concept to know, particularly if a child is going to be having spelling tests using a word with homonyms. I explained to my daughter that is why I have been using the words in a sentence. She told me the teacher uses a sentence too.
As for my son, he is a bit hit or miss as to whether he wants to read, so I haven't pushed too hard. I tried to get him to read this morning but he did not want to, so later in the day I put on Leap Frog's Talking Words Factory DVD and then later in the day he wanted to read. It was at bed time though, so perhaps her just wanted to stay up later. But that's one ploy that will work with me right now.
We have been reading the Bob Books which my son says are "stupid." But I have been giving him a lot of praise so he's been reading with me a bit. I've also told him that when we get farther and farther with harder words that the stories will become more interesting. We don't do these books every night, though. I use the dry erase board with him other nights. We're going a bit slow at the moment, which I think is ok.
Every so often I continue to look for interesting reading material about whole language vs phonics. I found the following enjoyable piece:
http://www.nrrf.org/satire_WL_at_Fork.html
Ok, now that you're done laughing, here's a more serious article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070801091500.htm
From a study of 11 adult readers (a small sample, I think), an NYU professor of psychology and neural science found that 62 % of an adult's reading speed comes from phonics, 16% from "holistic word recognition" (recognizing words from their shape) and 22% from whole language (recognizing a word from the context of a sentence). Admittedly, I have not YET read the study, but the article indicates that this means there is a role for whole language teaching in conjunction with phonics. In my opinion, assuming the study results to be accurate, this study was based upon adult reading and not the reading of a child. Adults, in my opinion, probably do learn to just recognize some words over time after having read them for a long time. Further, my guess is that when an adult uses a context clue, it is only a momentary guessing of a word because the word is anticipated and then a quick either holistically or phonetically for accuracy. But that is something that adults with many, many years of experience may have developed. It is not evidence of whole language being a viable method for children. Moreover, if the results are accurate, they show that even with an experienced adult reader, the knowledge of phonics plays a large role in reading. So, in my opinion phonics should not play a backseat or little or no role in reading education, it should have a primary role.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Challenge Words/Attention to Detail
Tonight we only had time to do the homework, reading a short H level book and a short math assignment, some spelling practice and some "challenge words" of my own. The challenge words were: mountain, vacation, invitation, television and invention, with the last two being the only two that my daughter spent much time on. I've got to use some harder, more varied words next time I have challenge words.
For the spelling practice, we went over the hard words on the spelling list. This is only about the 3rd spelling list for the year as the teacher just started spelling tests about 3 weeks ago. From kindergarten until now the focus has been on "invented spelling," under which the student can write however he/she feels the words are to be spelled without an adult making/suggesting corrections. The purpose as it was explained by the teachers was to encourage an early love of writing and to foster confidence in doing so, and eventually over time the student would start spelling words correctly.
But around Christmas time, I noticed when I started to look at everything so much more carefully that my daughter was misspelling words that I knew she knew how to spell. So, I had a friendly talk with my daughter about the importance of doing her best and spelling correctly in her writings those words she knows how to spell. Along with the spelling issue, I noticed a lack of attention to detail, sloppiness and errors when she knew the material from her rushing the work. So, I had a further nice talk explaining that she should take her time and go back and check her work. I further explained to her that when she knows material but does it incorrectly because she's not careful that the teacher will think she doesn't know and may give her more practice lessons and work in that area. She was amazed and hadn't realized this.
I believe the rushing and the lack of attention to detail was another product of the invented spelling and the whole language. After all, under both methods it doesn't matter if a student is accurate. It's perfectly acceptable for a student to read and write however they want. And, that path is easy, so why would a student strive to do better without active encouragement? Further, by taking away the evaluation of whether work is correct or needs improvement, in my opinion, the method reinforces by habit, incorrect answers, and removes all the challenge. Perhaps under this method a child's feelings aren't hurt from being told the answers are incorrect, but at the same time, where does a child get a true sense of achievement and the feeling associated with accomplishing something through hard work?
Since my talks with my daughter, I've noticed neater printing, fewer errors and better spelling. However, tonight I had to remind her that every word has at least one vowel in it and if she writes a word without a vowel, she should stop and think about the word carefully and what vowel or vowels should go in the word. She had spelled the word "her" as hr and I know she knows that word. When I brought it to her attention she inserted the "e." This kind of help should be given in the classroom too.
For the spelling practice, we went over the hard words on the spelling list. This is only about the 3rd spelling list for the year as the teacher just started spelling tests about 3 weeks ago. From kindergarten until now the focus has been on "invented spelling," under which the student can write however he/she feels the words are to be spelled without an adult making/suggesting corrections. The purpose as it was explained by the teachers was to encourage an early love of writing and to foster confidence in doing so, and eventually over time the student would start spelling words correctly.
But around Christmas time, I noticed when I started to look at everything so much more carefully that my daughter was misspelling words that I knew she knew how to spell. So, I had a friendly talk with my daughter about the importance of doing her best and spelling correctly in her writings those words she knows how to spell. Along with the spelling issue, I noticed a lack of attention to detail, sloppiness and errors when she knew the material from her rushing the work. So, I had a further nice talk explaining that she should take her time and go back and check her work. I further explained to her that when she knows material but does it incorrectly because she's not careful that the teacher will think she doesn't know and may give her more practice lessons and work in that area. She was amazed and hadn't realized this.
I believe the rushing and the lack of attention to detail was another product of the invented spelling and the whole language. After all, under both methods it doesn't matter if a student is accurate. It's perfectly acceptable for a student to read and write however they want. And, that path is easy, so why would a student strive to do better without active encouragement? Further, by taking away the evaluation of whether work is correct or needs improvement, in my opinion, the method reinforces by habit, incorrect answers, and removes all the challenge. Perhaps under this method a child's feelings aren't hurt from being told the answers are incorrect, but at the same time, where does a child get a true sense of achievement and the feeling associated with accomplishing something through hard work?
Since my talks with my daughter, I've noticed neater printing, fewer errors and better spelling. However, tonight I had to remind her that every word has at least one vowel in it and if she writes a word without a vowel, she should stop and think about the word carefully and what vowel or vowels should go in the word. She had spelled the word "her" as hr and I know she knows that word. When I brought it to her attention she inserted the "e." This kind of help should be given in the classroom too.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Duped and Deceived
Further below, you will see that I have typed in instructions that my daughter's teacher has provided us as parents. If you know what whole language is, the whole language method will jump right out at you from these instructions.
But prior to realizing we had this problem, I had no idea that such a thing as whole language reading methods existed. I assumed (bad mistake) that because I learned phonics and it worked so well for me and other members of my family as well as all of my friends and acquaintances, that phonics would have a big role in the reading education of my daughter at school. I do kick myself that I being an educated person (I'm an attorney and have an MBA degree) did not see this for what it was. But again, I never heard about whole language until around Christmas time this year. And to be honest, although I briefly read these instructions at the beginning of the year, I did not pay close attention to these instructions. To me phonics is how reading should be taught and I was prepared to assist my daughter with sounding out words. Given my predisposition for phonics, I really didn't pay attention to what appeared to me to be unnecessary instructions. I also didn't pay much attention to the instructions about talking about the content of the story, etc. It was and still is my view that my child should be able to read the story and then talk about it - not use such a discussion to help her remember memorized words as her crutch to rely on for pseudo reading. Again, my assumptions about how reading would be taught along with some clever deception in my opinion, in the instructions contributed to me not discovering that this faulty method for teaching reading was being applied.
The only good things I can point to about whole language, which in my mind is a method which defies common sense, are some of the value systems of it, such as how important it is for reading to be fun and to foster confidence in reading. However, from my personal experience at least, for my daughter, whole language reading fostered a hate for reading, a complete lack of confidence, and no ability to independently read without already knowing the story and having a cache of memorized words to rely on. And, as for the methods which make up whole language- I have no regard for any of them.
Now for a few comments on the instructions below.... Note that there is no suggestion that I have my child sound out any word, only a suggestion that I should not have her sound out "every word." I think this mention of sounding out here is meant to keep parents from realizing that phonics is playing little or no role in this teacher's reading method. What she really means, in my opinion, is that I shouldn't help sound out ANY word. Also, if I were to tell my child what a word is every time she does not know, how does she ever learn out how to read independently? Further, I am offended with the instruction that I should not "try to teach." This is my child, and I will teach whenever and however I like. Further, reading is too important of a foundation for all other education to come for me to not do any teaching, particularly when I see a teaching method that is clearly not working, and is not based upon any scientific evidence
Anyway, here are the instructions that I received at the beginning of the year:
Before Reading
1. Talk about the title, author and what the child remembers about the story. Discuss the story and talk about it. DON'T HURRY THIS STEP - it activates the child's knowledge of the story, helps him/her focus on the story and his/her interpretation of it. Develop a connection between his/her knowledge of the story and the print, thus building his/her confidence as a reader and making the shared reading experience pleasurable.
2. Recognize that beginning readers rely on memory and it is OK that many of the stories are memorized - this is a stepping stone to reading. Your child will switch from "saying" the book to actually reading some words and this is perfectly natural and very similar to stages your child went through in learning to speak.
3. It is perfectly acceptable if your child finger points at the words. It is easily eliminated as the child becomes a more fluent reader and is actually a directional aid for many beginning readers.
During Reading:
If your child is stuck on a word:
1. Remind him/her to use picture cues.
2. Suggest he/she read the sentence again and ask him/herself what would make sense.
3. Help your child incorporate the picture clue, meaning of the sentence, and the beginning sound of the word to figure out what the word might be. DO NOT SOUND OUT EVERY WORD!
4. Do not tell unknown words right away. If your child can not figure a word out, use the above three hints, and count to ten silently. This will give your child time to think and apply strategies readers need. If he/she still can not read a word, tell it to him/her . . . then go back and reread the page TOGETHER to reestablish the meaning.
Above all, keep this reading an enjoyable experience and always be positive. You didn't insist on perfection at first in his/her speech, so praise his/her attempts at reading a word, giving an idea, etc.
REMEMBER:
IT IS BETTER FOR YOU TO SHARE THE ENJOYMENT OF THE BOOKS WITH YOUR CHILD, RATHER THAN TRY TO TEACH!
But prior to realizing we had this problem, I had no idea that such a thing as whole language reading methods existed. I assumed (bad mistake) that because I learned phonics and it worked so well for me and other members of my family as well as all of my friends and acquaintances, that phonics would have a big role in the reading education of my daughter at school. I do kick myself that I being an educated person (I'm an attorney and have an MBA degree) did not see this for what it was. But again, I never heard about whole language until around Christmas time this year. And to be honest, although I briefly read these instructions at the beginning of the year, I did not pay close attention to these instructions. To me phonics is how reading should be taught and I was prepared to assist my daughter with sounding out words. Given my predisposition for phonics, I really didn't pay attention to what appeared to me to be unnecessary instructions. I also didn't pay much attention to the instructions about talking about the content of the story, etc. It was and still is my view that my child should be able to read the story and then talk about it - not use such a discussion to help her remember memorized words as her crutch to rely on for pseudo reading. Again, my assumptions about how reading would be taught along with some clever deception in my opinion, in the instructions contributed to me not discovering that this faulty method for teaching reading was being applied.
The only good things I can point to about whole language, which in my mind is a method which defies common sense, are some of the value systems of it, such as how important it is for reading to be fun and to foster confidence in reading. However, from my personal experience at least, for my daughter, whole language reading fostered a hate for reading, a complete lack of confidence, and no ability to independently read without already knowing the story and having a cache of memorized words to rely on. And, as for the methods which make up whole language- I have no regard for any of them.
Now for a few comments on the instructions below.... Note that there is no suggestion that I have my child sound out any word, only a suggestion that I should not have her sound out "every word." I think this mention of sounding out here is meant to keep parents from realizing that phonics is playing little or no role in this teacher's reading method. What she really means, in my opinion, is that I shouldn't help sound out ANY word. Also, if I were to tell my child what a word is every time she does not know, how does she ever learn out how to read independently? Further, I am offended with the instruction that I should not "try to teach." This is my child, and I will teach whenever and however I like. Further, reading is too important of a foundation for all other education to come for me to not do any teaching, particularly when I see a teaching method that is clearly not working, and is not based upon any scientific evidence
Anyway, here are the instructions that I received at the beginning of the year:
Before Reading
1. Talk about the title, author and what the child remembers about the story. Discuss the story and talk about it. DON'T HURRY THIS STEP - it activates the child's knowledge of the story, helps him/her focus on the story and his/her interpretation of it. Develop a connection between his/her knowledge of the story and the print, thus building his/her confidence as a reader and making the shared reading experience pleasurable.
2. Recognize that beginning readers rely on memory and it is OK that many of the stories are memorized - this is a stepping stone to reading. Your child will switch from "saying" the book to actually reading some words and this is perfectly natural and very similar to stages your child went through in learning to speak.
3. It is perfectly acceptable if your child finger points at the words. It is easily eliminated as the child becomes a more fluent reader and is actually a directional aid for many beginning readers.
During Reading:
If your child is stuck on a word:
1. Remind him/her to use picture cues.
2. Suggest he/she read the sentence again and ask him/herself what would make sense.
3. Help your child incorporate the picture clue, meaning of the sentence, and the beginning sound of the word to figure out what the word might be. DO NOT SOUND OUT EVERY WORD!
4. Do not tell unknown words right away. If your child can not figure a word out, use the above three hints, and count to ten silently. This will give your child time to think and apply strategies readers need. If he/she still can not read a word, tell it to him/her . . . then go back and reread the page TOGETHER to reestablish the meaning.
Above all, keep this reading an enjoyable experience and always be positive. You didn't insist on perfection at first in his/her speech, so praise his/her attempts at reading a word, giving an idea, etc.
REMEMBER:
IT IS BETTER FOR YOU TO SHARE THE ENJOYMENT OF THE BOOKS WITH YOUR CHILD, RATHER THAN TRY TO TEACH!
New Strategies - Open to Deprogramming Suggestions
I've hunted the Internet for any source of information for parents on how best to teach a child to sound out words after being in a whole language teaching environment for more than one year. There is a wealth of information out there from proponents of whole language, proponents of phonics and the reading wars in general. But I I have not found websites aimed towards helping parents deal with the whole language aftermath other than just teaching them phonics. That sound easy enough but the bad habits formed by whole language, in my opinion, are considerably handicapping.
I did find one account from a mom who decided to home school her child when she discovered her son who was being taught with whole language methods couldn't actually read despite getting good grades from his teachers. She actually paid her son for his time when he read with her and learned phonics from scratch. I decided not to do that. But I have used one of her methods which I found to be very helpful. She found that her son, like my daughter, would skip words, and substitute words. She would use her pencil to point to each word and if her son said the wrong word or skipped a word, she would tap on the word. She said she found that it interrupted his reading less while at the same time called attention to the need to go back and re-read or read the word. I have found the same thing. It also avoids arguments as it is a gentle nonverbal reminder.
I wish there was more information out there geared for parents in situations like mine. That, and being upset that this happened to us, is the reason why I write. I hope those of you who have had similar experiences will post helpful suggestions. And, again those of you whole language proponents - I don't want to hear whole langauge suggestions from you - thank you.
I did find one account from a mom who decided to home school her child when she discovered her son who was being taught with whole language methods couldn't actually read despite getting good grades from his teachers. She actually paid her son for his time when he read with her and learned phonics from scratch. I decided not to do that. But I have used one of her methods which I found to be very helpful. She found that her son, like my daughter, would skip words, and substitute words. She would use her pencil to point to each word and if her son said the wrong word or skipped a word, she would tap on the word. She said she found that it interrupted his reading less while at the same time called attention to the need to go back and re-read or read the word. I have found the same thing. It also avoids arguments as it is a gentle nonverbal reminder.
I wish there was more information out there geared for parents in situations like mine. That, and being upset that this happened to us, is the reason why I write. I hope those of you who have had similar experiences will post helpful suggestions. And, again those of you whole language proponents - I don't want to hear whole langauge suggestions from you - thank you.
Literacy Test/Challenge words
Over this past weekend, I came across a reading literacy test at: http://www.nrrf.org/readtest.html
I printed out the passages, and thought it would be a good way to see where my daughter is at with my efforts to deprogram her from whole language reading methods. I don't know whether it was because I took her away from a TV show on a Saturday or she just didn't know how to read the words in the passage, but we did not get past test passages "A." Based upon how we have been doing, I would guess (hope) it is more of the former. So, I will wait and try again another time.
In the meantime, I decided to move my efforts for awhile to individual "challenge" words that my daughter can not read with any whole language method because I write each word on its own with no connection to any story. The first word I gave my daughter was marshmallow and the second was escalator. These are both words I am not sure I would give to a first grader to sound out normally, but because of whole language my daughter has memorized a lot of words and I have to be sure that I am giving words requiring sounding out on a regular basis.
I gave her escalator because we read Corduroy (the bear with the lost button) recently and my daughter read the word escalator without a problem and no sounding out either. So, I asked her whether she sounded the word out or she guessed based upon the picture and she told me she guessed based upon the picture. So, I had her look at the letters briefly and showed her the sounding out and filed away that word in my mind for revisiting when there was no picture. We also read elevator. I have also given her some smaller words that I thought she may not have read in a story yet. Each time my daughter read a challenge word successfully, I gave her a high-five and a great deal of praise.
Another night earlier this week, I had both my children (my 6 year old daughter and my 4 year old son) together in front of one of their easel white/chalk boards. I did multiple challenge words for my daughter and I had my daughter help teach my son some sounding out of words like car, and truck. I let her pick some words with the "ar" sound that we gave to my son to read.
I have determined that my daughter is not breaking up her phonics of big words by syllables as well as she should. But we're doing some pretty big words. So now, I'm considering how to better help her with that. We'll get there though.
I printed out the passages, and thought it would be a good way to see where my daughter is at with my efforts to deprogram her from whole language reading methods. I don't know whether it was because I took her away from a TV show on a Saturday or she just didn't know how to read the words in the passage, but we did not get past test passages "A." Based upon how we have been doing, I would guess (hope) it is more of the former. So, I will wait and try again another time.
In the meantime, I decided to move my efforts for awhile to individual "challenge" words that my daughter can not read with any whole language method because I write each word on its own with no connection to any story. The first word I gave my daughter was marshmallow and the second was escalator. These are both words I am not sure I would give to a first grader to sound out normally, but because of whole language my daughter has memorized a lot of words and I have to be sure that I am giving words requiring sounding out on a regular basis.
I gave her escalator because we read Corduroy (the bear with the lost button) recently and my daughter read the word escalator without a problem and no sounding out either. So, I asked her whether she sounded the word out or she guessed based upon the picture and she told me she guessed based upon the picture. So, I had her look at the letters briefly and showed her the sounding out and filed away that word in my mind for revisiting when there was no picture. We also read elevator. I have also given her some smaller words that I thought she may not have read in a story yet. Each time my daughter read a challenge word successfully, I gave her a high-five and a great deal of praise.
Another night earlier this week, I had both my children (my 6 year old daughter and my 4 year old son) together in front of one of their easel white/chalk boards. I did multiple challenge words for my daughter and I had my daughter help teach my son some sounding out of words like car, and truck. I let her pick some words with the "ar" sound that we gave to my son to read.
I have determined that my daughter is not breaking up her phonics of big words by syllables as well as she should. But we're doing some pretty big words. So now, I'm considering how to better help her with that. We'll get there though.
Trying To Chip Away at the Whole Language Wall
Having discovered the whole language "wall," the fact that my daughter was pretty much only reading memorized words and not reading anything new on her own, I started to try to get around or chip away at that wall. I started by trying to encourage my daughter to sound words out. But it was incredibly hard to get her to actually look at the letters in the words and not to just guess - with guesses that had sounds in them that had nothing to do with the actual word in front of my daughter. It was hard to get her not to focus on the pictures but to look at the words.
At first it was like a terrible battle of wills that I just did not want to have - after all reading is supposed to be fun and if it's not it's very difficult to get a child to read. But the whole language wall fought me hard. My daughter would shout, yell and cry, and tell me that she was stupid and that she couldn't read. It took a lot of patience in the face of incredible frustration for me and for her, but she had less.
When I finally got her focused on the letters in the words, I realized that she had almost no phonics skills - other than knowing the primary sounds of the letters and some blends - but she had seemingly lost some of the ability to combine those sounds that she had when she started kindergarten. So, I went out to my local parent/teacher store and sought advice on the best phonics workbooks. I ended up purchasing the 2nd Grade Spectrum Phonics books because the first grade seemed to concentrate mostly on the vowel sounds and some rules my daughter did actually know.
My daughter was excited to have the 2nd grade phonics book. She felt confident and proud of herself to have the 2nd grade phonics book. I started out by checking her knowledge of each phonics combination and if she knew the rule, we skipped those pages. If she did not know the rule, we practiced using the workbook pages. I folded over the corner of the book to mark where we left off each time we stopped and I told her that she could work on any pages we skipped before that corner whenever she wanted to, with or without my help.
It took us about 2 weeks to get through that phonics book, maybe a bit more. Much of it was over the break between Christmas and New Year's and a bit of time after that. After we were through that book, I made my own phonics cards using the sound combinations from the book. We reviewed those words every other day for awhile and I still bring them out from time to time as a reminder. During this time period, we stayed, for the most part, away from the reading books. I think that helped ease the pressure for my daughter.
When school resumed, my daughter started bringing home the G and the H level books instead of the I and J level books. About two weeks ago now, when I asked my daughter why she was bringing these books home, she told me that she's not an I and J level reader and that the teacher had told her that she was at G and H. But I could swear that my daughter had previously told me that she was allowed to pick out whatever level book she wanted to - even though they (the teacher and teaching assistant), to my understanding, try to encourage or direct the children to certain book levels. In the G and H books, however, my daughter rarely if ever would come across a word that needed sounding out. So, I'm not sure why this started happening, but it could have derailed my phonics efforts but for the fact that of course, these books are not the only books we could use.
Fortunately, the night I asked my daughter about it, she had brought home a library book - Goldilcious, which I later learned was probably at 3rd grade reading level. I had her try to sound out using that book, and I came across the same problems as before, even with the phonics lessons. The big thing was my daughter's eyes roving all over the page. She told me she was trying to figure out what the word said. I explained to her that she needed to look at the letters in the words, but I just could not get her to do that. Once again, we were at a battle of wills. So, we just read a little. It was very little actually but I had to have her read some of it to avoid her deciding that she could block my efforts.
I thought about it over the next day during which I considered other approaches, such as photocopying her books and cutting out the pictures to handwriting my own stories. What I ended deciding to do was to have her write each word she could not read without sounding it out in a separate notebook, pushing the actual book with the pictures to the side - even closing it. From there, I drew lines breaking up the word for my daughter, helping her to see how it could be broken into manageable pieces. It was very slow going at first, but we went through about half of the book that way and I read the rest. Each and every time that my daughter succeeded in sounding out a word, I gave her a high five and a lot of praise. It was hard at first because even with me breaking each word up, my daughter still resisted and told me that she's dumb, stupid and can't read. But with each success, it became easier and easier. The next night we finished the whole book - it took us awhile to read that book, but we did it. The best part of it was that at the end my daughter was so proud of herself.
After using this technique for a couple of reading sessions, I stopped using the notebook and had my daughter read the words in the books directly. She resisted that at first, but I did not want her to have to rely on that and have the notebook become a bad habit like looking for a word's reading using the pictures, the first letter or the sentence context.
I have seen improvement, but we're still having some issues.
At first it was like a terrible battle of wills that I just did not want to have - after all reading is supposed to be fun and if it's not it's very difficult to get a child to read. But the whole language wall fought me hard. My daughter would shout, yell and cry, and tell me that she was stupid and that she couldn't read. It took a lot of patience in the face of incredible frustration for me and for her, but she had less.
When I finally got her focused on the letters in the words, I realized that she had almost no phonics skills - other than knowing the primary sounds of the letters and some blends - but she had seemingly lost some of the ability to combine those sounds that she had when she started kindergarten. So, I went out to my local parent/teacher store and sought advice on the best phonics workbooks. I ended up purchasing the 2nd Grade Spectrum Phonics books because the first grade seemed to concentrate mostly on the vowel sounds and some rules my daughter did actually know.
My daughter was excited to have the 2nd grade phonics book. She felt confident and proud of herself to have the 2nd grade phonics book. I started out by checking her knowledge of each phonics combination and if she knew the rule, we skipped those pages. If she did not know the rule, we practiced using the workbook pages. I folded over the corner of the book to mark where we left off each time we stopped and I told her that she could work on any pages we skipped before that corner whenever she wanted to, with or without my help.
It took us about 2 weeks to get through that phonics book, maybe a bit more. Much of it was over the break between Christmas and New Year's and a bit of time after that. After we were through that book, I made my own phonics cards using the sound combinations from the book. We reviewed those words every other day for awhile and I still bring them out from time to time as a reminder. During this time period, we stayed, for the most part, away from the reading books. I think that helped ease the pressure for my daughter.
When school resumed, my daughter started bringing home the G and the H level books instead of the I and J level books. About two weeks ago now, when I asked my daughter why she was bringing these books home, she told me that she's not an I and J level reader and that the teacher had told her that she was at G and H. But I could swear that my daughter had previously told me that she was allowed to pick out whatever level book she wanted to - even though they (the teacher and teaching assistant), to my understanding, try to encourage or direct the children to certain book levels. In the G and H books, however, my daughter rarely if ever would come across a word that needed sounding out. So, I'm not sure why this started happening, but it could have derailed my phonics efforts but for the fact that of course, these books are not the only books we could use.
Fortunately, the night I asked my daughter about it, she had brought home a library book - Goldilcious, which I later learned was probably at 3rd grade reading level. I had her try to sound out using that book, and I came across the same problems as before, even with the phonics lessons. The big thing was my daughter's eyes roving all over the page. She told me she was trying to figure out what the word said. I explained to her that she needed to look at the letters in the words, but I just could not get her to do that. Once again, we were at a battle of wills. So, we just read a little. It was very little actually but I had to have her read some of it to avoid her deciding that she could block my efforts.
I thought about it over the next day during which I considered other approaches, such as photocopying her books and cutting out the pictures to handwriting my own stories. What I ended deciding to do was to have her write each word she could not read without sounding it out in a separate notebook, pushing the actual book with the pictures to the side - even closing it. From there, I drew lines breaking up the word for my daughter, helping her to see how it could be broken into manageable pieces. It was very slow going at first, but we went through about half of the book that way and I read the rest. Each and every time that my daughter succeeded in sounding out a word, I gave her a high five and a lot of praise. It was hard at first because even with me breaking each word up, my daughter still resisted and told me that she's dumb, stupid and can't read. But with each success, it became easier and easier. The next night we finished the whole book - it took us awhile to read that book, but we did it. The best part of it was that at the end my daughter was so proud of herself.
After using this technique for a couple of reading sessions, I stopped using the notebook and had my daughter read the words in the books directly. She resisted that at first, but I did not want her to have to rely on that and have the notebook become a bad habit like looking for a word's reading using the pictures, the first letter or the sentence context.
I have seen improvement, but we're still having some issues.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
The Whole Language Wall
I wish I knew before we got in this mess what I know now. My daughter is in first grade, and I've recently discovered that her teacher and actually the whole school is teaching reading based upon the whole language method. In fact, I had no idea that such a thing existed until my daughter hit the reading "wall," which I will describe further herein. I'm sure if I asked the teacher, I would be told that it is not really whole language but really a balanced literacy program. But the phonics instruction is pretty much non-existent and it is evident from the fact that my daughter pretty much could not work out any words on her own.
On to how we got there.....My daughter started kindergarten with some basic phonics: sounds for each letter and ability to sound out 3 and 4 letter words. I trusted that the school would continue to progress her. And, it seemed to me like they were.
It all started out innocent enough, and a potential recipe for success (although admittedly somewhat different) or so it seemed.
First there were the sight words that were on the word wall to be memorized. At that time, I thought, what harm could there be with that - after all these were the most common words and knowing them would jump start reading. Then there was the invented spelling in which the kids could write the words any way they thought they were spelled with no correction, because that would give them confidence and an early start and love of writing. Then there were the picture books with one word per page with a picture, followed by the easy readers with pictures and sight words.
It all seemed like it was going along very well. But it did seem a bit strange. I spoke to several other parents with older kids who told me that the methods might seem strange but they do somehow work. So, I was patient and I went along with it. And, after all, my daughter was seeming to me to be progressing in reading.
But it changed when in December of the 1st grade year, my daughter started bring home books with guided reading levels of I and J. Reading quickly became a nightmare as my daughter would come across a word she could not identify quickly and for which the pictures were little or no help. She started to tell us with frustration that she was stupid and that she could not read. When I tried to help her sound out words, something I thought she knew how to do but hadn't seen evidence of because prior to this she seemed to be able to read every word, I started to notice that when my daughter came across a word she did not know, her eyes darted all over the page instead of looking at the word, and then she would start wildly guessing coming up with pretty much any word that started with the same letter. One example that sticks in my mind is when my daughter read the word biting as bringing.
If my daughter thought her guessed word made sense, no matter how little resemblance her guess bore to the real word, she would move on without even knowing just how wrong she was and she would get mad at me for calling her attention back to the word. She would also add words and substitute different words frequently - she often interchanged "the" with "a" and vice versa and would read the words out of order. I quickly began to realize that what appeared to be a promising level of reading was merely a facade - a deception and a disservice to my daughter.
I began to research methods of teaching reading online and discovered that the whole language method and the balanced literacy approach were the likely culprits causing my daughter to hit the wall - and I don't mean the word wall.
My early efforts in addressing the problem with sounding out words based upon phonics was frustrating as it seemed that my daughter was already programmed in the whole language bad habits. I had a terrible time getting my daughter to actually look at the letters in the words. And, without being able to do that, sounding out was difficult, if not impossible. I searched the Internet looking for strategies to best overcome the focus on the pictures and the context and the word as a whole instead of its components; and to help my daughter to focus on sounding out.
I realize from my research that the reading wars can be intense and if they find this page, I will probably get some passionately negative comments from whole language proponents. I would rather, however, only hear from others who have had to address the same problems I am addressing and hear from them about their phonics-based strategies so that I can best help my daughter.
On to how we got there.....My daughter started kindergarten with some basic phonics: sounds for each letter and ability to sound out 3 and 4 letter words. I trusted that the school would continue to progress her. And, it seemed to me like they were.
It all started out innocent enough, and a potential recipe for success (although admittedly somewhat different) or so it seemed.
First there were the sight words that were on the word wall to be memorized. At that time, I thought, what harm could there be with that - after all these were the most common words and knowing them would jump start reading. Then there was the invented spelling in which the kids could write the words any way they thought they were spelled with no correction, because that would give them confidence and an early start and love of writing. Then there were the picture books with one word per page with a picture, followed by the easy readers with pictures and sight words.
It all seemed like it was going along very well. But it did seem a bit strange. I spoke to several other parents with older kids who told me that the methods might seem strange but they do somehow work. So, I was patient and I went along with it. And, after all, my daughter was seeming to me to be progressing in reading.
But it changed when in December of the 1st grade year, my daughter started bring home books with guided reading levels of I and J. Reading quickly became a nightmare as my daughter would come across a word she could not identify quickly and for which the pictures were little or no help. She started to tell us with frustration that she was stupid and that she could not read. When I tried to help her sound out words, something I thought she knew how to do but hadn't seen evidence of because prior to this she seemed to be able to read every word, I started to notice that when my daughter came across a word she did not know, her eyes darted all over the page instead of looking at the word, and then she would start wildly guessing coming up with pretty much any word that started with the same letter. One example that sticks in my mind is when my daughter read the word biting as bringing.
If my daughter thought her guessed word made sense, no matter how little resemblance her guess bore to the real word, she would move on without even knowing just how wrong she was and she would get mad at me for calling her attention back to the word. She would also add words and substitute different words frequently - she often interchanged "the" with "a" and vice versa and would read the words out of order. I quickly began to realize that what appeared to be a promising level of reading was merely a facade - a deception and a disservice to my daughter.
I began to research methods of teaching reading online and discovered that the whole language method and the balanced literacy approach were the likely culprits causing my daughter to hit the wall - and I don't mean the word wall.
My early efforts in addressing the problem with sounding out words based upon phonics was frustrating as it seemed that my daughter was already programmed in the whole language bad habits. I had a terrible time getting my daughter to actually look at the letters in the words. And, without being able to do that, sounding out was difficult, if not impossible. I searched the Internet looking for strategies to best overcome the focus on the pictures and the context and the word as a whole instead of its components; and to help my daughter to focus on sounding out.
I realize from my research that the reading wars can be intense and if they find this page, I will probably get some passionately negative comments from whole language proponents. I would rather, however, only hear from others who have had to address the same problems I am addressing and hear from them about their phonics-based strategies so that I can best help my daughter.
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