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.
Friday, February 18, 2011
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.
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