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.