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.
Monday, January 31, 2011
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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