Guess what, the kindy briefing to parents answered this question for me. The good news is that I have not been wrong in teaching my son BOTH Phonics and Word Recognition. As we already know that there are some words that don't follow the Phonics rule. And my husband has always been saying that there are also words that he should already know without attempting to blend the sounds. And of course, I'm also arguing that he still needs to learn Phonics so that he can read new words. We are both right. We learnt from the briefing that there are SIGHT WORDS around. If you are like me, still trying to figure out what works best for our kids, then this is an eye opener. The English teacher in the kindergarten explained that preschoolers will learn Phonics, sound blending AND over and on top, sight words.
What are Sight Words? There is a comprehensive definition in Wikipedia (just click on this link) or you can Google for more. But here is a short and sweet one here. Sight Words, sometimes referred to as the Dolch Word List, are some of the most frequently used words in English. Once upon a time, before I was born, a guy named Edward William Dolch introduced a new way to improve the way reading was taught to new readers (mostly preschoolers to young children). He compiled a list of words that cannot be pronounced phonetically or even illustrated in pictures. But these words >300 in all are words that comprises about 50-70% of any reading materials, particularly children's books. There are 220 'service words' making up of pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and even verbs... plus another 95 common nouns ... all arranged by grade level. Sorry, I have given back to school the definition of some I have just mentioned :). In short, this is just common, frequently used words in books, that must be taught by sight, ie memorize. But by itself it cannot use in isolation. It is a supplement to balanced reading program. Hence, Phonics is important too. arguably, some says that there are words in the list that are no longer frequently used words since this was created in the 1940s. To me, who cares!
What prompted me to look this up. Of course, the kindy teacher answered my question. Then, I was looking up to download a Sight Words application to my new iPhone. The applications in the iPhone have brief description about this Sight Words thingy..then one thing leads to another... I checked it out further and now blogged about it. If you have iPhone, I suggest that you take some time and download Sight Words Flashcards too. It helps when you can flash it to your kid as and when ... like I did it to Ryan in the restaurant today. My kids find it cool to touch the screen and move the flashcards too. Makes the learning a bit more exciting.
I found a site that gives me all >300 words in a page, printable. Sharing with you. Click here.
1 comment:
You have great insight into how to teach our son how to read. Don't give up on phonics to early though. I have been teaching young children how to read for the last seven years with tremendous success. Most are reading a year or two above grade level. The best part of the program is that children love to read.Once your son knows the short vowel word families , word families are the end of the word like at for cat op for ho. Then it is time to teach blends which are two consonants with two distinct sounds like st in stop. Long vowels simply say the letter name as in ape, ice, or eat. Once they know the code they will be excited and about reading. You are doing awesome job of teaching your son. I hope others have the same inspiration that you do. If you like you can check out my website at http:www.funwithphonicstutoring.net
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