Sight Words

[ForHisGlory]

Just a quick survey...

How many of you have taught your children sight words in beginning reading instruction? My oldest went to public school for part of Kinder, and he learned sight words in public school. But I am confused. Is teaching sight words really beneficial in the end? Are they REALLY learning to read, or are they just memorizing, in which will set them up for some difficulties (as I have read in some articles) in spelling? I don't know what to think or what to do. Help!

Thanks you all!!!

[blessedmomof4]

I was a kind of strictly phonics person for a while, but sight words have value too, words that are used frequently and don't necessarily follow phonetic rules. HOD uses sight words in the Beyond/Bigger spelling lists, according to the intro: "Word lists contain words from the Dolch word list, Fry’s word list, Johnny Can’t Spell,
and other grade level lists of high frequency words." However, it would appear to me that these are introduced in HOD after the student has a foundation in phonics, rather than while first starting to learn to read.

[ForHisGlory]

Lourdes,

Thank you for the response! I had no idea that the later guides (after LHFHG) used sight word lists. And you have comforted me in that, you too are a phonics first person! But it does make sense now that you mention it, that sight words have value for words that are high frequency, and don't follow phonetic rules. Thank you so much!

P.S.: I am sorry for your loss (see in your sig. that you have one in heaven too). Hugs! And I also see you are in Las Vegas. We just moved from there in Aug of 2010.

[MelInKansas]

I think children should learn to read phonetically at first, but sight words come in pretty quickly because there are quite a few very common, short words that are not spelled phonetically. "is" "some" "of" and there are more I just don't remember them. "one" and "two" it's enough to drive you crazy! Especially if you have a child who likes rules and then they have to learn all these exceptions. The book I have does a good job of doing everything phonetically until they start reading stories and sentences and then introduces a few sight words one at a time so the kids can memorize them and start reading contextually and things like that.

[MelInKansas]

Also watching my 6.5 YO become a fluent reader, even though phonics is the basis, most of us read mostly in sight words. Or we see rhymes, patterns, and we read it that way, we don't sound out the majority of words that we read. I think I am a much more fluid/fluent reader than my DH because my basis is phonics, but sight words and memorization play a very strong role. I don't think they should come first, and I don't know about drilling them like some schools/programs do. But they are there, they are needed, mainly I guess because English has so many exceptions and words that are not phonetic at all!

[Robbi]

WELL . . . I learned to read from sight words and I'm a pretty good speller! Although I do think it's harder for some. I have yet to teach any kiddos to read. My DD 7 basically taught herself when she was going to our church preschool. So I guess she probably also learned by sight words. She is reading at about 3rd grade level now. But her spelling is only so-so!! I think they did teach some phonics in her ps kinder too. I say a combo of both would be best bet. I agree, there is some words that are high frequency that will just be better to know.

[psreit]

I have two who were sight readers and two phonetic readers. Both are important. My adult phonetic reader was a terrible speller and my dd8 is a phonetic reader and she is a terrible speller, if the word is not spelled how it sounds. So, phonics has it's place, but we have oodles of sight words that are basically from memory. Any word that is used a lot is soon known by seeing and not by sounding. So, both are needed.

[blessedmomof4]

Lourdes,

Thank you for the response! I had no idea that the later guides (after LHFHG) used sight word lists. And you have comforted me in that, you too are a phonics first person! But it does make sense now that you mention it, that sight words have value for words that are high frequency, and don't follow phonetic rules. Thank you so much!

P.S.: I am sorry for your loss (see in your sig. that you have one in heaven too). Hugs! And I also see you are in Las Vegas. We just moved from there in Aug of 2010.

You've got a lot of great responses here You are very welcome, and thanks for your kind words-my baby Raymond was born at 17 weeks, and we only held him a few moments-but I know he is in Jesus' presence. Hubby and I had cupcakes together on the anniversary of baby's eternal birth

[Rhyah]

When we homeschooled our son I stuck strictly to phonics and I think it hurt him. He asked to go to school when he was 7/first grade and he was not on the level that they expected him to be for first grade. When I went to the first parent teacher conference the teacher told me that he struggled with fluency, which I already knew, because of a lack of basic sight words. She did say he was the best phonetic reader in the class, though. So when we started homeschooling last year I did a combination of phonics and sight words. My daughter is a much better reader at 6 than my son was at 7, and I believe that by the end of this year/first grade, she will be above grade level in reading whereas he was considered slightly below. I think that doing only one method is too extreme and that both should be combined or optimal reading. In reality, we all eventually use memorization to read. I don't read a book and sound out anything unless it's an unfamiliar word, which is exactly the intended use for phonics.

[Tansy]

I recall from the Introduction in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy lessons. They describe how they came to make to program in the exact format presented in the book. Originally they thought it was a lack of Phonics in the "Whole Word" Reading program that was to blame for why Johnny couldn't read. But when they tested a Pure Phonics program, then added in sight words that broke phonics rules after the child had learned only phonics, led to children not able to read the sight words at all. Many had trouble accepting how to read other than the Phonics way. They realized they would have to add sight words in earlier. In fact I think the first sight word is introduced on like lesson 3, its very early in the game. The child learns early on some words don't follow the phonics rules. I thing the first sight word taught is "said" phonetically it would be spelled sed.. or pronounced sayd.

I'm paraphrasing here but basically: They concluded after much research the child needs both sight words and phonics rules to read well. Both needed to be taught simultaneously so the child would accept the dualism that the English language represents.

Now I was taught Whole word reading, it wasn't until I taught my DD1 Phonics I properly learned to sound out words. I did survive 40 odd years without phonics. All things in moderation... comes to mind.

[raceNzanesmom]

I teach as sight words only those words that can't be sounded out. Those that can- she, be, yes, etc I teach earlier than perhaps all words with that sound, but I still teach that it can be sounded. I also tend to drill those words more since they are high frequency words. Make sense?

Eventually, we all read most words by sight- only sounding those out that we don't know.

[ForHisGlory]

Ladies,

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!! I really needed some good, solid advice! Update: We started sight words this week, and he is making so much progess! Of course, we are continuing on with our phonics instruction, but we are also practicing about 10 sight words, with the incentive of a sweet treat from Dairy Queen once he can read/remeber the words AND write them out! Hooray!!!!