Vocabulary Reduction, a Deliberate Dumbing Down

In Dolch's 1948 book, "Problems in Reading," he states on page 255:

Give children books suited to their abilities and most reading difficulties will be solved.

In Dolch's 1945 "A Manual for Remedial Reading," p. 428,

There is nowadays an evergrowing demand in all fields for textbooks that are easier to read. Teachers especially are making themselves heard in this demand. Publishing companies are rising to the occasion and are revising old books or issuing new books which have simpler reading matter. As soon as an easier book is adopted, many children become satisfactory readers who were classed as unsatisfactory before. Children who were serious remedial cases become less serious.

In my recent post about Dolch and the 4th grade slump, Mark Roulo had an excellent link to this article:

Schoolbook Simplification and Its Relation to the Decline in SAT-Verbal Scores by Donald P. Hayes, Loreen T. Wolfer, Michael F. Wolfe Cornell University

I saw a great table years ago in one of the books I read showing exact numbers of unique words in schoolbooks over the years that correlated with the introduction of whole language, but cannot find it. The above link has better graphs, though, the source I had was just numbers!

Geralding E. Rodgers in her book “The History of Beginning Reading” (e-version available from Author House) has an entire chapter in this book called: "The Reduction of Vocabulary, Oversimplification of Syntax, And Banishing of True Phonics." The whole chapter (her whole book, actually) is worth reading, here are a few good quotes from pages 1047 - 1048:

The record of reading texts which were published after 1925 confirms that the push after 1925 was emphatically on first grade and primary reading, and on the enormous reduction of vocabulary in primary- grade reading books. Of the seventeen series Smith listed as post-1925 series, eight covered only the first three grades. As Smith was not the slightest bit embarrassed to make very clear, the size of the vocabulary lists in those books had dropped sharply after 1925. It is an astonishing fact that, by 1934 when her book first appeared in print, the reduction of vocabulary in primary-grade books of which she boasted had actually been sold to gullible government school administrators as an “improvement."

After 1921, the reduction of vocabulary had been largely based on Thorndike’s The Teacher’s Word Book, Teachers College Press, published in 1921, which provided the first guide to the ten thousand highest-frequency words. For the first time, with the use of that book, it was possible to reduce vocabulary systematically in reading texts through the third or fourth grades.

Complex syntax was also removed from materials, but very deliberately in the 1920’s, in the name of reducing “readability” levels. Without exposure to such complex syntax in reading materials to provide necessary practice in its use, the ability of American students to handle complex syntax has dropped. This is demonstrated by their weak written compositions.

On page 216, Smith referred to the sharp reduction of words in primers and first readers between 1922 and 1928, and the even greater reduction by 1931. In 1922, nine of twelve had vocabularies ranging from 377 up to 630. In 1931, none ranged that high. Instead, the highest of the seven was 333, and the lowest 274.

Palisadesk also had some excellent comments on my first Dolch post where she explained all the things that need to be taught explicitly for reading.

Webster's Speller followed by Parker's readers taught all of these steps. Phonics and spelling were explicitly taught, syllables were explicitly taught, and the readers had pronunciations and definitions of difficult words. His First Reader also breaks words up by syllables. On my Webster page, I explain how to use Webster's Speller and have links to Parker's Readers.

First use of the phrase "4th grade hump?"

In the earliest mention of the phrase that I have yet found, it is called instead the “4^th grade hump.” For a few years after that, it is called a hump, then it appears as the phrase “4^th grade slump.” If you search Google books for the two phrases for various time periods, you find a number of interesting links. Also, over time, there are more and more hits for the phrase.

Here are the phrases, from Edward Dolch, the creater of the Dolch sight words, in his 1948 book, “Problems in Reading.” The first is on p. 56:

There is the famous 'fourth-grade hump,' the sudden difficulty of reading matter that strikes the children without warning. The difficulty keeps on climbing through grades V and VI.

This mention on page 251 also has a very interesting table:

Every word not on the list of 1,000 [most frequent words] was underlined and counted every time it appeared. Therefore a percentage of hard words means a percentage of the running words, that is, the total words read. We are aware that if a word appears a second time it is not now a hard word if it were learned the first time, but there was no way of allowing for this factor.....

The percentages of hard words for the books of each grade were averaged, and then the figures were rounded to the nearest whole number. The result shows the following:

TABLE V

Word Difficulty, According to Appearance on First 1,000 Words for

Children’s Reading as Found in Ten Series Of Readers

Grade

I II III IV V VI

Hard Words (Not on List)

4% 6% 8% 12% 14% 16%

These figures show the well-known “fourth grade hump,” a difference between the third grade books and fourth grade books that is twice the difference between the other grades.

There were several interesting links to later use of the phrase “4^th grade slump,” I’ll link to two of them:

1. The Trouble With Boys by Peg Tyre, p. 142-143

(The whole thing is interesting, here’s an excerpt:)

Around fourth and fifth grade, another factor comes into play as well. Good readers take a leap forward as they move from learning to read to reading to learn. The curriculum demands it. It’s no longer enough to be able to “sound out” words. Children have to comprehend sentences and paragraphs from history and science books and make inferences from those texts. Kids who don’t make that jump fall into what experts have dubbed the “fourth-grade slump.” They are stuck trying to figure out how to decode the word everglades, for instance, while other kids are learning about the kinds of animals that live in those Florida swamps. It’s an important cognitive leap.

By every measure, the fourth-grade slump hits boys harder than it hits girls.

2. The Reading Crisis: Why Poor Children Fall Behind by Chall, Jacobs, and Baldwin, p. 143

As predicted by the theoretical model of reading used for our study (see Chapter 1), the students’ scores started to slump at about grade 4. For the below-average readers, the slump began early (in grade 4) and was intense. By grades 6 and 7, they were reading almost two years below grade level on all the reading tests. For the above-average readers, the slump began later (around grade 6) and was less intense. Many of the above-average readers were still reading on grade level or above in the sixth and seventh grades on some of the reading tests.The slump started earlier on some tests than on others.

The first to slip was vocabulary.

If you teach properly, with a good phonics method and less than a dozen sight words, there are few "hard words;" disadvantaged elementary children (including several 1st graders) taught with Webster's Speller were able to sound out what Dolch called "hard words," but Webster called "easy words of X syllables."

Here are some "easy words of 3 syllables, accented on the first and third"

O-VER-TAKE, IN-COR-RECT, IN-TER-MIX

and "easy words of 4 syllables, full accent on the first, and the half accent on the third"

MIS-CEL-LA-NY, OB-DU-RA-CY, PUR-GA-TO-RY

Phonics, Webster's Speller, answer to L/R brain question

I’ve been busy teaching a group of 9 remedial 3rd to 6th grade students to read with the help of volunteers from my church. It went well! Their reading improved, on average, 1.4 grade levels after 2 months of instruction twice a week, about 90 minutes per time. (Sometimes less based on how much recess they got that day and other factors such as student to teacher ratio that day. The school does not have a gym, we got much less instructional time in on rainy days where they did not get recess. You could really tell when they didn't get enough recess, especially with the boys.)

We taught them with a shortened version of my online lessons, Don Potter’s Blend Phonics Reader, and Webster’s Speller. They played games at the end, my phonics concentration game and also a relay race type game with magnetic letters where they competed to see who could make the most words. They only thing they really learned in the last game was the importance of vowels, but it allowed us to clean up and they all loved it and looked forward to making words. The students also got a copy of my phonics lessons on DVD to watch for review, expect for 2 students who did not have a DVD player, those students watched the movies online at their local library on a computer with headphones.

Webster’s Speller is very powerful, it was helpful for all the students, but especially helpful for two ESL students (and their English is actually very good.) The arrangement of words by accent pattern is amazingly helpful for an ESL student, it helps them figure out when to schwa vowels, a process that comes more naturally for most students whose native language is English. (However, it is still very helpful for regular students, just more helpful for ESL students than for normal students.)

We also did a lot of oral spelling, that was very helpful as well, and very efficient for a large group of students.

I’ve been trying to get more people to try the Speller, and now have several people who post on the Well trained mind forum (a forum for those who homeschool with the Classical method) to try it out—I figured that people willing to tackle Latin would be most likely to tackle Webster’s Speller. A few are now trying it out, and one mom who’s trying it out wrote, “One thing that draws me to Webster's Blue Back speller is that he *wrote* the dictionary. I feel that he is truly an expert on the English Language.” He is, and you really have to try Webster’s Speller and see it in action to appreciate how powerful it is and how much better it is than any other phonics method out there.

You can see how to use Webster’s Speller here,
and I recently created a 20 minute movie showing how to use the Speller.

After typing replies on 9 pages of how to use the Speller on the Well Trained Mind Forum, I decided I had to make the movie or I’d by typing forever explaining how to use it. A picture IS worth 1,000 words in some cases.

Speaking of pictures, I haven’t been able to comment until today due to computer issues with certain websites that I just now resolved. Someone asked about the left/right brain thing with language, here’s the post and the movie where I discuss that. (My computer issues were such that it would load up at first, but then would not let me scroll down or do anything, so I could see a bit of the top post, and the recent comments when blogger had them working.)

Syllable Divided Books

These books have been helpful for my remedial students. I also tested words divided this way on my daughter, they were helpful for her as a beginning student as well (although I only had 1 book then, and it's an actual 1851 First Reader in good condition, so it did not get used with a Kindergarten student.)

They are based on the syllable division rules taught in Webster's Speller in the Syllabary. (Short version of rules: Open syllables--those ending in a vowel--are long. Closed syllables--those ending in a vowel--are short. Any unaccented syllable, but especially open unaccented syllables, can schwa.)

These books allow students to read above their current reading grade level while observing the pattern of syllable division in words. And, they are all informative reading instead of the mindless stories you're prone to get in common readers in use after 1900.

Syllable Divided Books

If these books help your student, I recommend Webster's Speller as a follow on.

Picture Overshadowing—are Sight Words overshadowing phonics skills?

Catherine’s Visual Learning Post got me thinking about my “picture overshadowing” theory of sight words.

I have a lot of theories about sight words (theories are at the end of the post.) All of my remedial students had problems with wildly guessing at words. From my survey of hundreds of children in schools which taught with varying emphasis on sight words, I found that the more sight words used and the longer the student was exposed to them, the harder it was to break out of these guessing habits and focus on sounding out words from left to right. I also found that more sight words resulted in more reading problems. In my sight word case study post, I examine the case of a girl who after learning the 220 Dolch sight words (this girl was not one of my students)

The skill of sounding out simple words, that she had been able to do shortly after she turned three, had been completely lost. If she didn't know a word by sight, she was stuck. [snip] ; even if a word was in her spoken vocabulary, she couldn't recognize it on the page if she hadn't seen it before in print, even if it was totally phonetically regular, with all short-vowel sounds. And when she came to these words she didn't recognize, she would try to guess…

While most of my students had not completely lost their ability to sound out words, it was like swimming through molasses to get them to sound out words. And, the more sight words taught, the thicker the molasses.

I had a theory about sight words and picture overshadowing already, but did not have a good explanation for how spelling fit in. I knew that spelling was helpful for my students, but spelling, like sight words, seemed to be dealing with wholes as well, at least on the surface. While I intuitively believed that spelling was different, I was not able to explicitly explain the difference.

Providentially, the article Catherine linked to, Words Get in the Way, provided the missing spelling explanation:

For instance, in a 1995 study, Schooler reported that verbal descriptions disrupted white volunteers' memories for the faces of white but not black individuals. He proposed that thanks to their extensive experience in looking at white faces, white volunteers used rapid, nonverbal perception to evaluate each such face as a unified entity. In contrast, volunteers spent more time studying individual features of the less-familiar black faces. Subsequent written descriptions were more consistent with the features that white participants remembered about the black faces than with the unified images they had stored for the white ones, Schooler concludes.

This led me to see how spelling could fit nicely into the picture overshadowing theory of sight words. While you do examine the whole word to learn it for spelling, you are also studying the individual features (letters) of the word.

Charles Perfetti’s article The role of discourse context in developing word form representations: A paradoxical relation between reading and learning states,

In our experiments, children attempted to read words they could not previously read, during a self-teaching period, either in context or in isolation. Later they were tested on how well they learned the words as a function of self teaching condition (isolation or context). Consistent with previous research, children read more words accurately in context than in isolation during self-teaching; however, children had better retention for words learned in isolation.

In my remedial work, I’ve found that students learn better when taught words in isolation. I try not to introduce any outside reading material until all phonics skills have been over-learned. When teaching my daughter to read, I found that she also did better when taught words in isolation, just like my remedial students. Moreover, she did even better when we switched to Webster’s Speller, learning spelling and syllables in isolation. Don Potter has found that his students (both beginning and remedial students) learn better when taught words in isolation as well. He is sharing a method for teaching phonics words in isolation with his nationwide campaign to get a free copy of Blend Phonics to every elementary teacher in America.

The article Words get in the Way states,

In one study, conducted by Kim Finger of Claremont (Calif.) Graduate University, participants who wrote a description of a man's face after studying the face for 5 minutes suffered no memory loss if they were then nudged back into a perceptual frame of mind. To do this, Finger asked them either to solve a printed maze or to listen to 5 minutes of instrumental music. Both strategies yielded face memory equal to that of volunteers who didn't provide a written description.

I’ve found that my students also do better when I get them switched back from “guessing mode” (visual) to “sounding mode” (verbal.) To switch them out of “guessing habits,” and into “sounding out habits,” I found the use of nonsense words helpful, especially if I announced up front that the upcoming words were nonsense words. Some of my students who had been exposed to sight words for years were very hard to break of their guessing habits. They would even try to guess at nonsense words—unless warned that the word was a nonsense word and that there was no way they would ever be able to guess it because it was not a real word. Repeated nonsense words would usually switch them from “guessing mode” to “sounding mode” and allow me to begin phonetic teaching work on regular words.

So, I now have a more complete theory of sight words and “picture overshadowing.” Sight words are processed on the visual side of the brain (pictures). Words taught with phonics are processed on the verbal side of the brain (sounds.) People with dyslexia (organic or induced by sight words) have been shown to improve their reading abilities and have changes in brain activity consistent with this picture overshadowing theory. [See note 2 below] This "picture overshadowing" explains the molasses effect I saw with sight words and my students' impaired ability to sound out words.

I believe that guessing at words from pictures or context can also switch students into this visual “guessing mode,” while reading words in isolation forces students to focus on the letters and sounds of the word, the verbal “sounding mode.”

In my informal survey of hundreds of children, those who read the best were those taught with phonics methods that used very few sight words.

You can determine if someone is suffering "picture overshadowing" from too many sight words by giving the Miller Word Identification Assessment, or MWIA, available for free download from Don Potter. It measures the speed at which a student reads sight words verses less frequent phonetic words. Anyone reading the phonetic words more than 10% slower than the holistic words should consider a good phonics program with no sight words.

Blend Phonics is a good program that uses no sight words, and does not teach words in context, which I also believe leads students to switch over from the verbal to the visual mode. Don Potter also has developed a Blend Phonics Reader which has words of similar configuration (bed, bid, bat, bit, etc.) next to each other to help the student learn to see and overcome visual configuration guessing habits.

Webster’s Speller is another very good phonics program that uses no sight words. Its use of spelling may also help prevent dyslexia by teaching students to sound out and spell words and syllables before they read them in context, making sure that they have a firm letter by letter mental image of the word before they attempt to read them in context. It also teaches using syllables via a syllabary, which may be helpful for preventing dyslexia. Syllables were also a very powerful reading method for my students and for Catherine’s son, resulting in rapid reading grade level improvements.

My free online phonics lessons also use syllables and teach no sight words. The first several lessons have now been switched to all uppercase to prevent guessing from visual configuration.

Richard G. Parker warned of the dangers of reading words you hadn’t yet learned to spell (and sound out, see note 3) in 1851:

I have little doubt will be found true, and that is, that it is scarcely possible to devote too much time to the spelling book. Teachers who are impatient of the slow progress of their pupils are too apt to lay it aside too soon. I have frequently seen the melancholy effects of this impatience. Among the many pupils that I have had under my charge, I have noticed that they who have made the most rapid progress in reading were invariably those who had been most faithfully drilled in the spelling book.

When I taught my daughter to read using a variety of phonics programs and only 2 sight words, I found that she would occasionally guess at words when reading stories. After learning to spell and sound out syllables and words using Webster’s Speller, she no longer guesses at words when reading them in context.

Note 1: all but 2 of the most commonly taught 220 sight words can be taught phonetically.

Note 2: I disagree with Flowers’ statement that this confirms that dyslexia is biologically based. While some forms of dyslexia probably have a genetic component, sight word teaching could be the cause of many of these brain differences, and parents who do not know phonics cannot teach their children to sound out words at home, which could account for the seeming genetic pattern of transmission. I was taught with a bit of phonics, then with whole word methods using sight words. My parents sounded out words for me when I struggled with words at home. A parent who did not know phonics would not be able to provide this kind of help for their children. My dyslexia page has more information about dyslexia, including links to articles and presentations about the brain changes that occur when dyslexic students are taught phontic reading and spelling.

Note 3: Spelling Books in the 1700's and early 1800's were used for both phonics and spelling purposes, and were used to teach children to read. Noah Webster himself explains this in his 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language. The entry for spelling-book reads, "n. A book for teaching children to spell and read."

Can the method cause dyslexia?

As I alluded to in my sight word post, I believe the answer is yes, the method used to teach reading can cause dyslexia.

As I said in my sight word post,

I give reading grade level tests to all my friends who have children, and through our moves have tested (directly and indirectly) hundreds of children from several different states. In my informal survey, I have found that the more sight words taught in a school, the higher the percentage of children who are reading below grade level.

I also found that schools that taught with completly whole word methods fared even worse in my informal assessment. And, the better the phonics program used and the less sight words taught in that phonics program, the better the percentage of students that were reading above grade level. I haven't found a single child taught with A Beka or with whatever phonics program the local Catholic school uses who was not reading above grade level. I thought I had found one student at the local Catholic school who was the exception to that rule but I later found out that she had transferred into the Catholic school from an out of state public school that used whole word teaching methods.

Several of my remedial students were supposedly "dyslexic," yet I have not yet found a single "dyslexic" student who learned to read phonetically. However, I find it best not to argue with people who think they have dyslexia--the methods used to remediate someone are the same regardless of how they obtained their dyslexia, and they are more willing to be helped if you do not argue with them. After teaching them for a while, I just mention the fact that all of my "dyslexic" students came from some kind of sight word or whole word background and that, while they probably do exist, I have not yet found a single "dyslexic" student from a low-sight word phonics background.

My dyslexia page goes into more detail about how teaching methods can cause dyslexia, and also explains the nature of sound and how to remediate dyslexia (both organic and method induced.) Here again are some excerpts:

According to Dr. Robert Myers of the Child Development Institute in his web page about Dyslexia & Reading Problems, "Children who have an average or above IQ and are reading 1 1/2 grades or more below grade level may be dyslexic. True dyslexia affects about 3 to 6 percent of the population yet in some parts of the country up to 50% of the students are not reading at grade level. This means that the reason for most children not reading at grade level is ineffective reading instruction. The dyslexic child often suffers from having a specific learning disability as well as being exposed to ineffective instruction."

Dr. Reid Lyon, in his article "Reading Disabilities: Why Do Some Children Have Difficulty Learning to Read? What Can Be Done About It?" talks about phonics training and the prevention of reading failure through proper training:

On the other hand, the early identification of children at-risk for reading failure coupled with the provision of comprehensive early reading interventions can reduce the percentage of children reading below the basic level in the fourth grade (i.e., 38%) to six percent or less....

These studies strongly suggest that such programs [systematic phonics] if implemented appropriately, could reduce the number of children who fail to learn to read well below the 38 % rate currently observed nationally. [6]

In France, it was proven that schools that taught with phonics produced less dyslexic students than schools that taught with whole word methods. Acording to Geraldine E. Rodgers,

However, the true sight-word method was generally discredited in Europe by the 1970's. Change was brought about by such things as those reported in a 1950 Enfance article. In France, 2% of dyslexic children were discovered in schools that used the phonics approach, but 20% of dyslexic children were discovered in schools that used the global [whole word] approach. [7]

Unfortunately, like us, the French have not learned from their history of education and keep repeating the same kinds of mistakes. According to several people I know, Global [whole word] and "mixed" (I assume the equivilent of "balanced literacy") methods are back in force in France today. This website, Lire-ecrire, is a website promoting the return of syllable-based phonics methods in France and warns of the dangers of Global methods and how to prevent them by teaching syllable-based phonics at home. (At least, that's what I thought from my auto-translation, I could be wrong!)

As I explain in my dyslexia page, I think that Webster's Speller is probably the best method for remediating dyslexic students. Through its focus on spelling, it may also help prevent dyslexia even more than regular phonics methods. If you can write and spell a word correctly, there should be less chance of reversing or confusing it.

There is also a teaching explanation to explain away some of the genetic connection for dyslexia. If your parents can't sound out words and you are taught with whole word methods, your parents can't sound out words for you when you're confused by poor teaching methods which have not clearly and explicitly taught you letter sounds and how to sound out words. I got a tiny bit of phonics in Kindergarten, then whole word methods in first grade. My parents would sound out words for me when I didn't know them. Parents who don't have a clear knowledge of the sounds in words and how to teach with phonics can't do this.

(This lack of explicit, complete phonics instruction left me a good reader but a poor speller. After learning the phonetic spelling rules and the sound/spelling patterns of phonics, I am now a pretty good speller, although not as good of a speller as people I know who were trained with a good phonics program from the beginning.)

..........................

Catherine here, diving into Elizabeth's post. Here's the link to Ed's translation of the brief Nouvel Observateur article on the increase in dyslexia amongst French schoolchildren.

Le scandale de l'illetrrisme (nouvel obs: the scandal of illiteracy)
dyslexie, vraiment? ) (nouvel obs: true dyslexia?)
Comment en est-on arrivé là? (nouvel obs: How did we get here?)

Lucy Calkins on teaching children to write

instructional casualties in America
curriculum casualties: figures
forcing hearing children to learn as deaf children must
Rory: I frickin' hate whole language!

thank you, whole language

Sight Words: a root of all reading evil

There are other roots, but sight words are a big one.

I give reading grade level tests to all my friends who have children, and through our moves have tested (directly and indirectly) hundreds of children from several different states. In my informal survey, I have found that the more sight words taught in a school, the higher the percentage of children who are reading below grade level.

A search for "sight words" on Google produced 1.26 million hits, "Dolch sight words," 41,200. Chances are your school is teaching some.

The Wikipedia entry for "Dolch Word List" states:

The Dolch Word list is a list of frequently used words compiled by Edward William Dolch, Ph.D. The list was originally published in his book "Problems in Reading", the Garrard Press, 1948.

Dolch compiled the list based on children's books of his era. The list contains 220 "service words" that have to be easily recognized in order to achieve reading fluency. The compilation excludes nouns, which comprise a separate 95-word list.

Many of the 220 Dolch words can't be "sounded out" and have to be learned by sight. Hence the alternative term "Sight Words".

I requested Dolch's "Problems in Reading" through Interlibrary Loan and found that Dolch used 3 existing lists of the most frequent words to develop his list of 220 words. He took words that were common to the Child Study Committe of the International Kindergarten Union (2,596 words), the first 500 words of the Gates list, and the 453 words on the Wheeler and Howell list. He then added in 27 words on only one or two of the lists which he deemed improtant or which completed a group (for example, stop was on all 3 lists, but start wasn't, so start was added to the list.)

The idea that the Dolch sight words are phonetically irregular and therefore must be taught by sight is a commonly believed idea that is just not true. My sight word page explains this, here are some excerpts (but do go read the whole thing, it's pretty short and also has a link to a pdf file arranging the Dolch words by their phonetic patterns.) Better yet, print it out along with copies of the pdf file and give it to everyone you know whose children are being subjected to unnecessary whole word sight word teaching.

Of the 220 most commonly taught sight words (called dolch sight words), 150 are completely phonetic and can be easily learned by sound. For the other 70 words, 68 conform to simple patterns of exceptions and can be taught phonetically. Sight words should not be taught at all in a pure phonics program that teaches by sound. They should merely be taught phonetically along with other words.

Here are some of these 150 phonetic "sight words:"
be, he, me, she, we
an, can, ran
got, hot, not
ate, make, take
see, green, keep, sleep, three

My remedial students who were sight word victims required much retraining, it generally takes a lot of nonsense words to break their guessing habits. The most difficult words to break their guessing habits were those on the Dolch word list which they were exposed to repeatedly. I had one 33 year old female student who never did learn the difference between than, then and them or there and their. She would sound them out for a while and then after a few weeks revert back and randomly guess the wrong one. I eventually got her sounding out most words, but those specific Dolch sight words were too difficult to overcome. I did manage to improve her reading grade level from 3rd grade to 8th grade before I had to move to another state.

Another excerpt from my sight word page, a bit of a table from Laurita's article "Basic Sight Vocabulary--A Help or a Hinderance?": (You'll want to see the full article.)

This table contains words selected from the Dolch Basic Sight Vocabulary List which have configurational similarity and have the potential to contribute to the development of visual response patterning which is unreliable and confused.

is-in-on-no-an-or
come-came-can
full-fall-fell
he-her-here-where-were
they-then-them-there-their

One of the problems with the way the sight words are taught is that the words are commonly separated alphabetically and across grade levels. For example, "can" is taught in a preprimer list, but "an" in first grade. "Not" is taught at the preprimer level, but students are not expected to be able to learn "got" until third grade. Students are apparently ready for "when," which includes the diagraph wh, by First Grade, but not the phonetically regular and simple "ten" until Third Grade. This method of listing and teaching "sight words" hides their phonetic pattern and reinforces the idea that they cannot be learned phonetically.

68 of the 70 words on the Dolch list do have some degree of phonetic irregularity, but can be easily taught by teaching a few phonics rules. Here are a few examples from my sight word page:

Words with ve at the end. Words in English will not end in v, so words with ve at the end may be either short or long:
give, live, have (Live can be pronounced either long or short depending on its usage.)

Words with consonant pair substitutions (z sound for s, v sound for f). If you say each of these sounds, you’ll note that they are very close sounds. They are pronounced with the mouth in the same position, but the first of each pair is voiced and the second is unvoiced.
as, has, is his, use, does, of (does also has the vowel sound mushed to uh)

This word has a schwa sound of uh and a consonant pair substitution of z for s:
was

This word is regular with its long e sound before words beginning with vowels. Before words beginning with consonants, the e sound will mush to the schwa sound of uh:
the (long e in the end, uh sound in the bears)

I have sight-word phobia. I have seen the harm they do to students and have spent countless hours undoing the damage they have done to my remedial students.

I have only taught a single sight word to my daughter. (The word "one." Then, I taught her the word "once" as following its pattern. The other 218 words on the list, I just taught her phonetically along with other words. For the 68 that are slightly irregular, I taught them in groups following that pattern of exception. She learned "eye" on her own somehow, probably as a sight word. It's not on the Dolch word list, but it, like "one," has no phonetic explanation suitable for a 5 year old. There actually are linguistic explanation for both one and eye, they are just very complex.)

Syllables, Syllables, Syllabary

Teaching phonics with syllables works a lot faster than regular phonics and allows students to read at high grade levels quickly.

Teaching with syllables, "Johnny" went from reading at the 3rd grade level to reading at the 6th grade level after 6 hours of phonics instruction. (The early version of my online phonics lessons, now 12 hours total instruction.)

Before 1826, children were taught to read with the syllabary. The first part of the syllabary is shown on old hornbooks.

Catherine had success teaching C. with megawords, a series based on syllables.

Children taught with Webster's Speller and the syllabary could read this in first grade:

"Now, if you will try to re-mem-ber what I have told you a-bout these si-lent let-ters, I think you will be able to read ver-y well, in a short time; and I suppose you will be ver-y glad when you are a-ble to read pret-ty stories in books.

The si-lent let-ters which are used in spell-ing ma-ny words are ver-y puz-zling to lit-tle boys and girls, when they are learn-ing to read; but I hope that the good lit-tle boy or girl who is now read-ing this les-son will try ver-y hard to rec-ol-lect how all the words are spelt; and that the teach-er will re-quire ev-e-ry pu-pil to be a-ble to spell ev-e-ry word that is read. By so doing, the pu-pil will learn to read much fast-er, and in a short time hard words will cease to trou-ble him." (from Parker's First Reader, 1851)

and this in second grade:

"All persons, who are not deprived by nature or by accident of something which belongs to them by the gift of God, their Creator, have five senses." (from Parker's National Second Reader, 1869)

After teaching my daughter with Webster's, she can read just about anything. She's still 5 (she'll be 6 soon) and can sound out 3 and 4 syllable words she has never seen before. After 4 months of seeing syllables divided like those shown in the 1st grade selection above, she can now divide them on her own. A few months ago, she could read 3 and 4 syllable words only if they were divided for her. You can learn all about how to teach with Webster's and the Syllabary, it's surprisingly easy.

I believe that teaching syllables is a crucial step missing in most phonics programs today. A Beka divides words by syllables, and every child I've seen taught with this program was reading far above their grade level.

Who am I?

I’m a former Air Force statistician who has been promoted to Mom. My husband is still in the Air Force, and we’ve moved 5 times in the last 6 years. We’ve seen a lot of school districts! I’ve been tutoring with phonics since 1994, so have observed the schools everywhere we’ve lived with interest since then. I gave my life to Jesus Christ in 1997.

I wanted to be a volunteer math tutor, but it was not to be. I have tutored a few students in Algebra through the years, but when I signed up to tutor inner-city students in San Antonio, the Air Force moved us to another city. This large city had no math tutoring programs, only a volunteer literacy organization. I signed up—I had always liked to read. I figured I could try that for a while.

The local literacy organization used whole word methods and language experience stories, and made this seem exciting and like the best thing since sliced bread. They raved about the wonders of teaching this way. I bought it and was excited to teach my student to read. After a month of tutoring, she had learned 3 words, and there seemed to be no pattern to her progress or lack thereof. I called my dad, a public school teacher and a very smart man. He said, "teach her phonics."

All I could find at the time (This was 1994, the internet had just barely started, and bookstores were not selling any phonics products) was an old teacher's copy of Hay and Wingo's Reading With Phonics. It seemed too juvenile to me, so I made up my own lessons from the concepts in it, starting with 2 and 3 syllable words from the first lesson. I later found she didn't mind working from 1st grade texts as long as she was learning, but I didn't know that at the time, and I'm glad I decided to make my own lessons. (By the way, she learned more in her first lesson than in that month of sight words, and I made a few mistakes with sounds at the beginning, I myself had a limited phonics background and had just picked up reading after being taught a few letter sounds. I did not, however, pick up spelling, although I have always been a prolific reader. My spelling improved after tutoring with phonics and learning the associated spelling rules and syllable division rules.)

With small children and frequent moves, I could no longer teach many students to read. I put all my phonics lessons online a little over 3 years ago while pregnant with our second child—a difficult pregnancy, the online work was accomplished only through God’s strength, I had no strength of my own.

About a year ago I added spelling lessons. They teach spelling rules, syllable division rules, and everything you need to know to teach someone to read with phonics.

Shortly after starting my website, I “met” Don Potter. He had similar experiences tutoring remedial students, but had taught even more students than I had and also had insight into what they were doing in the public schools. He has a great website with a lot of phonics information. He also convinced me of the power and utility of the MWIA, a test to determine if someone has been harmed by too many sight words.

About 2 years ago, I also “met” Geraldine Rodgers. Her book “The Case for The Prosecution” is an eye opener. Even better is her “History of Beginning Reading,” available in e-book format for $8.95 from Author House.

While I had always used syllables and spelling in my lessons, reading Rodgers’ works made me even more convinced of their importance, and led me to teach my daughter using syllables and spelling with Webster’s Blue-Blacked Speller. The results have been amazing, to say the least. I’ll leave that for another post.