Phonics vs. Sight Reading
This article suggests that a child must have a short term auditory digit span of around 5 or 6 before being able to adequately utilize phonics.
“A two year old should have a short-term memory of 2, a three year old of 3 etc. up to seven years old. Average in our society for a 7 year old to adult is 7. In order to begin to utilize phonics beyond memorizing a few individual sounds, a child must have an auditory short term memory close to 6. If it is below this, you will see a child, depending on how much drill they have had- who can say all the sounds of the phonemes, and possibly put a few together into words, but at the end of the sentence or paragraph cannot understand what they have just read.â€
A child with auditory memory deficiencies will also appear to have poor phonemic awareness.
Being able to recall the sequence of sounds is clearly important. Visual and auditory memory can be developed and early exposure to phonics is likely to promote short term auditory memory. My preference would be to start with flash cards from as early as possible but I would also teach phonics alongside these cards.
This is my observation of James, 2.5 year old.
He does wonderfully with whole words. Learns and recalls them rapidly. Can read short sentences with previously learnt whole words. Including a lot of decodable words like cat, dog etc.
He knows all his individual phonics sounds, including hard and soft sounds and long and short vowels, blends and digraphs.
He can figure out a word from a multiple choice by knowing the first or last phoneme. For example if I told him to point the the word run, and his choices were bat, dog, can, run he could figure it out. He can not distinguish between bat, bit, but, bot, bet etc.
He can’t decode a word yet. He can sound out /t/ /a/ /p/ but can’t figure out that it means tap. So obviously couplets and sentences are beyond him.
He has been loving reading bear lately. And he loves to copy a lot. So I am assuming it is only a matter of time before he gets it. And I would be shocked if it didn’t all come into place before he was 4.
Baby E, 20 months, likes Reading Bear too. We recently re-started with “short a” now that E. can repeat words back reasonably well (in most cases for CVC words). He can’t sound out letters himself, or at least, he doesn’t, but he can go from sounded-out words to the whole words. So we have the exact opposite problem to yours, Korrale4kq.
We haven’t done YBCR in months; I think we’re going to start that systematically again, as he has made significant gains lately. I remember with H. the combination of YBCR and flashcards seemed to be a great combination. YBCR gives kids confidence and does seem to help with the basic problem of connecting up individual letter sounds with the sound of whole words. Contrary to the real phonics zealots–I’m not quite that bad–I think it’s fine to teach kids whole words, just to give them confidence, a sense that they can read. But phonics is I think necessary for many, probably most kids, because they can’t simply figure out the code themselves without some systematic exposure.
Reading Bear now has 19 presentations up, will be 20 in a few days, and up to 26 by (I hope) Tuesday after next. We’re making a big push now to finish before the fall. I’ve got word lists planned up through 50, and just finished settling on list #40. The media etc. is downloaded through #32 and will soon be done through #38 or so. So we’re finally making excellent progress.
Great to hear! Progress is a beautiful thing
My daughter (6) has trouble remembering words she sounds out that are longer than 4/5 sounds. She has to figure out the first two sounds, blend them together, then the end sounds and put them together, then put the whole word together. By the time she has done this she has lost the flow of the story. She reads really well for her age. She can read any of the picture books we have easily and if she had the stamina (or will) a beginners novel would be fine. I personally put it down to the fact that her reading level ( using whole words) is so far ahead of her phonics training that one method is easy for her the other is too much effort. I suppose it is possible she has a memory problem. I still think she is just lazy mostly lol If I let her off the hook and allowed her to read easier stories, I wonder if she could tackle the occasional longer word successfully…
My son can also put the sounds together but can’t always pull the words apart. My theory is well only one is really useful for reading and he can do that one! lol He has a really good memory and will pull apart he has heard before! now that he has made some progress I will try him on reading bear again. His rather slow mummy only realized yesterday that he does actually know all his letters…by name and sound! He made me a “u” a “j” “o” and a “c” from his calamari last night! lol classic boy! Reading bear could be just the ticket to practice the next step. We have sight words covered, all my kids love their whole words!
BTW, it occurs to me that one thing that made it really painless to teach H. to read was that I rarely had him read anything other than the cards. I would sometimes pause in my reading of a book, on a word he knew, so that he would supply the missing word, but otherwise, I did the reading. I rarely asked him to read whole pages, let alone whole books, while he was still a phonics beginner. I never asked him to do what he couldn’t do easily. I simply read to him the rest of the time, and he looked at the words as I read them, and sort of absorbed a lot that way. I know he also learned a lot from the flashcards…the same word lists we’re using on Reading Bear. Gradually he picked up the many books we had lying around and figured them out himself. I would “spy” on him, looking over his shoulder while he (silently!) read. I could see his eyes move back and forth, and he turned the pages systematically, so he was definitely reading. This was when he was two and we were still going through the “Fleschcards.”
So far, though I’ve exposed him quite a bit more to early reading materials of various kinds, E. is only a little far beyond where H. was at this age. At this age, H. could read “go” and maybe a couple other words, and we were working hard on the alphabet sounds and playing with refrigerator magnets. With iPad apps and Reading Bear, it’s a little different with E., who has read dozens of words, but he definitely isn’t reading phonetically yet. After H. got started at age 22 months, he was reading the simplest CVC words phonetically after just a month or two, and if there were any doubt, he gave more than enough evidence that he was reading phonetically after 3 or 4 months. I suspect we’ll do the same with E., or maybe just a little sooner. By the way, two of the great advantages of intensive phonics, as far as we’re concerned, were H’s speed of reading (he could quickly figure out anything once he had thoroughly mastered the rules of phonics–but it was important that we not go onto the next set of cards before he had really mastered the earlier ones) and his enunciation (at two years he spoke babyish; by three he had become precocious in his ability to talk up a storm and pronounce words correctly, with the exception of a few sounds; now, we can’t shut him up).
Something seems amiss in the premise of the argument:
In order to begin to utilize phonics beyond memorizing a few individual sounds, a child must have an auditory short term memory close to 6.
Effectively the author is saying that learning phonics mirrors their auditory memory. However, I'm sure you will find countless 4 year olds that can carry on a garrulous conversation. How can someone process a sentence or a paragraph or an entire train of thought if their auditory memory is limited to only 7 bits +/- 2 (and that whole +/- thing really throws a wrench in the premise, as two deviations below the mean would cause many ADULTS to lack phonetic awareness due to short term memory reasons alone)...
I just can’t go with it. Either phonetic readers have found a circuitous path around this limit, language itself trains the limit (which would render the whole 1 bit per year as false), or the premise is simply false (this must be the most likely).
Anyway, AWESOME to hear that Reading Bear has plans to more than double the current line-up and will eventually (I hope) have the entire Rudolph Flesch list. This is amazing and I’m excited to have the privilege to use it.
Along those lines, FYI, due to the differences in exposure and methods between H and E, I’ve been very eager to see how E’s reading skills develop. I realize they’re two different kids and the observation number is statistically irrelevant, BUT in moving forward myself, it’s the best contrast I can go off of… and it’s heartening to learn that they’re very close in skill up to this point… because frankly I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that a part of me has this phobia of whole words somehow hindering phonetic decoding acquisition… I know, I know… everyone on here would laugh at my concerns, but I still have them. lol
I think phonics is being incorrectly taught if children are having to remember so many sounds before they can do it. There are ways of doing it for younger children that decrease the sounds they must remember to only two meaning that a 2 year old can sound out anything - basically all you do is blend two sounds and say it then blend the third sound and so on. So b-a-t is said b - ba - bat (or b - ba then ba-t is bat) and longer words go like this: reindeer is r- rei (rAY)- rein(rAYn)- reind(rAYnd) - reindeer where every phonogram is a separate sound but they are still linked together as the word is uncovered.
My DD learnt all the alphabet sounds at just over 18 months while also learning sight words. By two she could fetch me the letter cards that spelt the two letter words in, at, ash (yes, she knew sh), up etc but most of her reading was still with sight words at this stage. At 2.5 I introduced blending to her - this is something I have already begun with my 16 month old though only by saying words and sounding them out for her (no written text as she does not yet know all the letter sounds either for speech or in writing. At 2.5 it took two months of constantly sounding out words (mostly cvc when written but any word when spoken as then the phonograms did not matter) for her to start giving me the word when I sounded it out. By 3.5 she was able to sound out the words by herself from print and we started with the long vowels and other phonics. She still has a large sight word vocabulary which has improved her fluency a lot, but is quite capable of sounding out almost any word if she does not get frustrated (she does get a bit frustrated if she is tired or the word is too long)
I watched the youtube version of short a tonight for reading bear - its great that it is available that way. My youngest has used reading bear some and once she knows the letter sounds and starts speaking more (her speech has been a lot slower than my first) I will show it slightly more regularly than I have been.
DadDude, I am eagerly waiting for all phonics presentations in Reading bear. After completing this project, do you have any other plans for early learning? Btw, have you stopped creating powerpoint books for your children? If not, can you please upload your other books. We are just loving those ebooks. My son’s all-time favourite is ‘The Olympians’.
Reading Bear has been a herculean task, but since hiring a company to help, we’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. We’re working on presentations 20-44 right now, in various stages of completion, with 50 planned. I know I’ve said it would be done by such-and-such a date before, and it’s always been late. But suffice it to say that you’re going to see a lot more activity on the site in the upcoming months. Still haven’t settled on what I’ll do after it’s finished. I’ve planned a system (repurposing the Reading Bear system) that would allow me to collaborate with all of you (and others) on a multimedia encyclopedia of “first readers” on absolutely everything, but I don’t know if that’s what we’ll pull the trigger on. That would probably be an enormous project.
Since I discovered Reading Bear (while reading a response to a very negative feedback on YBCR online), I’ve been using it with all my three children, ages 6, 3 and 16 mo. We also greatly enjoy the founder’s presentations on various topics. In addition to that, I use his word-picture cards, which all my children LOVE. Our reading really took off. I tell about this experience to everyone in our home school community. I sincerely hope that Mr. Sanger keeps working on Reading Bear and the library of multi-topic presentations he had mentioned. His article on early learning and some articles in Psychology Today persuaded me to try BrillKids’ Little Reader. Before that, I wouldn’t hear about YBCR, thinking it was a useless whole language program. But now it made sense to me. I believe children really can figure out how to read. I remembered how I learned English. Of course, I was a teenager, not a baby, but nobody ever explained any reading rules to me, I just had to look up words in the dictionary as to how to pronounce them. After some time I noticed patterns and became quite a good speller. So, my way wasn’t a whole language. With that, I started Little Reader with my toddler (on the 20th lesson, he still likes it).
About phonics. As someone who learned to read in English word by word (no method), I must say phonics method is still confusing. It’s confusing to an adult (I also have a language degree), so I am not surprised that children have to mature before they are ready to grasp the whole sophisticated theory behind it. When I demonstrate reading to my children, I only use letter sounds. We never talk about letter names or all that long-short vowel business. That’s why we love Reading Bear and I guess that’s why we progress so well. I don’t want to offend the phonics method or anyone who benefited from it, just want to say that there must be an easier way, and I’m glad I found it.
Mr. Sanger, please keep us informed on what you are doing!
I am not surprised that children have to mature before they are ready to grasp the whole sophisticated theory behind it
I don't think anyone is advocating learning the theory behind phonics. My wife does reading intervention and teaches all these rules (or at least KNOWS the rules, and it's a venture that takes a ridiculous amount of time)... I think the vast majority of phonetic readers simply extrapolate tacit rules when they read.... and that's what Reading Bear is; a phonics based reading method based on Flesch's "Why Johnny Can't Read" - entirely phonics, but with multiple examples of a rule (stated or not), it's pretty easy for children to generalize the rules of decoding just by going through the list.
Reader in the Night, thanks (belatedly) for your inspirational (to me) words!
This morning I published presentation #27. It’s all coming together now. You’ll see through 32 by (hard deadline) next Tuesday, and if all goes well, a full set of 50 by August 21 (yes, we’ve set yet another hard deadline…).
Indeed I’ll have to make some hard decisions on what to do and how to do it. I cannot currently grok precisely what is possible and how. I don’t want to spend another 18 months ramping up a giant project. I want to spend more time actually producing content and less on the programming and, even worse, the editing of files and such. I also want to think hard about what is the most important thing I might be doing. I don’t want to make a whole library of presentations only to find that they are not very popular. I mean, it would be nice for the relatively few people who use PowerPoint presentations and similar things with toddlers & preschoolers, but I want to have a bigger impact than that.
Daddude I really like your thinking. It’s great to commit to completing a task and setting some times goal always helps even if you miss the mark a little
But mostly I like that you are thinking in terms of the biggest impact. I think that’s quite important. Figuring out what that is could keep you awake at night though! :laugh:
Pokerdad, I am curious. I have yet to read anything that shows that whole words can hinder acquisition of phonics IF phonics is presented also, at some point. What have you read that gives you this fear? From my understanding it’s a bunch of school based hogwash, as some (Let’s say 1 in 60) kids fly under the radar, learning whole world up until grade 2 then come unstuck when they need their phonics to continue progressing. Of course by then phonics just isnt presented much in class and they miss out on learning to read.
I figure worst case sinario you teach 4000 sight words, and the child doesn’t intuit phonics but is more than ready too. They turn up to kindy and find phonics instruction fascinating as it helps them make the connections they hadn’t figured out themselves. Of course we are assuming the schools provide systematic phonics instruction at all… >:(
I can’t recall the authors I’ve read, but merely the substance. There was a hypothesis put forward that many dyslexics “read” by memory, and the hypothesis in particular was that there was a threshold and when crossed, would indicate dyslexia. It seemed like a plausible argument, but under-developed, IMO. I’m sure I came across this whole line of reasoning sifting through old BrillKids threads. The gist of the argument is that if a person “learns” enough sight words, they become hardwired to read by memorization. In particular, the test I remember in one paper as to this threshold was how proficient a child was with a list of sight words… the faster more proficient were the ones that had crossed the threshold. Does anyone remember this discussion or the papers/articles associated with it?.. I think if the two are done simultaneously, it would obviate any potential pitfalls.
Flesch himself goes on at length about some of this sort of thinking (sight words CAUSING dyslexia) - and I can agree that a percentage of the time this relationship holds, but I doubt it explains the entire spectrum of observed instances.
I am using whole words and phonics from the start with my 2nd which i did not do with my first. I use LR/YBCR (YBCR to a lesser degree this time) and Reading bear and I think my littlest dd has mastered reading much more quickly the the older one did.Why there are environmental factors at play (dd2 does see dd1 reading to me and doing spelling) It suprises me how much my dd2 knows she regularly points out letters and will say the sound she worked out today the word wry in a book without any help read her first reader and she is 18months my eldest dd while she new all of her letters she did not do her first reader until she was 21months.
from my own observations I believe the combination of both from the beginning has helped my dd2 get to reading faster than my dd1. My dd1 has not really received a huge amount of phonics training and she is an excellent speller with about 98-99% accuracy rate on spelling and dictation. :yes: You can still have a great speller without a huge amount (I did do some) phonics training.
I exposed my kids to both WW & phonics. With my daughter, we included phonics workbooks from Hooked on Phonics from about 2.5 onward. She was reading basically from the whole word methods but I wasn’t 100% on “trusting it” so I was looking for holes in her phonics. It helps curb the word guessing a certain amount and the reading practice improved her stamina, but overall she already knew the words I was asking her to read. WW got the job done just fine, I had nothing to worry about, but she really enjoying it and begged to do the workbooks so we did.
With my son, I just started earlier and while he was exposed to some phonics on random videos, but primarily he learned through LR. He has never done a workbook a day in his life but can outread DD age for age in terms of decoding (not for stamina though.) He correctly read the word “crochet” in LMs around age two if I remember correctly, and I remember being surprised because he randomly read it off the screen and had never heard it spoken. My husband would write out words like “Champion,” some silent E words, and multi-syllable words with tricky letters, he would get them right 90% of the time or more. There was no drill in asking him to read constantly, just exposure of LR or me reading TO him, and now he can decode whatever I put in front of him. With my daughter, she is a very strong reader but as the words got trickier/longer, her skills built up over time iln a more natural, expected pace (in terms of very early literacy anyway). Versus with my son, it was just “poof!” he can read everything.
So, whatever that adds to the conversation, that has been our experience. Starting earlier was key I believe to more intuitive decoding, regardless of the words chosen and method used.
