Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Reading with Phonics...

Have the phonics method always been taught in school? When I went through school I don't remember being taught the method, but rather repetition of words lead to memorization. I could be wrong and it was just soooo long ago, but I just wonder if this whole phonic thing was a fairly recent addition to our schools' methods.

i am 44.... they had it when i was a kid in 1970. but it was a new concept

Thanks jenjoysoup... I am 38 and just don't remember anything about phonics growing up but I also think I was going through school during the time that they were changing everything up. My 4th - 6th grade school had no real classrooms. It was an open building but my small town bought the idea of the building but then put up every make shift wall and divider they could to carve out rooms and taught in the old style which meant there was a lot of noise factor that didn't go well with the way they instructed.

I also did not get the typical structuring of sentences and dividing it out to learn what is a noun, adverb, etc. So I still am pathetic at sentence structure.

So I am not shocked it was around while I was groawing up but the way my school district picked and chosed their methods it really was a pathetic process.

I'll be 53 this summer, 'whole word' or 'sight reading' became popular a few years after I started school. I remember my mom being so frustrated with how my youngest sister was being taught. She's 5 years younger and phonics were not taught in school for her.
If you get a chance, find an old McGuffey Reader, those are some of the older books used for teaching reading. Phonetic markings are used in the book.

So, phonics has been around much longer than 'whole word' reading. Oh, if you are not sure about sentence structure, blame that on modern teaching methods that did away with sentence diagramming.

I'm 44 and I don't remember being taught phonics, but I also read at 4 so maybe I wasn't shown phonics? Or maybe it was so new then that it wasn't where I lived at. The first time I had heard about it was when my DD24 was in 1st grade, she came home from school with the system to improve her reading. Got to admit it helped.

LOL .. thanks OHG. That was what I was trying to think of ... see I really didn't get it since I couldn't even think what they call it!!!! But yes I went to school when they eliminated sentence diagramming and seriously paid the price. I find my grammar to be pathetic and though I am amazing in the conceptual; I always need someone to check my grammar. Pathetic and sad and YES due to my 'modern' teaching environment. (Okay... the pick and choose style)

I learned to read with "Dick and Jane" books and I don't remember being taught phonics, but my mother showed me how to sound out words. I remember being a much better reader than my classmates. I don't remember hearing about phonics until my 28 year old daughter started school. I think she had learned phonics by watching Sesame Street in preschool and she was reading at 4. My 10 year old didn't go to preschool but watched Between the Lions and probably picked up some phonics instruction there, but I think he started out sight reading. I thought he had to have some knowledge of phonics when we could spell out words that he hadn't been taught when he was just 2 1/2 and he could identify the word.

I could read before i went to school, but i talked backward, so really no one knew but my sister... who understood the backward talk. I remember my reading teacher trying to teach me to read using phonics and trying to tell them I already knew how to read.... and then reading things to her, and then her going back to the letter sound thing... which made no sense whatsoever! (I get it now thankfully)

I learned with "Dick and Jane" too. I purchased the books for my two younger daughters. One started reading before 2 and the other about 3, it's a great series for kids to start off with, one read 65 pages the first time she sat down with the book the other read 35 pages the first time she saw the book, I don't know why they don't still use these?

I learned sentence diagramming in 7th grade, from a teacher who was ancient. That would have been 40 years ago(eek!), and I think she was pushing 70 at the time. I'm serious, she went to the same church that we did, so I knew her family. So she probably learned sentence diagramming herself about 100 years ago. I find that fascinating to think about. In her life, she saw planes be invented and man land on the moon....

Back to phonics, I've always been fascinated by how people learn to read. I remember reading, but don't remember learning to read. Mom must have taught me phonics, because I remember on occasion I would be stumped and she would have me sound it out.

GS9 kind of learned phonics a bit, then jumped right into reading. We've had to go back to review phonics a bit this year to help his spelling. I found this website, history of reading instruction, it's pretty interesting.