Good point, polarbear.
The really funny thing to me is, the "memorization" comments are what prompted me to write to the teacher and ask for DD to be excused from reading these phonics booklets... but in the teacher's response to me, she said these books are "very easy for her when it comes to decoding the words." And she made some comments about how DD can decode words above her grade level, but she needs the "higher level reading strategies" she's getting with these leveled readers.
So I'm not even sure what the teacher's position is here- does she think DD is whole-language learning and just memorizing it all, or does she think DD is just decoding everything but not understanding anything? :oP I think it's pretty clear from her test scores that neither of these things is the case. BUT, I do think DD could definitely benefit from some advanced phonics work. She has little patience for sounding out unfamilar words and doesn't have great strategies for breaking up multi-syllable words she's having trouble with. At conferences I did point out that she could use instruction in that, but looks like I'll have to do it myself.
