You're not wrong about the phonics. The research is absolutely clear on this point. While some kids can learn with just a whole-word method, most need a grounding in phonics to be successful readers. (That doesn't exclude also teaching common words with irregular spellings as sight words.)
I'm kinda shocked that your school is not using phonics. No wait, I'm not.
HAHA -->
So sad. I mean, you can memorize "look" as a sight word, but isn't it just easier to know what "oo" says in that instance vs. another? DS5 already understands this logically but doesn't know the rules so it's all guesswork. And I'm looking for phonics instruction for remediation geared toward much older kids/grades because they're just doing this so young, but in the wrong way (IMO). Good for a challenge, but makes me really wonder about the other students too. Another downside I complain about is DS's habit of guessing. Even CVC words he just will guess at randomly instead of sounding it out because I'm sure that's what they're emphasizing. I sometimes want to put an audio recorder in DS's backpack to really hear what they're teaching. Maybe they are doing this and DS isn't getting the rules at school?
