Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Early reader: sight memorization vs. phonics

I realized recently that my 3-year-old is learning to read by simply memorizing words, rather than sounding them out or decoding them phonetically. When he was two, I thought this was fantastic -- but now I�m a little worried about it crippling his understanding of phonics down the road when such a thing will be important.

He�s been able to recognize a large collection of multi-syllable (2-10 letter) words instantaneously for quite a while now and has memorized the sounds that letter combinations make like CH, SH, and TH, as well as double letters like EE, and OO, for instance - but he doesn�t seem to really grasp the idea of sounding words out yet.

I�m pre-schooling him from home, and learning to read is a big part of our plan for the year. I�m wondering if I should play into the memorization aspect, or really push phonics more. With him only being 3, do you think it will simply click with time? Not being able to sound words out is the only thing tripping him up from being able to read actual stories on his own. He does well with most sentences, but if he comes across even one very short word he doesn�t recognize (like the name SAM, for instance), he closes the book and says �I don�t know these words, Mommy.�

Clearly I don't want to push him too hard. I realize he's only three... But I'm wondering if anyone else has had similar experiences with their early readers. (I'm new to the community, and very excited to have found this forum, btw! )

My experience with my DD was that when she was ready to read, she needed no instruction. She had sight words and the ability to painstakingly sound out as a toddler, but the whole package did not come together till she was almost 5. My younger child is 3 1/2 and we talk about words and reading a lot, often because he asks, but do not do any kind of formal teaching. He also has some sight words and some ability to sound out but isn't reading yet.

I would keep easy books around, but not ask him to perform. It sounds like he might be getting anxious when you ask him to read. You could let him noodle around on Starfall, too.

That was my experience, as well. Mine insisted she had no sight words, and truly had no ability to sound out, and then one day she could read nearly anything.

DD asked me to teach her to read, because she desperately wanted to be able to, and it was horribly frustrating for both of us and totally unsuccessful.

Mr W (3.5y) has a lot of sight words, some of which are polysyllabic and can read just about anything he knows most of the words.

His verbal vocabulary is nearing an adult's and he can pronounce any word that I can.

The problem now is to get him to sound stuff out so he can link his verbal vocab to the printed word. This is why phonics is crucial.

They have been working on phonics at school and he is picking it up from there and we are working on it at night. This is the first "disciplined" or "hothouse" thing we have worked on with him.

My boy is also an emerging reader. He's about to turn four. Over the past year he has occasionally read a few random sentences. The year before he was reading words. It has been a long slow process. After I saw him read sentences I hoped it would turn into books, but like you said he would see words he didn't know and not want to work through it. What has recently helped is if he sits with me and I read easy readers like Fly Guy and pause to let him read the words I know he knows. I stepped it up by telling him, "can you read to me" while I was busy, explaining that I was too busy to help, but just say "skip" when you see a word you don't know. Some pages are read, "the skip skip skip skip and skip skip skip". Sometimes he reads a few pages without a skip. Next step I sat with him and he reads the book and whenever he says skip I say the word.
You want him to work on listening comprehension too, which is why most kids who learn to read learn from listening to their mothers read. If you're not reading that many books to your kid check out the Junie B Jones or Hank the Cowdog cd's and practice listening.
Also, you listen. Listen and let the kid be captain obvious, retelling the movie you were sitting there watching, or explaining what your husband just told you, even though you were there. Don't be bored or ignore them. That there is future note-taking skills they're working on, so they can listen to a lecture in class and paraphrase it into notes.
Could keep going. I feel like I'm getting an online degree in early childhood education just from being a housewife with 2 small kids.

Here it transitioned very easily from seeming to have memorized words to be able to read pretty much anything fluently. We didn't teach reading or phonics, nor did I ever observe that slow sounding out process that I thought was always a part of it. No problems ever resulted from this approach (child continued to read well, was good at spelling and acquiring new words through reading, etc.) My guess is what happened is that phonics was sort of figured out along the way as the database or words grew larger patterns became obvious. Later when exposed to phonics teaching materials the child found them really confusing so I don't think it would have been a helpful step to formally teach phonics early.

So, my advice would be hang back. Offer support as requested but try to not to worry about the way your child is learning. Clearly he is figuring out something that is making sense to him.

I'm a visual learner and so is DS.

I rarely let him watch "regular" tv (commercials-ug!) and instead have purchased an extensive DVD library. There are plenty of educational DVD's that are entertaining.

Just go on Amazon and search phonics DVD.

That being said, if your child is resistant, you'd do more harm than good by forcing him in any way to watch those.

DD started reading with sight words. She had hundreds--maybe thousands--by the time she was 3. At the same time, she couldn't read even a basic CVC word that she was unfamiliar with. Though I was a bit concerned that she was (relatively) behind on sounding words out, we didn't do any instruction unless you count playing on Starfall. But she taught herself on her own time. I'm not even sure when it happened. I know it did, because we tested her recently and she was in the 99.9th for reading nonsense words. In short, I wouldn't worry about it! I don't think that starting out with sight words is a handicap at all.

As for the method you should use to teach reading, I can't really comment. DD would not have accepted reading instruction at that age. I'd say try what you like but be flexible and keep in mind that attitude toward reading is much more important at this age than reading ability is. So keep it light & fun!

Mine sight reads as well. I was really stressed about her not knowing phonics first but when I talked to several of my elementary school teacher friends, they said not to worry about it. I have tried phonics with her on words she doesn't know but she just does not grasp it, so in no way do I want to push that on her. I'm sure it'll come in time.

Does anyone know if phonics are harder for the visual learner?

Wow! Thanks for all of the great feedback! I only know a handful of other parents with gifted children so this has been such a learning experience for me. (Btw, we LOVE star fall!)

I have early childhood education experience, so we�re very, very into keeping our activities light and fun. The formal teaching I�m doing with him is simply in place of him going to an actual pre-school. With my being a stay at home mom now, having the time and recourses, we just didn�t see the need to pay for Early Childhood Education when I could do it -- He�s just blown through everything I�ve tried to teach him at the preschool level, which is how we got here. He�s already beginning to write whole words freehand, and his handwriting is impeccably clean. He�s reading sentences right now that my stepdaughter (and other children I�ve taught) couldn�t until she was six. I don�t feel like I�m pushing him into anything he isn�t ready for by introducing him to phonics (he does have fun with them), I was just surprised that they were taking longer to click than sight word memorization. And I didn�t know if that was typical for gifted children.

I wouldn�t be concerned about it except that I remember taking an Early Childhood Ed. Class and having the importance of phonics DRILLED into us, lol. On the other hand, I know that gifted children learn a bit differently than the average child. I feel much better having heard everyone else�s experiences, so thanks a ton!

(P.S. Oddly enough, it seemed like when we did a new phonics puzzle today, he was making connections he wasn�t before. We have this series of 3 piece puzzles, where there is a picture and the name corresponding to the picture is broken in half to help teach beginning sounds like pl, gl, tr, sc, and so on. Normally, he connects them by the picture and doesn�t take much notice of the word until it�s finished. Today, he was actually picking up the piece with the beginning letter combination and saying it out loud (sp, sp, sp�) while he looked for the other half of the word.)