Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Sight words vs Phonics

I have been planning a Montessori homeschool for DD and the more I read these threads, the more I am hesitating about my choice. I don't even know if I am going to get all the traditional Montessori materials. Maybe I will go the pseudo Montessori route and purchase that style of learning materials, but just follow her lead. I don't want to end up wasting money we don't have!


and ellemenope, I wrote you a PM, but I know your envelope is probably endlessly flashing, too lol.

If you e-mail Mark, our marvelous mod, about the endlessly flashing envelopes, he can fix it for you.

I wonder about this with my 2nd DD, who is learning to read at the moment. I think her biggest impediment to reading is tracking and visual skills. She simply refuses to attempt books with text too small, wrong font, on a coloured background. I am seeing quite a few reversals from the words she miss guesses I am pretty sure a lot of her decoding is not sounding out but prediction based on first and last letter and the picture.

There's a connection between tracking, letter reversals, reading problems, and vision issues. Vision therapy can help to resolve or remedy these deficits tremendously. My pg/ ds 5.5-year-old was born with visual deficits and has been in vision therapy for the last two years to correct it.

My pg/ ds son was resistant to reading and phonics. He's been a whole language learner. Now we're trying to backtrack to phonics so he can break down words phonetically and be able to advance his reading skills.

Reading is a learned skill. I think some kids have an easier time learning through hearing and with phonics than others. Other kids have an easier time learning by sight and with whole language. These kids rely on memorizing words or sounds based on sight.

The problem, of course, is when whole language learners need to move beyond sight words and struggle to break down large, multi-syllable words. It's not as natural or necessarily easy for the whole language learners. This is one of the reasons why whole language learners may spend a longer time with picture books than others.

I found this website on http://www.fonetiks.org/foniks/ to be somewhat useful for practicing phonics.

Here's something I cam across that you may find useful, it talks about phonics and gifted readers in a way that made sense to me as a parent and a teacher.

www.visualspatial.org/files/wholes.pdf

awesome link Geomamma - thank you!

I remember learning to read through sight words, but I grew up in a world that was a bit richer in sight words than the one we live in today... because not only was I surrounded by books and signs, but does anyone remember "follow the bouncing ball" songs? I don't know why they don't do that anymore in kids' shows.

By the time I showed up in school, they were trying to teach everyone how to use phonics, and I was like, why bother? Can't you see the word is <fill in the blank>?

Anyway, when my daughter came along, we started reading every day right away, and we also started working on phonics when she was ready. So I have no idea which one worked, but she's reading, so it doesn't really matter.