jmcseals SEALS

But all the experts who say phonics are the key to reading are
missing a piece. My son knows the sound of every single letter, and
he recognizes by sight every single letter, and he simply doesn't
read. So much for that theory.
*********************************8

My daughter does the same thing! She will be seven mid-may and is able to
read most of the first set of Bob Books. She is aching to read. She is my
child that wakes up everyday begging to do "school work". She's never once
been to school but she loves the concept, so we end up playing *school*
everyday. She *wants* to sit and do work from a book and drools everytime
we go to the local homeshool book store. She asks for every set of flash
cards, workbooks, kits, etc. But she still isn't reading much. She
struggles with hearing where sounds come in words...what is the middle sound
in cat...she will say c-c-c-c-cat...C!!! We've done every game possible
with sequencing, first, middle, last, etc. but it doesn't stick. She can go
letter by letter and name every letter and offer it's sound but when she
sees them all together, she stammers.

She talked at a pretty normal age so don't think there is any correlation
there, but this child is very math/science oriented. The concepts needed
for reading just haven't begun to stick yet. (Although she can read every
word when needing to navigate PS2 games! >bg<)

I think my point is that phonics isn't the straight arrow to reading, just
as whole language (sight reading) won't make a good reader either. (My
oldest was taught using the whole language method in ps and struggled
beginning in third grade when BIG words came into the picture.) Kids need
both and will generally seek out each in order to read on their own.

Jennifer








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Holly's reading now, but it didn't really click until she was ten, nearly
eleven.

Last night when I was looking for a new book to read her I had to move a box
of flashcards and I brought them down too. We used to go through those when
she really wanted to read, and I always hated the way they frustrated her and
just wanted to tell her "Don't worry, wait," but she wanted to use whatever
"tools" we had.

I said "Hey, look!" and I got them out and just kind of fanned through and
showed her words and she was reading them all fast and hard and laughing at
how much she knew, and the word "eight" came up and she just looked at it.

That is a sight word if ever there was one, and for the same reason most of
them are. It's a really old native English (Anglo-Saxon) word which was
written down long ago when it was pronounced differently, and preserved like
a bug in amber by the invention of the printing press.

In context she would have been able to read it. In isolation, it gives not
one clue to its own pronunciation except that it MIGHT have a "t" sound at
the end.

But reading will come, and each child has to figure out his own way to get
around the exceptions because one size will never fit all no matter what paid
professional creaters of school materials wish and hope they will never find
a method that will match the mental organization of every child, and mental
organization is never inserted from outside.

Sandra

Heidi

"She talked at a pretty normal age so don't think there is any
correlation there, but this child is very math/science oriented. The
concepts needed for reading just haven't begun to stick yet.
(Although she can read every word when needing to navigate PS2 games!
>bg<)"

Math/science oriented...L I have to laugh at my own self here. Since
I am not a math person, but very verbally oriented, and
quite "intellectual," I've been panicking about her reading, or lack
thereof, when all along she's doing this "round up" thing. Like, for
instance, her consumer savvy is amazing. "That says $6.99 but what it
means is $7.00" !!! or doing math that I never "taught" to her, like
her figuring out how subtraction is the opposite of addition during
a "Going To Do Math" time in February. SO, here's my math wiz
daughter, which does impress me, but because she's not reading
Tolkien at age eight (as was my older girl), I think she's not doing
so well.

Aaaargh! I need to de-school, don't I?

"Navigating computer games" LOL are we raising the same kid? Katie
can read words like "location" and "suspect" from a logic and math
computer game for 9-12 year olds, and finish the game without a
problem...but if I wrote "location" on a piece of paper, she would
not be able to read it.

frustrating.

HeidiC