From: gpalo@digi.lonestar.org (Gerry Palo)
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: Re: Teaching kids to read
Date: 21 Jan 93 22:29:45 GMT
Organization: DSC Communications Corp, Plano, TX

In article <dlhanson.32.727391690@nap.amoco.com> dlhanson@nap.amoco.com (David L. Hanson) writes:
>In article <1993Jan18.153209.34294@watson.ibm.com> elahe@watson.ibm.com (Elahe Khorasani) writes:
>
>>Thanks to all who sent me e-mail about Phonics vs. Whole Language
>>approach.  It seems like the majority favors Phonics, or at least
>>a combination of both.  Now, my next question:
>>  
>>    What is a good source for me to learn how to teach my 5 year old,
>>    using Phonics. I have started teaching him how to decode 3 letter
>>    words, and he seems to pick it up rather quickly. But things can
>>    get a bit hard down the road, English not being a phonetic
>>    language and all. I don't know how to teach him more complex 
>>    word construction, in a way to hold his interest and not bore him
>>    with difficult rules. Any suggestions?
>>  
>We used the word lists in the back of Why Johnny Can't Read by Rudolph
>Flesch. (He can't read because he wasn't taught phonics.)
>It is a challenge to keep it interesting I have to admit.
>My wife used these lists for both of sons when they were 4-1/2 to 5 years
>old.  
>
>Signature follows:
>"Jesus saith unto him, I am THE way, THE truth, and THE life: no man
>cometh unto the Father, BUT BY ME."  John 14:6
>
>=========================================================================
>David L. Hanson       Internet --> dlhanson@nap.amoco.com
>Amoco Corporation     X.400    --> A=attmail,P=amoco,S=Hanson,G=David,I=L
>Any opinions expressed are my own!

If you do want to teach your 5 year old, I think  phonics may _not_ be the best
way at that age.  It requires a good deal of abstract reasoning and relating
of concepts that is better emphasized later on. I am absolutely for phonics in 
grade school, but for a five year old, look-say may be the best way to start.
Then as they approach school readiness, start to introduce the phonics concepts.

I'd just like to make a (non-agressive) plug for the approach taken in Waldorf
education of not teaching children to read before the age of around seven, 
approximately when the child looses his or her baby teeth.  I won't go into
the deatails, but in practice it works out very well.  The children learn to
read better and they develop a life long love of reading.  By the sixth or
seventh grade, typical Waldorf classes are reading adult literature, doing 
Shakespeare, etc.

The psychological and pedagogical reasons for not teaching reading before
the child is elementary school ready are many, but at least in practice it
works.  We have kept to this approach with our children, the eldest of which
is in the first grade and doing exceedingly well, even though most of her
peers have been reading for some time now.  Of course, we read aloud to her
from the start, and always books that were mature and beautiful, so she has
gotten a real ear full of good books.  But we didn't encourage her to read or
learn her letters until the summer before she started first grade (age 6 1/2).

Another point, drawn from Waldorf pedagogy, is that the children learn to write
first.  They learn the letters imaginatively with picture stories. The first
reading material they get is what they themselves have written, at the dictation
of the teacher.  This allows the teacher to adjust the content, so as to eliminate
the need for graded readers, most of which are pretty boring and often unnatural.

Whatever you do, consider the importance of providing reading material that,
whatever its level, is beautiful in form and content, even if you have to
write it yourself.  And, of course, read to your children every day (which
I am sure you do).

Gerry Palo (73237.2006@compuserve.com)
From: karen@hplvec.LVLD.HP.COM (Karen Helt)
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 22:34:23 GMT
Subject: Re: Thumb Sucking
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Co., Loveland, CO