But as the child moves into the third grade where the reading demands are much greater, involving many new words which the child's overburdened memory cannot handle, the child will experience a learning breakdown. But the problem, as we have indicated, can also show up in the first grade where the teaching method is phonics-based. This is often the case in many private and religious schools where reading is taught phonetically. If a child enters the first grade in such a school after having already memorized several hundred sight words from preschool readers, that child will most likely have already developed a block against learning to look at words phonetically. If you are taught to read phonetically from the start, you will never become dyslexic, for dyslexia by definition is a block against viewing words phonetically.
Phonetic readers become good, independent readers because they have developed a phonetic reflex.
To them literacy is as natural and effortless as breathing. A holistic, sight reader, on the other hand, must rely on memorization of individual word forms and use all sorts of contextual strategies to get the word right. Edward Miller has devised a very simple word-recognition test that dramatically illustrates the difference between a holistic and a phonetic reader. Both sets of words are at a first-grade level. A child who is already a phonetic reader will sail through both sets of words without any problem.