Should they rhyme?

There are people who struggle with anything more complicated than a 1:1 correspondence of letter combinations to sounds.

Most of them eventually figure out and can deal with the idea that with different influences, sometimes the same letters don’t make the same sounds — but still, that the letters relate to the sounds spoken to make that word and what it represents.

SOme people don’t get it no matter how many times it is explained. They get stuck in the “if it doesn’t work the same way, all the time, then there is no sense to it at all.” So they keep bringing up their same invalid “proofs” to their argument that phonics doesn’t work. (How many years has it been, Art?)

New readers will probably try to explain it one or five more times to you, ARthur. Somehow I doubt it will take.

Arthur, go buy yourself a copy of Richard Venezky’s The American Way of Spelling: The Structure and Origins of American English Orthography. No further message.

Arthur,
Put your foot in your boot on the floor - and then take yourself to the nearest bookstore (or library) and actually LOOK at some books on phonics, not poetry.

Dear Arthur:

Due to invasions by other countries hundreds of years ago, the English language is not a pure language. When the French invaded England, their scribes who transcribed the English language put a French slant on how the sounds were written. Thus, the appearance of words that don’t follow the “normal” decoding rules. These words are called non-phonetic. However, these words make up only 15% of the English language; therefore, phonics based programs are still very relevant for teaching reading. I teach the non-phonetic words as red words that don’t “talk right”, they don’t say what they look like they should. In the pyramid of the composition of the English language, the base is anglo-saxon, then latin, then greek, then the romance languages (French and Spanish).

L. Starr

Has anyone asked the kids? Please ask my son if phonics works. He is the only proof I need. Phonics worked for him. He did not know more than 10 sight words by 4th grade. Within 6 months of direct multisensory phonic instruction he was reading on a first grade level. He hasn’t plateaued. He is still achieving success. I have to say it again. My son is the only proof I will ever need.

Dear L. Starr,

Is there any doubt that the majority reading teachers want their students to acquire the ability to pronounce the 85 percent of English words that “talk right?”

What method (other than rote memorization) can be used to help students access the 15 percent of “red words” that fail to “talk right” for whatever historical transcription anomalies exist?

Peace.

What does that have to do with your original post?

Every time you try to have a rational discussion with “Arthur” here, he shifts his ground and tries to find some other way of showing how smart he is, at least in his own opinion. Hang up on him.

Dear Sue J,

“I teach the non-phonetic words as red words that don’t “talk right”, they don’t say what they look like they should.” (L. Starr - 03-04-02 11:47 )

Didn’t that quote come from a reply to my original post above?

Is it unreasonable to ask L. Starr to share a method to be used to teach the red words?

Peace.

She neither said nor implied that she did not encourage these words to be memorized; I didn’t realize you’d read it as such.

As has been said countless times before, there is indeed a place for memorizing things; too often, however, it is used to attempt to replace understanding the phonetic structure of language at great cost to the learner.

Dear Sue J,

Should memorization of the “red words” take place before, during, or after beginners have an understanding of the phonetic structure of language?

Do we rate each of these skills as essential, irreplaceable, co-equal acquisitions?

What are the most useful techniques for mastering common non-phonetic words?

Peace.

>>>Should memorization of the “red words” take place before, during, or after beginners have an understanding of the phonetic structure of language?

My meager experience suggests that “red words” should not be addressed until after beginners have an understanding of phonetic structure and are able to decode and blend a number of short vowel words. Consonant sounds are easy to learn and are pretty reliable. There are a remarkable number of phonetic, three letter words that use the short vowel a. It does not take long to learn how to decode and blend words like mat, sat, fat, cat, bat, can, pan, ran, man, etc. Lots of phonics readers have simple sentences and stories using short a words and the articles “the”, “a”, and “an”. There’s no need to set out to memorize non-phonetic words at this point- when they come up in the course of reading just tell the child what the word is until they have become so familiar with it that they can read it for themselves.

As work with other short vowel sounds, consonant blends and digraphs, and long vowels proceeds the child gains practice with decoding and blending. As the occasional “red word” comes up in reading you just explain that this is one of those words that we don’t spell the way we pronounce it, provide the correct pronunciation and go on. By the time kids are learning to read, they’re well aware of the fact that society has lots of seemingly inscrutable conventions and lots of irregularities- you cheer at soccer games, but you clap at puppet shows; we call the choir director Ms. Cathy but we call her husband Joe, or sometimes Mr. Cathy if we’re being silly; it’s okay to invite a friend over to your house, but it’s impolite to ask if you can come over to their house, unless it’s the neighbors down the street. For most kids, the phonetic irregularities of the English language are only a big deal if we make them a big deal.

>>>Do we rate each of these skills as essential, irreplaceable, co-equal acquisitions?

Obviously you have to learn to read (and spell) words like there, their, through, though, two, too, and to, as well as learn to tackle words like misconstrue and inadvertant. So both are essential, but they are not co-equal. Learning to decode and blend is learning a skill that can be applied in a variety of situations- learning to read and spell “red words” is learning facts. Facts are quite useful, and when you call upon information frequently, you often memorize it without deliberate effort. I can remember the phone numbers of friends that I call regularly. Sometimes it’s worth the effort to memorize facts that you will use fairly regularly even if you don’t pick them up automatically, so my kids memorize math facts and the difference between “their” and “there”. However, knowing familiar facts is no substitute for having the skills to tackle the unknown. My younger son enjoys playing the piano and often asks me to show him how to play Star Wars or America the Beautiful. He’s very good at remembering the melodies I’ve helped him pick out, but he can’t play a piece of music he has not heard before because he doesn’t have the skill of reading music. That’s okay- he’s only 7, but if he wants to be able to pick up a piece of music and learn to play it, he will need to develop the skill, not simply memorize pieces.

>>>What are the most useful techniques for mastering common non-phonetic words? Both of my kids simply learned these in the course of reading, first from phonetic readers, then from “Dick and Jane” type basal readers. Even non-phonetic words often have some phonetic elements so knowing phonetic structure is helpful. Also, if you can decode most words, you’ve got lots of memory available for storing non-phonetic words. Those non-phonetic words that are very common will come up so often that I suspect most kids with reasonable decoding and blending skills will probably learn them as effortlessly as I remember the phone numbers I call frequently. If not, then it seems reasonable to put the effort into memorizing these words.

Jean

Non-phonetic words are taught at the same time as others. The method is: the student writes the word in sand with his/her finger (or on other tacticle stimulating surface) with large arm movements (kinesthetic), and says the name of each letter outloud as it is written, then says the whole word. When the word isn’t remembered, the child spells the word outloud which usually triggers memory for the word. Tracing the word on the table along with spelling outloud also aids recall of the forgotten word. This is called a multisensory approach. This recall activity usually needs to be used only 2 or 3 times at most for each word. By then, the word has been engrained. (It is NOT a technique used CONTINUOUSLY to recall specific words in text). I’ve seen this strategy work with numerous students, and my mentor Betty Sheffield wrote an article about it in the Annals of Dyslexia. Now, Arthur before you come back and say you tried it, and it didn’t work, let me say the method is only as good as the teacher! So I wouldn’t “go there”.

L. Starr

Dear L. Starr,

I think you have hit upon a logical, effective method to help your students master the common “red words.” There must be other valuable techniques that I have not learned. I link methods that work in this way with the principle of “spell to read.”

Your method does work, and it works well. I find I must use many more repetitions with my very needy students than the 2-3 repetitions that succeed so well for you.

We have agreement. I just need to give teaching the non-phonetic words the time and patience they require.

Peace.

Arthur:

Any time the “recall ” activity doesn’t work, then go back to the roiginal “learning” activity of saying and writing the letters and the word. During this “learning” activity, the child writes and says 5 times for each word. Be sure to use big arm movements and a rough surface for the writing part.
This stimulates the kinesthetic/tacticle learning pathway.

Good luck, L. StarrArthur wrote:
>
> Dear L. Starr,
>
> I think you have hit upon a logical, effective method to help
> your students master the common “red words.” There must be
> other valuable techniques that I have not learned. I link
> methods that work in this way with the principle of “spell to
> read.”
>
> Your method does work, and it works well. I find I must use
> many more repetitions with my very needy students than the
> 2-3 repetitions that succeed so well for you.
>
> We have agreement. I just need to give teaching the
> non-phonetic words the time and patience they require.
>
> Peace.

Dear L. Starr,

Thank you for sharing and caring.

Your students are fortunate to have you to guide their reading improvement. I am pleased that you have found a method to teach difficult common words.

Peace.