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St. Ann
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| Posted: Feb 09 2011 at 10:48am | IP Logged
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Have any of you taught your children to read without using a phonics program? Reading by doing... more or less? Would you just use sight words at the beginning until they catch on?
I know my first 2 dd's learned to read in English this way, but that was after they learned to read fluently in German. So, they did have a type of phonics, but for German.
Number 3 learned English reading first with English phonics. One year later she then learned German phonics and reading...
Now, my dd4 "reads" English using German phonics and it just doesn't work!!!! She is just 3 months into the German phonics and a very beginner reader. Is it crazy to get her started with English reading right now? My tendency is to just start with the Faith and Freedom readers for her and teach her sight words until she gets the hang of it...I don't want to mix 2 different phonics programs at this stage, but I (and she) want her to be able to read the English we have.
What speaks against this approach?
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Stephanie
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: Feb 09 2011 at 12:11pm | IP Logged
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I've never taught English that way, but the descriptions Charlotte Mason offers of how to teach reading are heavily oriented toward "sight words" and might help you if you decided to.
Ime, though, that with my ds is 6.5 who is a very early reader and also taking a beginning German class (3 hours once a week), our approach to teaching English is heavily phonetic (mostly Explode the Code and I See Sam but only recently using the Faith and Freedom readers). However, with German, he comes home with a lot of worksheets (I think it is actually a German pre-school program "Meine Freunde Und Ich"), and while I don't get the impression the teacher is actively teaching phonics in class (it is more conversational), *I* will typically insert German phonetic rules casually in a review just like I will with rules for some of the Faith and Freedom words that we haven't formally introduced the rule for in Explode the Code.
I think that ds would be confused by an entirely sight word oriented approach as his instinct now is to sound things out.
Now, I may be biased since my only formal instruction in German (if it can be called formal) is purely phonetic. I was a voice major in college and learned Italian, French, and German phonetics in order to sing them. I never learned grammar or vocab except what I picked up from being required to translate pieces with a dictionary (I had to write in literal translations of words as well as the phonetic translation in the IPA).
Anyway, its possible I merely feel compelled to teach the little I know which includes basic phonetic rules, but I do think that he's going to try to sound them out in reading anyway because that's just what he does when "reading."
Does that make sense? Its probably also really different for your children given your fluency in both languages. I don't think would you need to start a formal phonetic program in English, but I think that you will likely have to teach some phonics if that is how your daughter is learning to read her primary language.
ETA: By saying that ds is a very early reader, I mean he is *currently* a very early reader, so while 6.5, is likely in the similar stage to your daughter.
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Lindsay
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St. Ann
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| Posted: Feb 09 2011 at 1:18pm | IP Logged
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Thanks Lindsay for your input. Yes, Helena just turned 7 and is also sounding out the words while reading. I was just thinking that 2 sets of phonics at the same time might get a bit confusing. I have this feeling that we will probably lean towards comparative phonics at the beginning to get the ball rolling. For example: When you see a "W" in English it is not pronounced like a "V" as in the German. And don't roll your "R"s!
I need to look up Charlotte Mason's approach on it.
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Stephanie
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: Feb 09 2011 at 1:30pm | IP Logged
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Yes, Stephanie, that's what I mean. When ds tries to pronounce a German word using English rules, I just say, "in German, a "d" sounds more like a "t" or something along those lines. Then, I think it sort of clicks with the pronunciation he was given in class and he can recognize the word.
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Lindsay
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kristinannie
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I am wondering the same thing. I am doing phonics in English right now, but we are going to start learning Spanish in a couple of months. I have heard that you should be comfortable reading and writing in your first language before reading and writing in a second language, but I don't know if I agree with that. Let me know what you decide and how it works out for you.
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Mimip
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I used to teach at a Spanish Immersion school (spanish is my first language) and the approach they had was the exact opposite to what you heard, kristinannie.
We actually taught spanish phonics first in K,1,and 2 and then in 3rd when they had learned the basics of Spanish, we started English phonics. The reality was that "most" children simply picked up the phonics from English as they went along. I taught 4th grade and by the time they were half way through my class they read proficiently in both languages. Most of the children spoke English at home so the books they were read to were mostly English. After teaching for so many years in that way, you'd think I would have learned and taught my kids Spanish First but alas I did not and now it is so much harder even with a Spanish speaking Mama 
Now a days I teach Spanish phonics a lot like Lindsay says, correcting as we go along but remember that Spanish reading is basically a joke to learn since the sounds NEVER change, once you know what sound the letter makes you are set, now verb conjugation is another story....
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allegiance_mom
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My gut reaction says to concentrate on mastering phonics for one language, then adding another. You seem to say that with your first three, they learned one language first, then the other, and that worked out. So, maybe she is just overwhelmed with two different systems?
I personally have found phonics superior to sight reading. If you can get a copy of the book "Why Johnny Can't Read" at the library it is worth your time to look it over, it explains the failure of sight reading in schools. I found it very enlightening, since I was taught sight reading. It seems the only people who come out fluent readers are the ones who go back on their own, look at the letter patterns, and try to figure out why the letters make the sounds. It's almost as if they were self-taught phonics in a way. I know I did that in elementary school, I remember looking at patterns in words. Still to this day, I have trouble remembering a name or new word unless I can see it spelled out.
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St. Ann
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| Posted: Feb 10 2011 at 4:41am | IP Logged
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Allegiance, I don't even remember how I learned reading. I am pretty sure that we had phonics, but even then, I am also one who needs to see names spelled out to remember them.
Thanks for your input!
I did order some F&F readers. I will let you know how dd responds to them. I certainly do not want to turn her off of reading English, so I will go gently.
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Stephanie
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cathhomeschool
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| Posted: Feb 10 2011 at 11:22am | IP Logged
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I have never taught mine to read using phonics. They have all learned to read by watching me read to them and following along. ...read by doing, I guess. Two of them were very early readers (Nicholas was reading Narnia and The Hobbit in kindergarten). Two were later readers and had to work more at it, but they were still never behind "average." My older two learned to speak Spanish before English and were learning to read Spanish alongside English. They learned to read Spanish phonetically.
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Topic: no phonics reading
