When I started school in the 1960s, the two first grade classes were part of an experiment. Class A, which I was in, learned to read by the phonics method. Class B was taught by the whole word method, or cuing as its called in this video, but we knew it as the block reading method. The two classes were kept separate until the 7th grade. I don't know what the findings were, because I was well out of school before I learned of the experiment. But all the top students in high school were from Class A. Dr. Erica Brozovsky looks at both these methods of learning to read, where they came from, how they differ, and how they are turning out all these years later.
Her eyes seem to work a bit separately
ReplyDeleteInteresting! I could read before I went to school, partially through my parents using a phonics method to help me understand writing, and then working things out for myself.
ReplyDeleteWhen I helped at my kid's school, the teacher told me not to suggest kids sound out words they didn't recognise, which made no sense at all to me. So now I see why that was. But it still seems like a pretty stupid idea to me.