Phonics and Diagramming

Phonics and Diagramming

Whether you are an American-born student or one from another country, chances are that you will remember when you first read and HOW you learned.  Also, depending on the decade of education, willl have also determined the mechanics used for instruction, but actual "learning" may have taken place at a different time.

 

The bottom line?  Phonics is the way to learn to reading, sounding out the letters.  Imagine going to another country and just being told to look at the word, and memorize it!  Yes, viewing "sight words", as we call them today, does not impact your understanding as part of the ""process" of learning.  

 

When I took education classes before completing my BA, we had to look at the shapes and heights of the letters, especially with words that were redundant of their meaning.  For example, if we looked at the word "tall", we were to notice that the letters were tall; however, being cognizant of this fact only works when one is speaking about a shape!

 

Then we were given many different letters that were supposed to be representative of a real word, (and it looked like Chinese to us), with the professor's point that that is how the written words look to people that can't read.  They look foreign, as if it is a different language.

 

Now that all the theories were taught, as well as what we could NOT read, I wondered why we weren't told to show students how they COULD read!  Phonics is the answer.  If I were to go to a foreign country, I would want to know how to sound out the letters.  I would also want to know how to diagram sentences, which seems like a thing of the past, to teach sentence word structure.  Something to think about!  

 

My first grade book about Dick and Jane and Spot taught us, to memorize words, not to take ownership of the books that we supposedly read.  I beg of you to make sure that your children learning how to sound out the words, and to see what sounds represent different letters.  Also, if spelling rules were still taught, then all learners would understand WHEN and English word as an exception, but not until they know what the rule is!

 

Think about it.  If your child can read faster, school will be so much easier!  Take it "one letter at a time"!