Visual Memorising of frequently used words Anne Castle

No idea how you got the ‘visual memory’ idea from me. I said “this direct teaching should be about focussing in detail on the letters in a particular difficult word and their order, and mapping that onto the pronunciation”

1.4.2.2. Teaching “sight words” along with phonics

Mastery of alphabetic decoding skills allows children to translate the spellings of most words they encounter into sound. However, as we have discussed, most alphabetic writing systems have at least some degree of spelling-to-sound irregularity, and English includes a number of high frequency words that are highly unusual (e.g., eye, friend).

Many teachers address this problem by teaching these kinds of words as “sight words” or “tricky words” together with phonics instruction. Sight words are introduced in a range of ways, and this varies across classrooms.

Teachers may use flash cards with single words printed on them for children to name, activity sheets involving the words, or weekly word lists for children to take home. In all cases, the intention is that, through repetition and feedback, children learn to recognize and name these tricky words fluently. However, this practice is controversial: Many phonics advocates argue that it is not only ineffective but also dangerous, causing children to become confused about letter-sound mappings and setting them up with bad reading habits that interfere with their ongoing phonics instruction (e.g., A. Clarke, 2012; Potter, 2012).

In our view, this concern is unwarranted, and the judicious selection of a small number of sight words for children to study in detail has its place in the classroom alongside phonics. As we have discussed, teaching phonics is crucial because it gives children the skills to translate orthography into phonology and thereby to access knowledge about meaning. However, when this is difficult because of spelling-to-sound complexities, there would seem to be a case for teaching children the pronunciations of a small number of such words directly, particularly those that they are likely to see very frequently in the texts they are reading (such as the, come, have, and said). In effect, this ensures that children can relate the visual symbols of writing to spoken language for as many words as possible and as early in their schooling as possible.

That said, many questions remain about the teaching of sight words. Most importantly, what method of teaching sight words is most effective? Successful methods are likely to involve engaging children in detailed study of the letters in the word and their sequence—with a focus on the difficult parts—and linking this with the word’s pronunciation, but this has not been explored systematically.

Under 'Teaching of sight words' the research summary says;

"In effect, this ensures that children can relate the visual symbols of writing to spoken language for as many words as possible and as early as in their schooling as possible."

Is your Research Report suggesting that we should get children to visually memorise as many frequently used words (sight words) as possible?

Your response will be greatly appreciated.

No, not as many as possible - just what's needed. We argue most words should be read via alphabetic decoding but for difficult exception words there is a case for teaching "a small number of such words directly, particularly those that they are likely to see very frequently" ½

And what we are proposing is not well described by "visually memorise". This direct teaching should be about focussing in detail on the letters in a particular difficult word and their order, and mapping that onto the pronunciation 2/2

We know, @luqmanmichel, the damage that can be done to many children when they try and memorise words by shape. It is much easier, and far more effective, to teach all children to read words through the process of decoding. Let's teach the alphabetic code like the code it is.

English is an alphabetic orthography. It is not logographic. We cannot visually memorize every word in the English language nor should we "teach" any word in that manner. We must use grapheme-phoneme correspondences to orthographically map words storing them as mental...