Different perspectives – Part 3 – Memorising Dolch (High frequency) words.

 

I teach all my students to memorise the 220 Dolch words. I don’t use flash cards. Who introduced flash cards and why would one foolishly use it is beyond me. English is not pictorial or ideograph like the Chinese script. Even the Chinese script is not memorised by looking at it but by students writing a character a minimum of a hundred times.

I ask my students to list down the Dolch words, introduced in each lesson, in an exercise book and spell out each word five times before going down the list to the next word. Within a short period of time they are able to spell the words. If a kid who is going to vernacular school can learn to memorise 600 Chinese characters in a year what is the problem in memorising 220 HFW? 

Can learning 10 sounds of letters enable kids to read about 26,000 words

 

I believe Kozloff has been misquoted.

I would be grateful if any of those who have quoted the above to please explain where they got this idea that learning 10 sounds of letters will enable kids to read about 26,000 words (720+ 4320+ 21,600 = 26640 words.) 

I am all for phonics but I won't stoop so low and mislead readers.

How can teachers like Emina McLean share such quotes without thinking. How will it affect parents and other teachers?

This is another case of the blind leading the blind.