Notes to my book – Teach your child to Read - Part 1

 

Dolch (High Frequency) words

My upcoming book teaches phonics along with 8 (Dolch words) called sight words to be memorised in each lesson.

The Dolch words comprise about 50 to 70 percent of the words in most books. These are High-Frequency words such as on, the, with, here, to, no, at, etc.

In order to achieve reading fluency it is best to get your student to memorise these words by rote memory.

Once a child knows this list of words, it makes reading much easier because the child can then focus his attention on the remaining words.

Disinformation by SoR advocates

 

I saw the following image on LinkedIn and commented on it. I then happened to see that that image was liked by 83 members and was re-posted by 42 of them. I then decided to post this on my blog hoping to get some comments from those who re-posted. Will any of the 42 educators have anything to say? It will be an interesting discussion.

 

The following are my comments on the LinkedIn post. 

Memorising Dolch words (High-Frequency words) - Research Evidence

 

I have written several blog posts on memorising High-Frequency Words by rote memory. Educators have consistently said that there is no need to teach these words by memorising because they had learnt about visual memory without understanding what is rote memory. An article published in Neuroscience News  mentions students memorising Kanji by rote memory. This is exactly what I said about kids in Malaysia having to learn to read Chinese characters by repeated writing.

We don’t have to rote memorise the Dolch words by writing them a hundred times, though that will be a good idea, but just spell out the word using letter names a few times and recite the word at the end.

Figuring out words vs guessing

Some kids guess because they don’t know what else to do. They haven’t been taught phonics or strategies for breaking down multi-syllabic words.

They may not have been taught to rote memorise the Dolch Words as I have done in my lessons. Rote memorisation of Dolch words is an excellent supplement to phonics instruction. Rote memory of Dolch words increases a kid’s familiarity of high frequency words which he will encounter in every book he reads.

Tweets between Nathaniel Swain and me

 

There were 2 issues that have not been settled between Nathaniel and me. Our Twitter conversation is copy pasted below. I have added a third question and request Nathaniel to respond.

How to memorise Dolch words (most frequently used words)

 Edward William Dolch derived a list of the most frequently used words in the 1930s. The Dolch list includes conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, adverbs, adjectives and verbs; it includes 220 words. He referred to these words as “tool” or “service” words because they are used in all writing regardless of subject matter.