How did YOU learn to read?

[daylily]

Lately, I've been reading books about public schools and every book I've read has addressed the fact that many American children can't read very well. Very often, the Whole Language method of reading teaching is blamed for this failure. While, on the one hand, I agree, in many respects that Whole Language is not the ideal way to teach children to read, this method has been in use (under various names) since the 1930s. In other words, the authors decrying Whole Language were probably taught to read themselves with this method!

This led me to think back to my own reading instruction in first grade in the mid-seventies. I'm pretty sure it was a Whole Language classroom. I recall a reader--a version of Dick & Jane updated for 1970s sensibilities. Instead of Dick & Jane, we had Bill & Jill and their African-American friend, Ted. They led boring lives and their names were repeated many, many times. I also recall flashcards with words on them. The teacher would show the card and you were supposed to recognize the word. I remember being close to tears at times because reading seemed impossible. Then something clicked around Christmas time and I went overnight from being barely able to read to reading the Little House on the Prairie books. I became a good reader, despite my Whole Language education.

Later, in third grade, we had phonics, although by that time it seemed pointless since I could read just about anything.

So, how were you taught to read? Would you change the way you'd been taught to read? Are you satisfied with how your children are being taught to read?

[Al Dente]

My mom taught me to read before I ever went to school...I honestly don't know how she did it, but I know phonics were involved. I was in a private school and we also had phonics drills, alphabet songs, the works...but never did flashcards or repetitive reading.

I'm pretty sure my mom would say she just read me the same books over and over until I associated what words went with what pictures, but I will have to ask...I want to know for my kids!

Rachel

[EFmom]

Phonics. My mother taught me using phonics, as did my much older sister, who used to read to me constantly. I could read before I went to kindergarten. The school also used phonics.

[moss]

I learned how to read with the dick and jane books. My grandfather was a teacher and he brought home some books from that series that his school was getting rid of. Between my grandpa and my mom, i was taught how to read when i was 4 and i've been a bibliophile ever since.

My brother learned how to read in school with the phonics method, and still wasnt reading when he was 10. He needed a lot of remedial help and still doesnt read very well.

[loon13]

I'm such an avid reader, I honestly can't remember how NOT to read.

Seriously, though, I do remember the Dick and Jane books AND phonics.

But I think my mother "taught" my brother and I to read before we got to school. I always remember her reading to us. When we were really small, she said we never wanted any bedtime book but "Snow" (by Roy McKie and P.D. Eastman). She said we used to recite the words along with her. So does that count as Whole Language? I think we knew the words by heart and then eventually made the connection when we saw them on the page.

HTH,

Loon

[captain optimism]

My parents sort of taught me to read with a sort of combination of whole language and phonics. I think there was a day when I was four when I realized that I already knew how to read. (You know, because I looked at words and recognized them!) Then, after that, I learned to sound out words. My mom bought me some easy reader books (Go Dog Go and Frog and Toad are Friends). They were planned as presents for my fifth birthday, but I saw them on the shelf and asked "are those for ME?" I was so excited to have learning-to-read books.

At school, in first grade, they were doing phonics. I got out of doing it. The other children had to sit with headphones on their heads, listening to people say "th" "wh" "ph" while they looked at flashcards. The teacher figured out that I could already read. She said I could read the SRA cards. (Wow, it is unbelievable that they are still putting out those awful, boring things.) I worked through the cards but they were DULL. It was still 1970s open classroom time so I asked if I could go to the library and get books. I read through all the Andrew Lang Fairy Books and Howard Pyle's Robin Hood (this is a link to the whole book!) and also Cricket magazine, Pippi Longstocking, the whole Mary Poppins series, and some other stuff.

I don't know about all of them, but many of the children saying "wh" "th" "ph" aren't very good readers today.

The problem isn't whether it's whole language or phonics, it's whether the stuff you are reading is interesting or very very boring.

[Artisan]

My mom taught me to read as a preschooler. (I was very interested -- my sisters weren't, so she didn't push it with them.) I have distinct memories of learning the letter sounds from the wooden blocks I played with. Of course, my mom read to me all the time, so that supports the whole language approach.

I really think a combination is best. If you eliminate phonics, you end up with kids who can't spell/sound out words. If you eliminate literature, you get rid of the necessity of learning phonics.

[Daffodil]

My mom taught me to read when I was about four, using a phonics book. One of her reasons for wanting to teach me herself was that she'd seen her younger cousin learning to read by the look-say method, and seen how poorly that worked, and she was afraid they'd still be teaching reading that way when I started school.

I definitely plan to teach my dd to read using phonics. Reading IS phonics. Even if you start by learning to recognize whole words, you have to eventually learn the rules of phonics, though perhaps without consciously being aware of them - so why not simply teach the rules explicitly right from the start, instead of making the child deduce them from a million examples? Learning letter sounds and basic phonics rules doesn't have to be any more difficult or boring than learning to count, or identify colors, or tie shoes.

Of course, you also need to expose a child to lots of interesting books, and read to her from an early age, so that she has a reason to want to read, and understands what reading is all about.

[supervee]

Phonics. Bat Cat Fat Hat Sat.

My mom says every morning we would sit at my little table and go through some workbooks the librarian gave her and she taught me to read that way. We also read lots of books. She says that I had a set of little books with short sentences (maybe something like the Bob Books I've seen), too, and I would over time learn to read those (memorization).

In school, we were the first class to learn phonics. We had little cards with the phonemes on them and we had a little chant that I would love to know the entire words to... I remember "hissing cat, hissing cat, FFF, FFF, FFF."

[lauren]

Phonics. This was in the late 1960's in a Catholic school, with Dick and Jane. I was in first grade when I "got it." ONce it clicked, I was homefree. I'm gonna go read right now........

[Dar]

I taught myself to read before kindergarten, mostly by having the same books read to me over and over, and then later puzzling over them myself. "Ann Likes Red" was the first book I read. No phonics, just learning the words. Rain read pretty much the same way. We both intuited the rules of phonics unconsciously through reading - I was 25 before I realized that there were two different /th/ sounds, although I remember being taught about hard and soft g and c in second grade.

Dar

[LiamnEmma]

osmosis, apparently. My kinder teacher called my mom one day and said, "When did you teach Leah to read?" My mom said, "Leah knows how to read?" :LOL


I thought Dick & Jane was phonics? Maybe not in the way it's taught now, but it's repetitive and uses sentence frames over and over again....

[daylily]

I think Dick & Jane were "look-say" readers. Hence all the "look, look, look"-ing and the "oh, oh, oh"-ing. I think the idea was that kids would just learn the words if they saw them enough.

I'm using Dafodil's method to teach Ds to read: phonics, but I also read him lots of excellent stories so he'll learn that reading is worthwhile.

[donimomof3]

I learned whole language

I actually taught myself to read before I started school,, but did so by seeing words in books, on signs, etc (environmental print). This is what whole language is all about. In school, our school did whole language to. I never had one day of phonics, and I could read anything I wanted by the time I was in 3rd grade. Likewise, my elsest dd taught herself to read before school. She did not have phonics until I moved her to the school I teach at last year. She made B's in reading all year, because she didn't know how to label words with phonetic symbols (I have no clue how to either, and I teach 5th grade). She is in 3rd grade and reads on a 9th grade level. I find the fact that she has to do Saxon Phonics rather asinine. My other two children learned phonics in preschool. DS reads above grade level as well, but not to the level as my oldest dd.

I really believe that the reason kids aren't reading as well today is lack of exposure. There are too many distractions (tv, video games, etc.) Also, parents don't read to their kids. The number one indicator of what type a reader a kid will be is whether the parents read aloud to them when they are little. I don't think the approach matters nearly as much as these kids simply having opportunities to read, seeing adults read for pleasure, and having caring adults read to them.

[sohj]

I don't know when I learned to read. I just did. I know I could read and write before I was 4 because I remember writing a thank you note when sitting at the table in a kitchen we had then.

My parents read all the time, they read to me all the time, I had lots of books. No TV in the house.

dunno.

I guess that would be "whole language".

I also remember saying, "How do you spell....?" and my mother or father invariably saying, "Look it up!" -- we had several dictionaries, including the OED -- and me responding, "How can I look it up if I don't know how to spell it?" and them saying "Look up all the possible ways and see which one is in there." I think that started when we lived in a house we left when I was 4.

edited to add that this skill got me into trouble in kindergarden. the teacher didn't like that I could read and when we had reading stuff to do, because I was ahead, I was sent off to the side of the room because I didn't "need" the task. But I wasn't allowed to do anything else, either. : Education. What a wonderful thing.