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Concerning the Folly of Teaching the Dolch Basic Sight Vocabulary

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Concerning the Folly of Teaching the Dolch Basic Sight Vocabulary A Study Concerning the Folly of Teaching the Dolch Basic Sight Vocabulary In which we will prove that it is unnecessary and undesirable to teach any sight-words with whole-word memorization techniques to beginning reading students Using Samuel L. Blumenfeld’s Alpha-Phonics (2005) Program as Our Intensive Phonics Standard of Comparison Copyright © 2010 by Donald L. Potter www.donpotter.net Recommendations Concerning Teaching Sight-Words I suggest that all teachers in America immediately quit teaching the Dolch Basic Sight Vocabulary with whole word memorization for the following reasons: 1. It creates a blockage against seeing words phonetically. Once the sight-word habit is established, it becomes difficult to develop a good phonics reflex for accurate and fluent reading and spelling. 2. It is totally unnecessary since the vast majority of the words will be learned naturally in their spelling-family as the students learn to read and spell with Blumenfeld’s Alpha-Phonics. This is the focus of this study. 3. Student who read by sight-words and context guessing are severely limited when it comes to building vocabulary independently from general reading because they cannot get to the sounds of the words without the teacher telling them the pronunciation of the words. 4. There is no need to waste valuable instructional time to teach 220 Dolch Basic Sight Vocabulary when we could be teaching 3,033 separate words in Blumenfeld’s Alpha-Phonics words in even less time. 5. The reading ability of students taught to read with Blumenfeld’s Alpha-Phonics is significantly higher than students trained in Dolch sight-vocabulary memorization. 6. I have established, through years of teaching Blumenfeld’s Alpha-Phonics, that it can be completed in regular first- and second-grade public school classrooms, small remedial reading groups, and individual tutoring within a single school year. WARNING: Attempts to balance literacy by teaching sight-words first simply make it more difficult for student to learn to read phonetically later. Mini-lessons, a common core of Guided Reading instruction, are no substitute for systematic, sequential, intensive phonics instruction. Further Recommendation: The Miller Word Identification Assessment that was developed by Mr. Edward Miller can measure the damage inflicted by the sight- vocabulary method of teaching reading. Copies can be downloaded for free, noncommercial use from my website: www.donpotter.net. The following study starts with a list of the Dolch List Basic Sight Vocabulary and Nouns. Numbers over the words indicates the lessons where the words are taught in Blumenfeld’s Alpha-Phonics. The next chart shows the distribution of the Dolch List Basic Sight Vocabulary in Alpha-Phonics Lesson Skill Levels Sequence (Levels of Word Processing Difficulty). The study is rounded out with some statistics. 2 Dolch Pre-primer Service Words (40 words) 1 7 FR7 19 116 8 103 112 FR9 (71) 93 107 51 91 34 19 19 19 56 a, and, away, big, blue, can, come, down, find, for, funny, go, help, here, I, in, is, it, jump, 119 109 73 87 98 23 103 77 16 27 75 87 21 87 108 108 27 34 little, look, make, me, my, not, one, play, red, run, said, see, the, three, to, two, up, we, 91 Level 9 34 where, yellow, you Dolch Primer Service Words (52 words) 40 1 34/73 1 72 87 58 112 27 73 19 108 89 112 16 109 34/73 34/87 all, am, are, at, ate, be, black, brown, but, came, did, do, eat, four, get, good, have, he, FR7/8 99 49 117 107 112 23 112 112 89 93 9 99 83 77 34/87 107 into, like, must, new, no, now, on, our, out, please, pretty, ran, ride, saw, say, she, so, 109 21 91 34/77 21 108 FR6 43 1 16 43 31 99 108 19 soon, that, there, they, this, too, under, want, was, well, went, what, white, who, will, 21 16 with, yes Dolch 1st Grade Service Words (41 words) 57 75 1 93 1 49 98 111 FR10 98 61 99 41 5 2 45 19 after, again, an, any, as, ask, by, could, every, fly, from, give, giving, had, has, her, him, 19 112 49 106 16 99 77 23 107 55 110 FR9 27 112 103 67 75 his, how, just, know, let, live, may, of, old, once, open, over, put, round, some, stop, take, 121 21 21 108 50 34/91 31 thank, them, then, think, walk, were, when Dolch 2nd Grade Service Words (46 words) 117 113 FR7 87 FR9 49 Level 9 98 40 107 FR7 104 49 FR10 always, around, because, been, before, best, both, buy, call, cold, does, don't, fast, first, 99 112 74 Level 8 87 FR2 72 93 23 76 27 89 100 41 19 87 five, found, gave, goes, green, its, made, many, off, or, pull, read, right, sing, sit, sleep, 16 79 91 103 Level 4 27 115 93 29 31 98 29 118 111 125 tell, their, these, those, upon, us, use, very, wash, which, why, wish, work, would, write, 112 your Dolch 3rd Grade Service Words (41 words) 114 45 58 93 89 27 103 83 60 79 40 85 27 23 106 about, better, bring, carry, clean, cut, done, draw, drink, eight, fall, far, full, got, grow, 107 23 118 76 87 FR 102 100 41 57 Level 8 115 107 106 19 hold, hot, hurt, if, keep, kind, laugh, light, long, much, myself, never, only, own, pick, FR7 29 106 19 65 85 16 118 FR9 98 85 seven, shall, show, six, small, start, ten, today, together, try, warm 3 Dolch Nouns (95 words) 119 93 11 40 89 16 16 118 118 105 23 114 89 113 apple, baby, back, ball, bear, bed, bell, bird, birthday, boat, box, boy, bread, brother, 73 85 8 75 FR5 FR8 127 105 Level 9 112 77 23 23 109 cake, car, cat, chair, chicken, children, Christmas, coat, corn, cow, day, dog, doll, door, FR2 16 91 FR6 Level 7 85 87 99 29 109 112 73 118 118 duck, egg, eye, farm, farmer, father, feet, fire, fish, floor, flower, game, garden, girl, Level 10 62 112 7 89 19 103 FR9 112 16 45 2 16 good-bye, grass, ground, hand, head, hill, home, horse, house, kitty, leg, letter, man, men, 50 93 93 FR8 73 49 100 FR9 FR7 121 19 38 75 milk, money, morning, mother, name, nest, night, paper, party, picture, pig, rabbit, rain, 41 38 Level 10 109 87 87 Level 9 45 106 41 Level 10 67 ring, robin, Santa Claus, school, seed, sheep, shoe, sister, snow, song, squirrel, stick, 87 27 119 FR6 99 23 114 87 53 114 77 43 FR8 109 street, sun, table, thing, time, top, toy, tree, watch, water, way, wind, window, wood Explanation Underlined words are not in the Blumenfeld’s Alpha-Phonics Workbook. The numbers over the words are the lessons where the word is first taught or encountered. “FR” stands for First Readers. The number is the number of the First Reader where the word is first used. The First Reader numbers correspond to the Level numbers. Words like “or” are in parenthesis (or) to show that the words was introduce in Alpha-Phonics, but not with its spelling family. This is very rare. “Into” is not in Alpha-Phonics. Both “in” and “to” are, so it should be introduced after “to.” “Thank” is not used till Lesson 121, but the th and ank are introduced by Lesson 46. “Think” is not used till Lesson 108, but it could have been introduced in Lesson 46. “If” was not used till Lesson 76, but could have been introduce in Lesson 19. We put it under Level 2 in this study. Edward W. Dolch, “A Basic Sight Vocabulary,” The Elementary School Journal, (February, 1936), pp. 358-59. This list consists of 220 words common to readers when Dolch wrote his study, not including nouns. Although this list was generated 40 years ago, these words account for more than 50% of the words found in textbooks today (Blevins). Pace articles by Miss Geraldine Rodgers on the “high frequency word effect” to see how the sight-word system works in actual practice, and articles by Ray Laurita on the psychology of the whole-word method. There is also an article by Dr. Pat Groff on sight-words on my website. The Blumenfeld’s Alpha-Phonics Reading System consists of “The Alpha-Phonics Workbook,” ten Alpha-Phonics Card Decks, and ten decodable First Readers. The “Workbook” is the heart of the system of 128 progressive lessons in intensive phonics, reading, spelling, and cursive handwriting. (Note: The word “Workbook” is not a school workbook in the traditional sense, but rather a phonics textbook in big print from which the students can be taught the phonics patterns for reading and spelling. The handwriting is done on separate handwriting paper.) 4 The Dolch Sight Vocabulary List in the Light of Intensive Phonics (Samuel L. Blumenfeld takes on Edward W. Dolch) Indisputable Proof that Sight-Vocabulary Memorization is Totally Unnecessary By Donald L. Potter December 12, 2010 Level 1: Lessons 1 – 14. Phonics Skills: short ă, single letter consonants, ck, qu Dolch Words: a, and, can, am, at, was, an, as, had, has, ran, back, cat, hand, man Level 2: Lessons 15 – 28. Phonics Skills: ă, ĕ, ĭ, ŏ, ŭ, ph, th Dolch Words: big, in, is, if, it, not, red, run, the, but, did, get, on, that, this, well, will, him, his, let, of, put, full, pull, them, then, off, sit, tell, up, us, cut, got, hot, pick, six, ten, yes, its, duck, bed, bell, box, dog, doll, egg, hill, leg, men, pig, sun, top.
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