Dolch Words: How Dummies Teach Reading

I never stop being amazed: some public schools are still pushing Sight Words and Dolch Words. This is highly irresponsible.

Whole Word rarely works. It expects children to memorize words as graphic designs, which is exceedingly difficult to do.

Please note, there is nothing special about our words that makes them easy to memorize. Memorizing 1000 sight-words is comparable to memorizing 1000 paintings, flags, cars, monuments, or movie stars. Indeed, memorizing English sight-words is probably more difficult than memorizing all these other categories of objects.

I’m always trying to think up quick ways to explain this difficulty, especially to young parents. I believe I’ve got a good one here. As a thought experiment, let’s think of the 100 people you know best. We’ll put their pictures in a projector and flash them randomly on the screen at one per second. Do you think you will be able to name them at that pace? First names are good enough.

Keep in mind that we’re talking about only 100 names; these are the people you know best in the whole world; and presumably there are lots of differences to jar your memory--gender, age, hair color. And one per second is slower than reading speed. But I’ll bet you won’t be able to name those pictures, no, not even for a minute or two.

Memory is capricious. A person you know can come into the room, and your mind goes blank. You turn to somebody and say, “Uh, you know, that guy in accounting...What’s his name?” Happens all the time, right? But during those blank seconds, a lot of pictures flash by.

Now let’s suppose it’s not your favorite 100 people, it’s just 100 people. And you have to memorize their names to the point where you have instant recall of 100 strangers. Doesn’t that sound like a tremendous amount of work? But this is basically the task thrown at little children in first grade, when they are shown their first Dolch List.

Do you know what happens? Many children master the material only in a half-baked way, but the teachers pretend the students can “read” and pass them along. Many children just give up, because very quickly it becomes evident to the children that 100 words is only the beginning. The teachers clearly expect this process to go on and on and on.