Strange but true, our Education Establishment has managed to keep almost every bad idea about reading in play.

 Remember that, circa 1935, the official dogma in the United States was that every child should memorize every English word as a DESIGN. This was known as Look-say. It was completely insane. This official hoax has suffered many slings and arrows. But the amazing thing is that it’s still alive, a little bit here, a little bit there.

Frank Smith said that when a child encounters an unfamiliar word, the child should guess and/or skip ahead. These are the two worst things a child could do! But many students incorporated these bad habits. They are hard to get rid of.

All this stuff hangs over us. I'm on some reading forums; and I can tell you that people are trying to teach reading without knowing that they have accepted some of these fallacies as part of their toolkit. Their job becomes much harder.

Here is a short article about the basic mechanics of reading. Title is “Memo to all Teachers (RE: Reading)”

Subtitle: The Folly of Sight-Words

http://www.examiner.com/article/memo-to-all-teachers-re-reading

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