How NOT to Teach Reading: Memorization

I Guess Not!

Part Three of a 12-part video series showing the flaws of common word reading strategies taught in schools– Moral: Do not teach struggling readers to guess or memorize!

Word Memorization – Auto the Otter Strategy

Fluent reading and writing require automatic reading and spelling of all common words. Many of the most common words in English are phonetically irregular (e.g., <to, too, two>), and that has led to the practice of teaching the most common words as sight words (i.e., words that must be read “on sight” –memorized as opposed to understood or analyzed).  However, this is not a good strategy because the spelling of most all phonetically irregular words still makes a great deal of sense when you look at the word’s meaning elements.

Watch the video below to see an example of this strategy compared to our approach, structured literacy.

How you can help your struggling reader

We want to give struggling readers specific, explicit, and systematic instruction so that they feel they can tackle unknown words. This is exactly how the Lexercise structured literacy approach works. Connect with one of our certified, structured literacy therapists here.