http://www.montessoriworld.org/Reading/insets/overview.html doesn't appear to mention sight words or mixed methods. It is actually quite a good description of phonics teaching 

[edited by: Msz at 19:58 (GMT 0) on 1-11-2012]

 The webpages quoted above does refer to what it calls whole languag, whole language is one of the other ways to refer to look and say.

 

Sight words are mentioned in the Montessori at home programme (as I explained) and that is here

http://www.montessoriathomebook.com/Home.html/2011/11/01/teaching-your-child-to-read/

 The piece you linked to describes good phonics teaching

 I think you need to question the reliability of your second link ...it seems to be an independent group in the US

Perhaps someone who has been trained in Montessori methods can explain how reading would be taught. I'm not sure either site is 100% reliable

[edited by: Msz at 20:27 (GMT 0) on 1-11-2012]

Maria Montessori was Italian and Italian is a straightforward language so her method was purely phonic with children learning to write first then read using letter sounds. There is some variation and even differences of opinion on how reading English is taught amongst Montessori organisations, however all the nursery schools I've seen or taught in when I was a Montessori teacher followed a phonics first and fast approach. The biggest difference between what happens in Primary schools is that using the Montessori method language is taught one to one following the child's pace and readiness rather than whole class teaching.

 It is possible for schools using mixed methods to achieve excellent reading results (at least on paper anyway).  I would suggest this is likely to be because the childrn start school already advantaged in ways that matter very much when it comes to good early reading (and this is also likely to be the case with Montessori attenders).

My own school is one such school, which teaches 'phonics' to all intents and purposes, but in reality, has a mixed method approach.

 milliebear1, can I ask what proportion of pupils learn to read under your quasi-phonics/mixed methods approach? And may I ask why your organisation doesn't simply stick to phonics? Why include sight reading words at all?

 

Sorry, scrub that question. Your reply already explains why you use the methods that you do, bacause some children are already proficient in using their chosen method when they arrive at school. 

 

I was trying to establish whether or not Montessori used/uses mixed methods and if she(her schools do) why they do.

[edited by: faithbased at 22:24 (GMT 0) on 1-11-2012]

My school uses mixed methods because our lit coordinator isn't convinced by a purely phonic based approach.  Most of our children don't start Reception able to read at all, by any method, but they do come to school ready to learn to read - that is, they have a huge vocabulary, recognise most of the simple code, know all about books, have talked loads with adults, have listened to hundreds of stories and shared loads of books.  These children learn to read quickly and easily, for the most part, whatever method you use to teach reading.  The few who struggle, get more intensive phonics through intervention!  It is a mistaken approach, in my view, but hard to argue against, given our results.

Our KS1 reading levels are currently all children achieving at least level 2b with around 70% achieving level 3.

This link suggests that while the Montessori approach to teaching reading is largely phonically based, they do suggest some words cannot be learned using phonics - so perhaps some use of mixed methods is being suggested here:

 http://www.montessorieducationuk.org/?q=eyfs/learning-and-development/areas/communication-language-and-literacy#linking

I hope this helps explain why some schools and nurseries (Montessori included) may achieve excellent reading levels without using a wholly phonics based approach.

As far as early reading goes, I only have experience of teaching Jolly Phonics, and not in school. But surely even this is a mixed method, as you quickly introduce "tricky words", which are learned mostly by sight. I used JP alongside a Key Words reading scheme ( practising the most common 100 words, rather than words which are easily sounded out) to achieve very fast results. Isn't this mixed approach what most children need? After all, learning the entire phonetic code with all its possibilities is very slow and tedious, most adults do not know it! Most children would have memorised hundreds of words by sight before getting through it all, as long as they have had access to simple reading books.

palmtree100

As far as early reading goes, I only have experience of teaching Jolly Phonics, and not in school. But surely even this is a mixed method, as you quickly introduce "tricky words", which are learned mostly by sight. I used JP alongside a Key Words reading scheme ( practising the most common 100 words, rather than words which are easily sounded out) to achieve very fast results. Isn't this mixed approach what most children need? After all, learning the entire phonetic code with all its possibilities is very slow and tedious, most adults do not know it! Most children would have memorised hundreds of words by sight before getting through it all, as long as they have had access to simple reading books.

 

 

The best research, and there is a lot of it, suggests that teaching phonics explicitly and alone, is the best way to teach reading to all children.

milliebear1

The best research, and there is a lot of it, suggests that teaching phonics explicitly and alone, is the best way to teach reading to all children.

So in the very early stages, when they come across words like said, one, two, and the, you expect the children to read them using phonics "explicitly and alone"?

Children taught using phonics alone, following a properly structured plan, explicitly and alone, do not encounter words such as 'said' until they know the code necessary to read such a word.

It's the evidence you need to be looking at if you teach reading.  As I said - there's a lot of it and it's comprehensive: teaching children phonics, explicitly and alone (i.e. no guff about using pictures etc) yields better reading in young children than any other commonly used method - including 'Searchlights' (which has consistently failed to ahieve fluent reading for approximately 20% of children every year).

[edited by: milliebear1 at 0:53 (GMT 0) on 2-11-2012]

Even 'Letters and Sounds' teaches tricky words as sight words.

palmtree100

So in the very early stages, when they come across words like said, one, two, and the, you expect the children to read them using phonics "explicitly and alone"?

  "said" is very easy to teach with phonics as the spelling <ai> can represent the sound "e" and unlike some adults young children accept this when it's explained. One and two are among the few words that I would teach.

nosandals

Even 'Letters and Sounds' teaches tricky words as sight words.

  I suggest you re read Letters & Sounds because it doesn't. 

Letters & Sounds instructions for teaching "tricky words" 

"Procedure
Explain that there are some words which have one or sometimes two tricky letters in them.
Read the caption, pointing to each word, then point to the word to be learned and read it again.
Write the word on the whiteboard.
Sound-talk the word, and repeat, putting sound lines and buttons (as illustrated above) under each phoneme and blending them to read the word.
Discuss the tricky bit of the word where the letters do not correspond to the sounds the children know (e.g. in he, the last letter does not represent the same sound as the children know in hen)."

Msz

 I suggest you re read Letters & Sounds because it doesn't. 

Letters & Sounds instructions for teaching "tricky words" 

"Procedure
Explain that there are some words which have one or sometimes two tricky letters in them.
Read the caption, pointing to each word, then point to the word to be learned and read it again.
"

 

 

This procedural quote unfortunately contains the phrase "the word to be learned" which suggests that the word is to be learned because that's what it says, no matter that it also explains what the contents of that word may be. Perhaps its phraseology  is unfortunate or prehaps it really means what it says and the word is to be learned.

 

 Yes it does because that is what is happening. The whole purpose is to reach automaticity - the point that a child/adult doesn't have to sound out the word every time they see it. What it doesn't say is learn  "by sight" or "by heart". The children are learning to read the word because the teacher is teaching them the skills/knowledge to decode the "tricky part" (and the knowledge to read words they may encounter later which contain the same sound represented by the same spelling)

 

 

I would agree that 'learn the word' is unfortunate phrasing if teachers are immediately going to associate the phrase with learning the word as a 'whole'.

It seems odd that they do, though, as teachers are very fond of pointing out that there are different ways of learning things (usually when the method they are discussing doesn't agree with their beliefs).

Msz

I suggest you re read Letters & Sounds because it doesn't. 

Letters & Sounds instructions for teaching "tricky words" 

"Procedure
Explain that there are some words which have one or sometimes two tricky letters in them.
Read the caption, pointing to each word, then point to the word to be learned and read it again.
Write the word on the whiteboard.
Sound-talk the word, and repeat, putting sound lines and buttons (as illustrated above) under each phoneme and blending them to read the word.
Discuss the tricky bit of the word where the letters do not correspond to the sounds the children know (e.g. in he, the last letter does not represent the same sound as the children know in hen)."

• Of course you have to teach them as sight words, whatever your initial approach. Take 'the'. It's a phase 2 tricky word, introduced before /th/ or any alternative pronounciations for 'e' are covered. You can explain the phonics behind it as per your instructions above, but children aren't going to retain that at this stage. Phonics therefore is not the step up you might think in learning words like this. Their automaticity in reading 'the' comes from sight not decoding. It's practice, practice, practice with those words. Anyone who thinks differently is a victim of fashion, and really should know better.  

Msz

"said" is very easy to teach with phonics as the spelling <ai> can represent the sound "e" and unlike some adults young children accept this when it's explained. One and two are among the few words that I would teach.

• Is it? Do they? Of course they accept what you say; you're their teacher. What they won't do is retain that 'ai' is /e/ and apply this to other words. They'll see the letter pattern within the context of the whole word and they'll recall that it is 'sed'. That's reading the WHOLE word.
• Phonics is a means to an end. Not the end itself.