Glenn Doman and whole word method

[stigskog]

I have heard Stefan mention on a few podcasts that the whole word method of learning to read does not work because you are asking the child to memorise the whole language rather than the bits that make it up. I think this is based on research which was carried out on kids older than 3 (please point me to the research if I am wrong) . I worry that by saying that the whole word method damages kids, it would be disuading parents from sharing some wonderful experiences with their kids which i beleive are really beneficial for them both.

 I can not find any research for the long term effects of teaching babies to read. I think the reason for the lack of research is that it would be very difficult to control for all the variables without selecting siblings where one does the sight words and the other doesn't. I'm not sure any parents would agree to that! Having said that, I have a friend who did the sight words as a kid and her 2 brothers did not. I couldnt say who is happier now that she is 25 and her sibling are around 20, but she has done very well academically whereas her brothers have not.

So, here's why i think the whole word method is an effective way for babies to learn to read

Children learn to speak by hearing whole words. Parents don't speak to kids in phonics so that they get comfortable with all the bits that make up the language and then later put them together. Its a miracle of statistical processing that kids can work out all these sounds in to a meaningful language, and then even more amazing later to work out how to use their own lungs, throat, tongue, teeth and lips in the correct combinations to make words come out. It is not as if each time they hear a word it is pronounced in the same way as every other time.

This is a great book on the subject - How Babies Talk: The Magic and Mystery of Language in the First Three Years of Life [Paperback]by  Roberta Michnick Golinkoff (Author), Kathy Hirsh-Pasek (

Compare this to learning to read. The letters are written pretty much consistantly which I imagine makes the statistical processing job so much easier. A baby shown enough words can easily associate the sound with the letters and then work out the phonics from that. 

This is the book that explains the whole word method with babies: How to Teach Your Baby to Read: The Gentle Revolution (How to Teach Your Baby to Read (Paperback)) [Paperback] Glenn J. Doman (Author), Janet Doman - They have an organization at http://iahp.org/ . It was set up to help brain injured kids, and when they realised how well they were doing, they applied the same techniques to well kids.

So, does it work? Well, my son is almost 3 and can read any word (even gibberish), which means that now he is constantly reading things to me and asking what words mean.I realise this is cheating in my attempt to persuade people... but this is my lovely boy at 15months:http://youtu.be/5A3VZedQr0U

[View:http://youtu.be/5A3VZedQr0U:400:300]

The best thing is that if you are demanding, pushy or bribing, it simply doesnt work. It has to be an honest sharing of knowledge without expecting some sort of payback. So, no testing or forcing them to perform! The philosophy of Domans style of very early learning fits in well with peaceful parenting. 

Your baby is learning from you all the time , whether you like it or not. You can choose what to do with your time with your baby. The more (as in wider variety) things a baby learns, the more he is able to learn and the easier it is for him. 

One more small point... English is a horribly irregular language. I was looking at a book a few weeks ago and my son pointedt o the word "Hi" and pronounced it phonetically with a short "i" sound, "hi" (as opposed to "high". There are so many words that don't obey the phonetic rules and lots of those are the most common words. So teaching phonics first is giving the child a rule and then pointing out that in the words that come up most often do not obey that rule. Swedish is phonetically very regular, so this isn't such a problem.

[ribuck]

Children don't have any difficulty learning to read, once their brains are sufficiently developed to master it. This usually happens between ages 4 and 7, depending on the child.

If you try to teach your child to read before they are read for it, it will be a hard unfruitful process whichever method you use.

But if you wait until they are ready, the child will see others reading and will have a voracious interest to be able to do that too. With that motivation, they won't find it difficult to learn.

For this reason, Steiner schools don't teach reading until age seven. Within a year or two, their students are reading Harry Potter, having condensed the tedious stage of "Run, Spot, Run" and "Three Little Pigs" from years down to months, making it a more enjoyable process for the children and adults alike.

 

[Magnus]

I think English is a wonderfully irregular language. It's a thorough mongrelization of old German and Frenchified Latin.  It's like two languages masquerading as one. It's the jazz fusion of world languages. The history of Western Europe is baked right in. 

I have never understood the Whole Word vs phonics dispute. I don't pretend to know much about it, but if the impetus behind the Whole Word approach is linguistic irregularity, I'm don't think I would consider that to be a problem that needs fixing. 

[stigskog]

 

Children don't have any difficulty learning to read, once their brains are sufficiently developed to master it. This usually happens between ages 4 and 7, depending on the child.

 

I agree that children who are given incidental exposure to stories, books, signs, words etc, will get to the stage where they can easily learn to read at around 4-7 years. That is basically saying teach them by accident and when they get to a certain stage teach them deliberately. Why not teach them deliberately from the beginning?  Once they can read, they have access to an extra layer of information which surrounds them in the form of words.

 

If you try to teach your child to read before they are read for it, it will be a hard unfruitful process whichever method you use.

 

Based on my experience,  the exact opposite is true.

It was an easy, and incredibly fruitful experience, both in terms of his improved abilities and our relationship.  I remember a friend who is a peaceful parent of a child the same age saying to me "has your child started having random tantrums yet?". His daughter was obvioulsy having tantrums because she could not communicate what she wanted to get accross. Our son is very calm, patient and happy. In Glen Doman's book he describes other children that have been taught to read (and given other information) early as calm and patient, so it was amazing to see it was true.

This is a good introduction. -  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDdWiY6xje0&feature=share&list=UUhnS0h7_7thmtoKgWthZcrQ

[stigskog]

 

I have never understood the Whole Word vs phonics dispute. I don't pretend to know much about it, but if the impetus behind the Whole Word approach is linguistic irregularity, I'm don't think I would consider that to be a problem that needs fixing. 

 

The impetus behind the whole word approach is not due to linguistic irregularity. The impetus is that you can use that method with very small babies. It is just as effective with phonically regular languages like Swedish. I can not see how teaching babies phonics would work, whereas teaching babies whole words works very well (in my experience). 

The reason i started this thread is because in a few podcasts Stefan has mentioned the whole word approach as having negative outcomes. I believe the research shows this is true for older children, but i don't think it is true for babies who are taught to read. It has been so psoitive for us that I would love to spread the word. unfortunately, there is a gap in the sceintific research for the reasons i mentioned before, but there is plenty of anecdotal evidence.

 

[robzrob]

I taught my nephew to read and as far as I can remember it was a bit of everything: first learning to say new words, then the meaning of new words, learning the alphabet and the sounds of the letters, learning whole words, writing his name, looking at books with one picture and one word per page, then writing other words, etc.  And through all of this he would have seen words everywhere: on TV, signs, etc.  Surely all of these things would reinforce each other, so how would one separate out each of them in order to be able to tell which is the best bit?  (Btw he's a great reader (and writer) now, he got a Kindle before I did!)

[ribuck]

Why not teach them deliberately from the beginning?

It's easier for a child to learn to read once their brain is a little more mature. If you teach them before they are ready, it can be stressful for them, and hard work for you.

Once they can read, they have access to an extra layer of
information which surrounds them in the form of words.

In the first few years of life the child has no shortage of things to learn about the world around them. Teaching reading just displaces something else. At the age of 3, I reckon a child learns more by digging holes in the garden and chasing pigeons. At some point, they are ready for more abstract processes such as reading, and you'll be in no doubt that they have a voracious thirst to learn to read. That's when reading skills are gained the most easily.

 

[stigskog]

It's easier for a child to learn to read once their brain is a little more mature. If you teach them before they are ready, it can be stressful for them, and hard work for you.

I agree that any sort of pressure to learn can be stressful on the child, but that is something I wanted to highlight about using Glen Doman's ideas with babies. You can't teach a baby anything if they are stressed. It is just not going to work if you are pushy or demanding. Pressuring your baby shows a lack of respect and he knows it and will respond by ignoring you which is what you deserve if you act in that way.  I don't think children just arrive at a point where they are ready to learn to read without some input first, such as having stories read to them, seeing signs and labels etc. Taking that to the extreme, if you never showed a child any words, he would never be ready to start learning to read.

 Teaching reading just displaces something else

I don't think it does. I think the more babies learn, whatever it is, the more they can learn. Babies are super efficient at processing information around them. You can see this in the way they look at most toys they get their hands on.  They pick them up, feel them, shake them, see if they make a noise, smell them, taste them, and if they can't easily break them to see whats inside then that is the investigation over in about a minute. 

If interested, this article does a much better job of making the case than I do, and deals with the usual objections especially well. http://larrysanger.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/How-and-Why-I-Taught-My-Toddler-to-Read.htm

[ribuck]

I don't think children just arrive at a point where they are ready to learn to read without some input first, such as having stories read to them, seeing signs and labels etc.

For sure. In our case, it was the boxes of cereal on the breakfast table that led them to discover the joy of words. They had learned to recognise and understand most of those words long before they had any interest in reading systematically.

I've heard it said (and can easily believe it) that the strongest motivating factor for a child is not being shown words or having stories read to them from books (stories told from memory engage the child better than stories read from books). What motivates a child to learn to read is to see people around them gaining enjoyment from reading.

[stigskog]

 

 What motivates a child to learn to read is to see people around them gaining enjoyment from reading.

 

Definitely, and it is quite hard to find time to read, and it is hard to actually read with little kids running around, but you can see how quickly they get inspired to do the same.   I wonder if you spend your spare time doing some maths in front of the kids with a big smile on your face, they will get inspired to do that too!