Both methods certainly work in their own right and sometimes one is more suited to the task at hand.

I can recall learning both ways as a child depending on the situation. It seems to make sense to me, that usually when I would read a word for the first time I would use Phonics if the word was completely unfamiliar and the whole word methd if it was one I’d heard or seen before but never read myself.

I’m not a researcher in the field, that’s just my gut reaction as someone who has learned to read (long time ago now ha ha) and who is currently teaching my own child to read.

Please find below the article (in Spanish) about France banning whole-words in 2006:

Spanish Article
http://tinyurl.com/ao4wo4

Yahoo Babel Fish Translation to English
http://tinyurl.com/bkeh4x

Again, I still believe at this time, that it is a cultural issue for the French because the Minister is stating an OPINION – not scientific facts that whole words create “dyslexia”.

I will post more as I find it.
ANMB

I find the title of this book misleading. Many parents use this slogan to defy early learning systems altogether. And that is actually a topic for another article. See it here: Einstein never used flashcards – is early development really necessary?

Once you actually read the book, please share your opinion of it: I’d be truly curious if it is a worthy reading material after all! Thanks – your comments are so insightful and so interesting!!! Looking forward to hear more!

http://www.udel.edu/ILP/einstein/book.html

Anyone who glances over the descriptions and back cover can clearly see that it actually supports the Doman/flashcard method. What the authors premise is that the element of play should be incorporated since it has been almost eliminated from schools, as well as parents needing to relax in creating “baby einsteins” since it has become a multi-million dollar industry.

It is also clear that the authors support everyday interactions as the basis of learning for children, which are complimentary to the Doman method and others similar to it, only differing in the details.

It seems to also touch ongoing debate of rote learning vs. play learning that is part of the history in American education – that is implicitly undrstood by those who understand the subtleties of the English language and American culture. It is also clear that “play” is the whole basis of the Doman method, and that the Einstein book appears to support it. I will know more after actually reading it and I encourage everyone to do the same and let us see if we draw the same conclusions

However, out of curiosity, I phoned the language lab of Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Palek at Temple University and asked some basic questions about the Einstein book and if they were familiar with Mr. Doman to which language lab associate (not Dr. Hirsh-Palek) replied yes with a tone of mild dislike. Further into the discussion, I learned that the language lab theories are different because of the discipline/methodologies of infant linguistics, and they had never read the books/visited the IAHP in Philadelphia and actually seemed to have the wrong assumptions of the program.

I think that people assume the Doman method takes hours upon hours like a school settting – when in fact, it is a few minutes a day. When I explained to the lab assistant that it is a few minutes a day of flashcards – and the children delight in in and actually cry when it is stopped – she said that it is not a problem as long as it is short.

I will email them YBCR research and a description of the Doman reading method as described here – because they have “sometimes” reviewed disciplines outside their own when doing research, which is in the field of infant linguistics/psychology, and they are not reading specialists which is an educational discipline. Linguistics covers whole language acquisition whereas reading is a small part of it.

http://www.infantlearning.com/robert.html
http://infantlearning.com/research.html

Will post more soon.

http://www.induceddyslexia.com/

http://www.prohighwayhealthcare.com/Article.aspx?ID=0000000272

She has taken a coined term from a teacher that had difficulties in learning to read, and developed a system for phonics based reading – and incorrectly interpreted the term it to be a medical condition:

http://www.educationaldyslexia.com/

It simply does NOT exist! It is more than clear that whole words and phonics teaching go hand in hand and you cannot seperate the two in reality; as it is constantly done in theoretical debates without the proper context of the basis for it.