Reference no: EM133306841

The background I have on this topic is that there was the "great reading debate" that raged within educational circles from about 1950 on. On the one side, advocates of the look-say method taught children to see a word and then, focusing on the particular letters, immediately say it, connecting the visual configuration with the sound. Look-say primers repeated the same words over and over to instill this learning by association-a sample narrative being "Run, Spot, run. See Spot run." On the other side, devotees of the phonics approach insisted that children should "break the secret code" of written language by memorizing the specific sounds that various letters make: accordingly, first-graders filled page after page of workbook exercises that linked letters and sounds, circling, for example, the sound shared by "tan," "ton," and "tin," or, at a more advanced level, "nip," "not," and "dan."

Question 1. What are various ways people learn how to read? Please provide different ways.

Question 2. What is the look-say method and phonics?

Question 3. What method is best in order to learn how to read? Is there a method that has more success or is it more of a combination?