Most Commonly used word teaching thoughts please

[makaveli]

Hi all,

I would appreciate your thoughts on teaching Dolch and or other most common used English words to EFL children. I discussed this some time ago with a few teachers and they all agreed it was crucial, and in all the programmes at their schools. I too have been teaching it for some time. However, I recently talked to a highly skilled teacher of many years with a fairly famous website who thought the idea for EFL students was pretty pointless. The words are abstract on their own and the teacher thought it would be better focusing on nouns.

I was a little taken aback and shaken to be honest. I will add that a huge weakness has been highlighted in my school with the student's reading standard and IMO reading importance and success (even for EFL students) is on a par with speaking and I have placed it at the top of my list in this term's lessons.

I thought it an interesting topic and would appreciate the views of qualified teachers on the forums.


Many thanks


Mak

[Soup]

Edward Dolch, Ph.D. did his work in the 30s and 40s and created at least seven versions of the “Dolch Words” and each of these lists is different. Some of the lists have been re-structured as words to be learned at certain levels. This practice was considered appropriate until the concept of “literature based instruction” because the norm and “sight words” popped in and out of the stories based upon the needs of the story, not in regard to someone’s list. Read more here.

Have you seen these?

http://www.donpotter.net/PDF/BasicSi...ry_Laurita.pdf
Ada Rosario Dolch | Away with Words: In Pursuit of Authenticity