Why sight word instruction Is the worst way to teach reading

Why is sight word or whole word instruction the worst way to teach reading?

1) English has too many words to memorize. There are approximately 1,000,000 words in English. It is impossible to remember so many words.

2) Memorizing one word does not help students to decode another word.

3) Words consist of speech sounds. There are only 44 speech sounds in English. So, though there are about 1,000,000 words in English, it takes only 44 speech sounds to create those words. Those 44 speech sounds are the building blocks of every English word. Therefore, it is far easier and more effective to teach students how to master the building blocks of all English words than to teach them how to memorize English word by word.

4) Science has demonstrated convincingly that students process sounds faster and more effectively than trying to memorize whole words as if they were pictures. Our brains learn to read by turning alphabetic symbols into speech sounds.

5) Reading is a complex skill. And like every difficult skill, such as learning to play the piano, reading should be taught step by step, moving from each part to the whole. 

The solution

Since students learn best by focusing on sounds, we must ask: what helps students to focus on sounds instead of sight?

Spelling is the solution. However, when we say spelling, we do not mean memorizing long lists of words. "Spelling" refers to oral spelling, which is the skill of learning how to spell from spoken words. Oral spelling requires students to focus on sound structures within words.

When students spell from spoken words, they must listen to each word's sounds and convert those sounds into their corresponding letters, then say (or write) each sound letter by letter. 

We can call this Sound and Say Spelling™ since students must focus on sounds and say each sound's alphabetic name.