I'm proud of this video because the message is reduced to seven short quotes, with photographs of the experts. So the video feels intimate and personal.
But what seems to be a small message is everything the country needs to hear in less than four minutes. Most of our public schools are violating the simple advice in this video; as a result they churn out thousands of semi-literate children. It's disgraceful, it's destructive, it's insane.
Rudolf Flesch explained the whole thing in 1955 ("Why Johnny Can't Read"). But our Education Establishment, which seems to prefer illiteracy, ignores Flesch and pushes it snake oil.
Bottom line, English is a huge language. Memorizing all these words by sight is impossible but that was the official dogma from 1931 to 2000. Even then, the progressive educators merely staged a strategic retreat. Oh, you can use phonics if you want... But during the first three years children are forced to memorize several hundred sight-words. But they still cannot read. They are functional illiterates pretending to read.
Please, people, don't put up with this in your community. This video shows what the gold standard looks like. Trust that.
(My upcoming book "Saving K-12" is in large part a response to the national decline created by sight-words....I was just in Italy where I gave two speeches before a group which is dedicated to removing sight-words from Italian schools.....The picture of the girl with the HELP sign was an early cover for "Saving K-12.")
(See American Thinker article "No Joy In Reading" for more about how our public schools make sure that reading is NOT easy: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/03/k12_no_joy_in_reading_thats_the_plan.html)
I learned reading so easily, I forgot how. I know that I started before I got to school at six. I never use a dictionary and my phonetic spelling was atrocious, but it got me through a doctorate and awards and kudos for my writing even though I did poorly on standardized tests in English and literature. Probably because I didn't memorize very much.
I don't like rap very much but have a hard time figuring out how rappers memorize such long strings of words in their rapidfire delivery. I have to read my poems because I find it hard to memorize them.
I like the video. It's simple and direct, while getting the message across.
Ron
I agree in large part with your thinking, while sight vocab is important, knowing how to figger out what the sounds in the words are and what they say and etc is often half the battle.
good luck with your book, may you have lots of success
Most teachers with whom I taught, agreed fully with Rudolph Flesch
Never stop writing!
m