Yes, kids can check their phonics by making sure what they read makes sense and sounds right, but the first thing they should be doing when reading a word is sounding it out.
(Is reading just about phonics? Certainly not! But kids must develop automaticity with decoding, and that’s hard to come by when we tell them to look at the picture when they approach an unfamiliar word.)
Since my original post encouraged teachers to direct kids to the picture when solving new words, I’ve decided to remove the post.
When we know better, we do better.
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