Phonics or Sight Words

In light of read a book day, let's talk about learning to read. I started teaching my 5 year old the basics of reading early this year. She got the letter sounds down without a problem and teaching sentence structure and punctuation was a breeze. We started with some basic words; cat, hat, can, etc. I taught her the sounds for "ch", "th", and "sh" fairly quickly. But then, I found a little problem. I took the sound-it-out approach when we first started and later realized how complicated the English language can be. Do you know how many words can not be sounded out? So,I started to think about the sight word method. I've never liked sight words because it's just memorizing, rather than teaching, in my opinion. What other option is there, though, for words that can't be learned with basic phonics? I've come to the conclusion that the best approach is to combine the two methods. Explain the basics first. Then, when you come across words your child can't sound out, use repetition and let them know it's a word you have to memorize. Another useful tip; explain to your child that most words that have a vowel with an "e" at the end use the long vowel sound. For example, "ate". The "e" makes the "a" sound like "A" instead of "ah". Leave a comment with your useful reading tips. I'm always looking for innovative ways to enrich my child's mind. And don't forget to read a book today!