>     Sure.  Sugar.  Comb.  Tomb -vs- bomb.  A as in As,
 > or A as in Army.   Which witch.  There, their.
 >     I could go on and on.  For some kids, thse are
 > easilly learned as exceptions, but for others they are an inpenatrable
 > barriar, if presented with ONLY phonics.  I'm not saying that phonics 
sn't
 > helpfull, but it isn't the whole answer for every kid.
There *are* words that have to be learned by sight - I won't argue with that. 
Some phonics programs (Slingerland and A Beka come to mind) have kids 
learning about those exceptions in a phonetic sort of way, tho.
What I was referring to, tho, was the idea that some educators have that 
totally ignore the fact that usually s says ssssssss like in snake, etc. When 
I taught kindergarten, our letters and sounds program emphasized the letter 
shape and its sound. But many programs these days don't do that.
We got good news in California this past week....our Super of Educ up in 
Sacramento has finally decided that the state needs to include phonics in the 
reading education....geesh, it's about time!
                                 -donna
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