As a graduate student in elementary education, my courses often focus on teaching students how to read or working with struggling readers. Studying how children learn to read and how some students struggle with reading forces me to reflect on my own experiences with learning how to read. If you ask an adult if they remember how they learned to read or even who taught them, they often cannot recall. Many people think that one day it just clicked for them. Often that is the case for individuals who did have difficulty when it came to reading. Unfortunately this was not the case for me. As a child I had a speech impediment. If you cannot pronounce the words, you cannot read them. Many times I would hear my parents or teachers tell me to "Sound it out," when I came across an unfamiliar word. Often this three letter phrase would leave me in tears. Why didn't someone offer some more useful advice? Why couldn't I just sound out those tricky words?
The simple answer is that they didn't know any better. We are taught to focus on the phonics and that children need time to try these new words. Well sometimes words just cannot be sounded out. The English language is a vast and complicated language. Many words are irregular and do not follow typical phonetic patterns. How do we expect children to sound out these words if they have never had experience with them previously?
Now, I have some concerns about how I will be as a teacher. One new concern is how can I help struggling students improve their reading without say that horrible three word phrase, "Sound it out." In Catching Readers Before They Fall, authors Pat Johnson and Katie Keier offer a solution to sounding it out. The authors provide three new methods to help students read unfamiliar words. Instead of having students sound out the unfamiliar word, students should instead meaning, structure, and visual information to read the word.
Meaning- knowledge that includes any background knowledge, information gained from the pictures in the text, or ideas gathered from the context of the sentence or story. Readers think about what makes sense.
Structure- knowledge that comes from being familiar with spoken language, English structure, and how it sounds. Readers choose words that sound right.
Visual- any letter/sound correspondence knowledge a person has. Readers check to see if the word looks right.
Students need to find a balance between these three pieces of information to determine the unfamiliar word. For meaning, parents and teachers can help the student by providing them with a good foundation of the story plot. Students can use this information to help decide if the word makes sense with the story line. For structure, students can substitute words that follow the same English structure and have similar meanings. For visual, students can see if the word looks right by checking to see if the words share the same beginning letter and sound.
After reading about meaning, structure, and visual interpretation, I had the unique chance to give them a try. I had a family lunch today. My five year old nice Lillian brought along a Fly Guy book to entertain herself. I sat next to her and listened to her read. Not only did Lillian substitute words accurately to match meaning, structure, and visual, but she went a step further. Lillian used the pictures in the book to help figure out the unknown word. When she came to the word bored, she quickly said it. I praised her for her ability to read such a difficult word. Then she told me, "I don't know that word, I just looked at the picture and thought he looks really bored." Needless to say I was impressed.
So the lesson to learn today is to know when to use the phrase "Sound it out." Sometimes students can try and sound out the word and they should practice those phonics skills. But sounding it out is not the only way. Children can use what they have to read those difficult new words. What can parents and teachers do to help children with meaning, structure, and visual? Ask them questions! Prompt them with suggestions! Give guidance! Saying "sound it out," is a lot easier, but in the end, the child will benefit most from using meaning, structure, and visual to determine the word.
The simple answer is that they didn't know any better. We are taught to focus on the phonics and that children need time to try these new words. Well sometimes words just cannot be sounded out. The English language is a vast and complicated language. Many words are irregular and do not follow typical phonetic patterns. How do we expect children to sound out these words if they have never had experience with them previously?
Now, I have some concerns about how I will be as a teacher. One new concern is how can I help struggling students improve their reading without say that horrible three word phrase, "Sound it out." In Catching Readers Before They Fall, authors Pat Johnson and Katie Keier offer a solution to sounding it out. The authors provide three new methods to help students read unfamiliar words. Instead of having students sound out the unfamiliar word, students should instead meaning, structure, and visual information to read the word.
Meaning- knowledge that includes any background knowledge, information gained from the pictures in the text, or ideas gathered from the context of the sentence or story. Readers think about what makes sense.
Structure- knowledge that comes from being familiar with spoken language, English structure, and how it sounds. Readers choose words that sound right.
Visual- any letter/sound correspondence knowledge a person has. Readers check to see if the word looks right.
Students need to find a balance between these three pieces of information to determine the unfamiliar word. For meaning, parents and teachers can help the student by providing them with a good foundation of the story plot. Students can use this information to help decide if the word makes sense with the story line. For structure, students can substitute words that follow the same English structure and have similar meanings. For visual, students can see if the word looks right by checking to see if the words share the same beginning letter and sound.
After reading about meaning, structure, and visual interpretation, I had the unique chance to give them a try. I had a family lunch today. My five year old nice Lillian brought along a Fly Guy book to entertain herself. I sat next to her and listened to her read. Not only did Lillian substitute words accurately to match meaning, structure, and visual, but she went a step further. Lillian used the pictures in the book to help figure out the unknown word. When she came to the word bored, she quickly said it. I praised her for her ability to read such a difficult word. Then she told me, "I don't know that word, I just looked at the picture and thought he looks really bored." Needless to say I was impressed.
So the lesson to learn today is to know when to use the phrase "Sound it out." Sometimes students can try and sound out the word and they should practice those phonics skills. But sounding it out is not the only way. Children can use what they have to read those difficult new words. What can parents and teachers do to help children with meaning, structure, and visual? Ask them questions! Prompt them with suggestions! Give guidance! Saying "sound it out," is a lot easier, but in the end, the child will benefit most from using meaning, structure, and visual to determine the word.
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