Rationale for teaching sight words1/3/2024 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() In addition, the development of print awareness includes alphabet matching and letter naming, following print with the finger during read-alouds, and much interactive engagement with appealing books. Children at this level have not realized that words are composed of phonemes, that letters represent those speech sounds, and that words can be decoded by matching symbol to sound.Īppropriate activities at the pre-alphabetic level include phonological awareness tasks (carried out orally) such as rhyming counting, adding, and deleting syllables matching beginning consonants in words recognizing odd sounds substituting sounds and identifying that a sound exists in selected words (Adams, Treiman, & Pressley, 1997 Brady, Fowler, Stone, & Winbury, 1994 Foorman et al., 1997 Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 1997). A printed word may be remembered for its unique appearance, as in “pizza” or “D’Antoine.” If asked about the sound that begins “pizza, “however, the student might say “hot” or “m m m m.” This visual cue reading typically precedes the insight that alphabet letters correspond to speech sounds. Children will string letters together when they write and assign changing messages to them, or will look to context to guess at what a word says. Young children, typically before mid-kindergarten, may learn to recognize a limited vocabulary of whole words through incidental cues such as a picture, color, or shape (Ehri, 1994 Gough, Juel, & Griffith, 1992), but in this beginning stage of reading, do not associate sounds with symbols. The instruction we deliver should be compatible with the emerging competence of the student. The learner progresses from global to analytic processing, from approximate to specific linking of sound and symbol, and from context-driven to print-driven reading as proficiency is acquired. Moreover, a series of studies have traced how beginners learn to read and spell words (e.g., Ehri, 1994 Treiman, 1993 Wagner & Barker, 1994). The ability to sound out new words accounts for about 80 percent of the variance in first-grade reading comprehension, and continues to be a major factor in text comprehension as students progress through the grades (Foorman, Francis, Shaywitz, et al., 1997). That decoding is learned early by good readers is established in studies of reading development (Chall, 1983 Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997 Ehri, 1994). Align Decoding Instruction with the Stages of Reading Development As we shall see, problems abound not only with the approaches to decoding typically found in whole-language and “literature-based” programs but also with programs associated with traditional phonics. With rare exception, classroom practice is not informed by these principles. While this renewed interest in phonics is certainly a welcome development, we will make limited progress unless decoding instruction is grounded in what we know about the stages of reading development, the structure of the English language, and the strategies students employ to learn it. Automatic word recognition, which is dependent on phonic knowledge, allows the reader to attend to meaning likewise, slow, belabored decoding overloads short-term memory and impedes comprehension. Cognitive scientists have shown beyond doubt that fluent, accurate decoding is a hallmark of skilled reading (Adams, Treiman, & Pressley, 1997 Fletcher & Lyon, 1998 Rack, Snowling, & Olson, 1992 Share, 1995 Stanovich & Siegel, 1994 Vellutino, Scanlon, & Sipay, 1997). American Educator/Amercian Federation of TeachersĪs it has become increasingly apparent that substantial numbers of children are failing to become skilled readers, a consensus is emerging among reading researchers, practitioners, and policy makers concerning the critical role that decoding plays in the reading process (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). ![]()
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