Decoding skills - PDF document

11K-3 English is an alphabeticlanguage in that thecompose the lan-guage are representedby to understand thisin reading will be verylimited. Decoding SkillsPhonics/Sequential Decoding T he role of phonics in beginning reading instruction has been the topicof what seems like endless discussion and debate; the consensusamong the documents reviewed for this framework is strikingÑearly,ect, systematic, explicit instruction in phonics results in higher levels ofbeginning reading achievement. English is an alphabetic language in thatthe sounds (phonemes) that compose the language are resented by letters (graphemes). Unless children come to understand this ÒalphabeticprincipleÓ, or code, their press in reading will be very limited. One of the major issues in phonics instruction is whether or not phonicsshould be taught Òexplicitly.Ó There are two dimensions that distinguishexplicit phonics instructionÑsounds associated with letters are identifiedin isolation, and the isolated sounds are blended together to produce ad. This blending of sounds to identify words is called sequentialdecoding. In contrast, in implicit instruction, teachers point out ramong whole words; for example, ÒbedÓ and ÒboatÓ both sound like theybegin the same.In the past, prior to the accumulation of convincing evidence, theree concerns about teaching children to sequentially decode worbecause it was seen as a slow, laborious, attention-draining process; if achildÕs attention was fully focused on decoding, this seemed likely toe with the childÕs ability to construct the meaning of the text beingread. However, it is only through such deliberate attention and prof print that children develop the ability to rapidly and automatically recognize words the way mature readers do. This rapid, automatic recognition of words frees the rÕs attention for constructing meaningom the text she or he is reading. Thus, sequential decoding is a reasonable, reliable way for children to identify words that are unfamiliar to them in print; however, sequential decoding has the long-term beneficial effect of familiarizing children with the letter patterns in ds, which allows for rapid, effortless word identification.The following quotations support the systematic, explicit teaching ofphonics and sequential decoding:ÒMy analysis of the existing experimental comparisons of a meaningemphasis versus a code emphasis tends to support BloomfieldÕs definition that the first step in learning to read in oneÕs native language is essentially learning a printed code for the speech we possess. It does not support the prevailing view that sees the beginning reader as a miniature adult who should from the start,engage in mature reading. Early stress on code learning, these studies indicate, not only produces better word recognition andspelling, but also makes it easier for the child eventually to read with understandingÑat least up to the beginning of the fourth grade,after which point there is no particular evidence.Ó (p. 83)ÒIt [experimental rch] does, however, show us that the twoemphases produce difent learning patterns. There is some experimental evidence that children of below-average and averageintelligence and children of lower socioeconomic background do better with an early code emphasis.Ó (p. 84)ÒIn short, the clinical reports analyzed give us reason to believe that aonger code emphasis would help prevent reading failure, althoughnever eliminate it entir.Ó (p. 84)ÒI cannot emphasize too strongly that the evidence does not endorseany one code-emphasis method over anotherÉ Nor can I emphasizetoo strongly that I recommend a code emphasis only as a beginningreading methodÑa method to the child onÑand that I do recommend ignoring r-meaning practice.Ó (p. 307)[NOTE: In a 1983 release of ChallÕs report, she adds evidence that pro-grams teaching direct synthetic phonics appear to be especially eftive (see Adams, p. 39, footnote 10).]oom rch shows that, on the average, children who aretaught phonics get off to a better start in learning to read than childrwho are not taught phonics. The advantage is most apparent on testsof word identification, though children in programs in which phonicsgets a heavy stress also do better on tests of sentence Phonics/Sequential Decoding (continued) ch indicates that teachers who spend more than averageamounts of time on blending produce larger than average gains onfirst- and second-grade reading achievement tests.Ó (p. 39)ch evidence tends to favor explicit phonics instruction.Ó (p. 43)ÒThe best way to get children to refine and extend their knowledge of-sound correspondences is through repeated opportunities to read.Ó (p. 38)ÒIn summary, deep and thorough knowledge of letters, spelling patterns, and words and of the phonological translations of all thre of inescapable importance to both skillful reading and its acquisition.By extension, instruction designed to develop childrenÕs sensitivity tospellings and their relations to pronunciations should be of paramountimportance in the development of reading skills. This is, of course,ecisely what is intended of good phonics instruction.Ó (p. 416)haps the most well-respected value of letter-sound instruction isthat it provides children with a means of deciphering written worthat are not familiar as wholes. Applying their knowledge of lettersound correspondences, they can sound the word out discovering orconfirming its identity by themselves.Ó (p. 216)ÒÉthe ability to perceive words and syllables as wholes evolves onlyough complete and repeated attention to sequences of individualletters.Ó (p. 130)en initially apply knowledge of phonics as they move sequen-tially through the letters of a wordÉ of howto segment and blend sounds to decode unknown words are a prima-ry source of information for beginning rinvolves children in spelling words with the letter-sound patterns that are the focus of lessonsÉ Writing with 14K-3 Éan analogy approachto word identificationfocuses on recognizinga new word because itshares a word patternwith a known word. Phonics/Sequential Decoding (continued)2. Analogy I n addition to recognizing words through the use of individual letter-sound associations, an analogy approach to word identification focuseson recognizing a new word because it shares a word pattern with a knownd. For example, a child who knows the word very well, and whoknows the sound for the letter , could use this combined information toidentify a previously unseen worThe most common approach to teaching children word patterns is towork with commonly occurring rimes. (Arime is the vowel in a syllable andany consonants that follow it; e.g., in in ; in .) Rimes aree commonly red to by teachers as ÒphonogramsÓ or Òword families.ÓReading words through analogy or through a focus on rimes is not asubstitute for sequential decoding. The previous discussion of phonicsmakes it clear that careful, sequential application of letter-sound associa-tions is a necessary step in building familiarity with the orthographic patterns in words; working with phonograms can rce patterns thate common to many worcommon spelling patterns through instruction with common rimes, whichhelps children decode by analogy. The following quotations support these conclusions: d families or phonograms are lists of words that by design sharesome significant fragment of their spelling and sound pattern, such asbill, fill, pill, will, hillÉ exercise with word families fulfills the desirablegoal of rcing the integrity of frequent spelling patterns even asthey participate in difent words. For both skillful readers and computer simulations of skillful readers, the orthographic rtions of words with such overlapping spelling patterns are tightlyelated in memory.Ó (p. 132)ÒÉSeveral recent studies have obtained improvements in childrability to pronounce two syllable words by training them to compareeach syllable to known one syllable words.Ó (p. 133)e, sets of words with matching rimes, such as , , e nothing more or less than ÔphonogramsÕ or Ôword families.Ô They have long been central components of a variety ofoaches to instruction on word identification.Ó (p. 319)ÒAlthough our attention to the perceptual salience of onsets and rimeshas thus far been focused on its implications for the acquisition ofphonemic awareness, evidence suggests that these units may be equallyinfluential in the acquisition and operation of printed word rskillsÉ most provocative of all in this domain may be a recent rby Goswami that low readiness five and six year olds can occasionally,with no further instruction, induce the pronunciation of new words byanalogy to another with the same rime.Ó (pp. 319-320) ÒIn further support of the utility of phonograms for beginning ruction, Wylie and Durrell pointed to their generalizability morespecificallyÉ Wylie and Durrell point out that nearly 500 primaryds can be derived from a set of only 37 rimesÉÓ (p. 321) 16 K-3 Érecent research haswn convincingly thatyoung and poor readersrely on context more than skilled,cient readers.readers areto quickly and ately identify wbased on their letter com- This does not mean thatuse of context is an unimportant skill f, efficient reading. 3. Context C ontext, when applied to decoding or word recognition, refers to theuse of syntactic and meaning clues to help identify an unknown orficult word in a text that is being read. Consider, for example, theincomplete sentence, ÒHe was riding on a _______.Ó The syntax indicatesthat the missing word is a noun; the accumulated meaning of the sentencesuggests the missing word may be a vehicle (bicycle, wagon), an animal, horse), or a physical place (hill, mountain), and other possibilitiesas well. In the past, it was speculated that poor readers had difficulty rbecause they werenÕt using context clues; however, more recent rhas shown convincingly that young and poor readers rely on context cluese than skilled, proficient readers. Skilled readers are able to quickly andaccurately identify words based on their letter composition. ch also confirms that context clues are limited because they arenot reliable; it is rarely possible to determine an exact word in a text basedon context. Context narrows the word possibilities, but rarely determinesthe exact word of a text, as is illustrated in the incomplete sentence usedeviously in this section. This does not mean that use of context is anunimportant skill for mature, efficient reading. Context serves at leastee important functions: (1) it helps to confirm the pronunciation of ad that a child might arrive at through sequential decoding, (2) it clari-fies multiple-meaning words and in this sense may even be necessary toarrive at the correct pronunciation of a word (e.g., Òlead a paradeÓ vs. Òa lead pipeÓ), and (3) it sometimes helps with the meaning of a word that is not known by a rch-based reading instruction and instructional materials mustteach children not to overely on context. The instruction must focus onthe appropriate use of context, which teaches children to focus first on thevisual form of the word and its letter-sound associations. The followingquotations from rch reports support the conclusions drawn about theuse of context:ÒÉthe rÕs understanding of the context in which a word occurscan help to emphasize or boost the activation of contextually rcomponents of the wordÕs meaning, to select alternative interpr 17 of ambiguous words, and even to create a meaning for the word wheree otherwise might be none.Ó (p. 175)ÒFor readers with less orthographic facility, one might expect wordrecognition to depend much more strongly on contextual clues. Researconfirms this hypothesis. Younger and poorer readers tend to rely significantly more heavily on context than do more experienced andskillful readers.Ó (p. 182)ÒThe major problem with using contextual cues for word identifica-tion is that they are unreliableÉ The strategy of relying on context isalso less than ideal for purposes of word learning.Ó ÒAlthough context and pictures can be used as tools to monitor wordrecognition, children should not be taught to use them to substitutefor information provided by the letters in the word.Ó (p. 323)ÒLaboratory rch with good and poor readers at second grade andbeyond has repeatedly demonstrated that, whereas good rbecome as fast and accurate at recognizing words without context aswith, poor readers as a group remain difentially dependent on context. An overreliance on context is symptomatic that orthographicocessing is processing neither quickly nor completely enough to doits job.Ó (p. 212)d meanings and sometimes their pronunciations are necessarilycontext dependent; for example, ÔspringÕ can refer to a season of theyear or a coiled piece of metal and ÔreadÕ can be pronounced likeeedÕ or Ôred.Õ Context is important in interpreting the meaning of ad in a sentence, and skilled readers do this more efficiently thanless skilled readersÉ and although skilled readers are very good atusing context to figure out the meaning of a word, it is less skilledreaders who attempt to make the greater use of context to identify ad.Ó (pp. 66-67) 18 K-3 account for 65% of thewords in beginning read-ing mater, and a 500 words accountf90% of the running win childrenÕs te Instant Word Recognition P revious sections of this paper presented the major roles that phonicsand analogy approaches play in word recognition. However, thosesections also noted that skilled readers become capable of rds with remarkable speedÑthey recognize words instantly (by sight).This instant, accurate recognition of most of the words a reader encountersis critical; if students must focus much of their attention on decodingds, insufficient attention will be available for constructing the meaningof text. In order to build a large store of words that are recognized instant-, children need many opportunities to read. Age instant rvocabulary helps make children adept in word reading and fluency.e is a special class of words that is particularly important inbeginning reading instrequency wordsÑthose words thatappear over and over again in English. oximately 300 words accountfor 65% of the words in beginning reading materials, and a mere 500ds account for 90% of the running words in childrenÕs text. Theseds are particularly challenging because they carry little concrete meaning and because many of them are composed of irregular letter-sound relationships. For example, the should rhyme with with ; should be pronounced as , and of ch-based instructional materials need to pay careful attention to building instant recognition (sight recognition) of many words threful attention to the letters and orthographic patterns in those worwith special attention in beginning reading instruction to high-frds with their attendant letter-sound correspondence irrYoung readers also need to read appropriately challenging texts that not onlyallow for the application of the phonics skills they are learning, but whichcontain and repeat the high-frequency words that are critically for success in beginning reading. (See Texts for Reading Instrto high-frequency wor¥ 1985 - Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & WÒPhonics instruction is just the first step toward the ultimate goal offast, accurate word identification and fluent reading. What must occuris that students become so familiar with letter-sound relationships thatds are identified automatically, that is, with little conscious attention.Ó 19 ÒBoth the immediate and long term impact of reading depend criticallyon the speed as well as the accuracy with which readers can identifythe individual letters and words of the text.Ó (p. 159)ÒLine by line in running text, most words are common worthat are seen frequently and that we must generally recognize instantlyand easilyÉ Carroll, Davies, and Richman reported that 90 percent ofschool childrenÕs running text consists of just 5,000 common worand a similar distribution is found in adult texts.Ó (p. 184)ÒÉthe committee strongly recommends attention in every primaryoom to the full array of early reading accomplishments: thealphabetic principle, reading sight words, reading words by mapping speech sounds to parts of words, achieving fluency and comprehension.Ó (p. 6)ÒEntry level rebus books are often designed to build a basic sighte of such short and very frequent function words as ÔtheÕ, Õ, ÔisÕ and ÔareÕ.Ó (p. 182)ÒFirst-grade instruction should be designed to pr¥ sight recognition of frequent words;ÉÓ (p. 194)ÒÉAdequate press in learning to read English beyond the initiallevel depends on having established a working understanding of how sounds are resented alphabetically, sufficient practice in reading to achieve fluency with difent kinds of texts written for ent purposes, instruction focused on concept and vocabularyowth, and control over pres for monitoring comprand repairing misunderstandings.Ó (p. 223)¥ 1998 - Hiebert, Pearson, T, Richardson, & Parisoficient readers recognize the vast majority of words in texts quickly,allowing them to focus on the meaning of text. Since appr 20 Instant Word Recognition (continued)300 words account for 65% of the words in texts, , perhaps ulti-mately moreof carefulattention to the letters ofwords is the ability to rec-e words easily and efftlessly sothat the readerÕs can be fon com-prehending and enjothe te