Do you agree with Marilyn Adams (1990, p. 108) who argued
that rather than relying on context, skillful readers of English thoroughly
process the individual letters of words in their texts? Why or why not?
"When we
read for comprehension, it seems clear, in fact, that we do NOT first identify
the smallest units of language, letters, and then work upwards"
I do not agree with Marilyn Adams statement. I like the
example of reading a text in a foreign language, just because you have all the
visual cues and can decode every letter does not help you read and comprehend
the language. So I think about a person
reading, if you have no idea what is going on in the story (like when hearing a
foreign language) but you can pronounce and articulate all the words, it does
not make you a skillful or proficient reader.
The non-visual information (context) is what takes on most of the role of
reading. The more non-visual information
you have when you read the less visual information you need.
It also makes me think of why one of the first strategies
for the early stages of effective instructional planning is doing a picture
walk with children. That is what is
appropriate. You are presenting context
to the children so then they can take that text and try to read it using prior
knowledge. You are not showing children
sentences on blank pages and expecting them to comprehend a story.
I believe that an effective reader does not thoroughly
process the individual letters of words in their texts, but is conscious that
those letters are there. They use
context to perceive and recognize the words.
I agree with you- I liked how you stated that an effective reader does not thoroughly process the letters of the text but knows they are there. If we read letter by letter our comprehension would suffer. We, as proficient readers, are able to use the non-visual information in order to create meaning. I also love doing picture walks with my students- they seem to be more engaged when I read them a story if they have seen the pictures first!
ReplyDeleteMegan,
ReplyDeleteI liked that you mentioned about the example of reading a text in a foreign language.I agree with you that a student can pronounce every words in the text and does not comprehend the text. When I was reading the text, I actually thought about one of my students. He was a 1st grade newcomer from Honduras. He came to our school not being able to speak English at all and was reading on a Kindergarten level. After a month, he was able to read on a 1st grade level with no problem. When we gave him books on his grade level. He was able to read all the words and pronounced all the words correctly. Although, he wasn't able to retell the story in English. I always thought how strange it was that he has never seen those difficult words before and didn't know the meaning of those words and he was able to pronounce those words easily.