Word Recognition

“Because young children cannot read many printed words automatically, we encourage them to use the context, any illustrations, and what they already know about language and the world to support their fledgling word recognition”

            Chapter seven of the Graves text highlights how word recognition can be difficult and some strategies that can be used to help students better recognize words when reading. If students are struggling with word recognition, they will miss important clues and parts of a story. The Graves text first discusses why listening is easier than reading. I know how much I enjoy being read to every Wednesday and Friday in class. It is easier for me to imagine and wonder about what is being said by my professor. The Graves text states that when listening students can both receive and give immediate feedback. Students can also contextualize meaning and visual cues from speaker in order to understand a message or story better. When being read to in class, my professor sometimes raises her voice, or makes faces at certain parts of the book. If the character is angry not only can I hear her say the words, I can also see the expression on her face. The listener can use the speaker’s features, voice, lip movement and body language to better understand a story.

                     The Graves text continues to discuss that such task as word recognition is not a problem for skilled readers. I chose the quote above because young children are not skilled readers yet. I work at a child daycare and I see that the children are more interested in the pictures than the words printed on the pages of a book. A little boy once read me a story, the story that he created did not exactly match with the words printed on the paper. I noticed that he was aware of all of the characters and objects in the story. He could tell me what every picture was about, but could not read the words. In this case he was using the illustrations in the book, prior knowledge and his everyday surroundings to classify objects and people in the book we were reading. The Graves text continues on describing the structure of printed words, such as how are words formed. The Graves text also highlights some important components of language; phonemes, vowels, consonants, word families, and morphemes.  A student’s knowledge and awareness of these terms will make reading a lot of easier.  With every chapter that I read in this text book, A teacher’s knowledge of his or her student seems to always be key in helping students improve at different task. It is important as future educators to know your students reading level, strengths and weakness.