Word Recognition for the Journey of Life :: Education, Phonics

Most adults are able to see words and instantly know their meaning. For example, we will see the word futon and associate it with furniture and not foods. Word recognition is a skill that is developed over years and occurs in stages. It is important for teachers to recognize these stages and Jennings, Caldwell and Lerner (2010) stress that knowing those stages will allow teachers to help those students with reading troubles (pg. 191). The first stage Jennings, Caldwell and Lerner (2010) mentioned is Logographic or the visual cue reading stage. You will often hear a mothers say that her child can read because he or she recognizes words of famous landmarks. This is because they recognized word using only visual cue (pg. 191). They then shift to the second stage of partial alphabetic stage or phonic cue recoding stage. In this stage, children have a working knowledge of the alphabet. Jennings, Caldwell and Lerner (2010) made clear that children are not reading whole words but are only looking at the first and last part of words and also mostly relying on pictures and context (pg. 192). From this stage, children move into the full alphabetic stage. Jennings, Caldwell and Lerner (2010) say by then they are paying attention to the pattern of words and how vowels are situated (pg. 192). The last stage is big accomplishment in reading. Known as the sight word reading stage children automatically recognize words w ithout chunking or sounding out. It is within this stage that comprehension takes place. Phonics help children learn to read. It is the first step in decoding or sounding out words. The first step in teaching phonic is to teach children how to identify each letter by its name and their sounds. Flashcards are great to use in this process. The letters can be shown and students say the sounds. As they progress I would implement phonogram as described by Jennings, Caldwell and Lerner (2010). Children need to know how combinations of letters make sounds. For example ck say k as in clock. I would teach this through word games. I would also show them that they can change letters to make new words e words such as cat into hat. Jennings, Caldwell and Lerner (2010) went on to say that it is also effective to read a book with decodable words and manipulate letters in words to make other words (pg.