Reply to Why are we still teaching reading the wrong way?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous] Comprehension is the only thing that matters. A child does not need to decode an unusual surname. They just need to recognize it as a name. [/quote]

The point is, a reader should be able to decode ANY unfamiliar word.  For us as adults, usually we only see unknown words in a Science Fiction novel.  But for an 5th grader reading a science article, there could be 8 or 10 unknown words on any page!

The student cannot learn new words through reading if she hasn't even a clue how to pronounce the words.

Imagine a child trying to read the following paragraph.  This is an example of a text I once had a 6th grade student read, and I have bolded words she failed to read, and put in italics her guess instead.  You may say she failed to "guess" the words or "scan ahead and use context" but I will tell you she just had NO CLUE what the word was.

[quote]For most animals, [b]climate[/b] ([i]climbing[/i]) change is [b]seriously[/b] ([i]suddenly[/i]) bad news. By 2050, it will be the fastest growing threat to [b]biodiversity[/b] ([i]i don't know b-b-universe[/i]) in the Americas, and by 2100 it could have [b]wiped[/b] ([i]whipped[/i])out more than half of [b]African[/b] ([i]after[/i]) bird and [b]mammal[/b] ([i]maimed[/i]) [b]species [/b]([i]special[/i]). From sea turtles to polar bears to pikas, many of our most [i]charismatic[/i] ([i]charmed[/i]) species are in [b]jeopardy[/b] ([i]jealous[/i]).

[/quote]

The only things wrong with the above student was that she had not yet learned how to wound out one syllable words.  She knew the meaning of climate, wiped out, mammal and African.  But there was NO WAY she could have guessed those words in context of the paragraph.  There were just too many unknown words for that to be an effective strategy.

A far more effective strategy was to go back to basics and teacher her how to sound out first the one syllable words, and then how to handle the two syllable words.   Obviously this was not a simple "mini-lesson" word study, but a systematic, organized approach to decoding.  If someone had done this instruction in 1st and 2nd grade it would have saved her a lot of trouble.

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