Katie Robinson
EDRD 7715
Dr. Ritchie
Module 1:Reading Reflection
June 5, 2012
What are some of the major differences between a skills approach to literacy and a comprehensive or sociopsycholinguistic approach?
When dealing with the skills approach to literacy, one believes in a bottom up approach. A bottom up approach refers to starting with letters and letter-sound relationships, then moving on to the eventual words. The meaning of a text is thought to just “happen” once the individual words have been identified and read. With the skills view of reading, meaning/understanding is thought of as a “property” of the text, not something that must be done by the reader themselves. The skills approach states that context, meaning, and prior knowledge (one’s schema) has no important part with helping to identify words. On page 34 of Weaver’s book Reading Process and Practice, Figure 2.5 does a wonderful job of visually displaying the skills model. Figure 2.5 starts with the ‘parts’ of reading, eventually working its way to the ‘whole’. The skills approach to literacy flows from “bottom up”, in this order: phonemic awareness (sounds), phonics (letter sounds), automatic, rapid word recognition, and meaning. The skills approach to literacy looks at reading as being able to decode individual sounds and word, verses understanding the whole text by using one’s schema and context clues.
A comprehensive or sociopsycholinguistic approach to reading is just the opposite. It states that one does not need to know the meaning of individual words or sounds in order to understand the general meaning of a text. Researchers find that if a reader can grasp the main idea or whole meaning of a passage, then they are better able to put meaning and understanding with individualized words. Since the skills approach followed a bottom up method, the sociopsycholinguistic approach correlates with a top-down or whole-to-part view. The sociopsycholinguistic view suggest that most words have multiple meanings (not just one), that words take on their own meaning depending on the way it is used in a sentence or passage, and that meaning is often brought about by one’s semantics or personal life stories and happenings. When compared to the skills approach, the comprehensive/sociopsycholinguistic approach is open to the reader developing their own understanding when using context clues and semantics.
I love how you wrote about each approach.It was very straightforward and easy to understand. I have had trouble understanding why so many people believe the skills approach. I cannot grasp the reasoning behind understanding the meaning of a text just by understanding how to say the letters and words. I do agree with the comprehensive approach though. I think when we read all the time, if we don't know a words meaning, we think about what the sentence is trying to say, and then we can usually define the unknown word. It is interesting to be studying this approach though, because I never knew it was an actual approach, and I do it all the time!
ReplyDeleteKatie,
ReplyDeleteYou did a great job of comparing and contrasting the different approaches. I like how in your discussion of the comprehensive approach you mentioned the importance of how reading involves the life stories that the reader brings with them. I began tutoring a little boy this afternoon in reading. He is entering second grade and is about one grade level behind. Before reading this weeks' reading I believe that I may have approached our session this afternoon with more of the skills approach. I think I probably would have focused on making sure that he sounded out and identified every word correctly. After the reading and reading some of our classmates' blogs, I really feel like I have a better understanding of how to teach reading to younger students. It is so important to build on the reader's schema to help them gain understanding of what they are reading. Today we focused on looking at the pictures in the book to help him think about what the text may be about. The book was about baseball and ballet, and we discussed both of these topics before reading. It was amazing how much this seemed to help when he came across words he couldn't identify (ballerina, stage, shortstop, etc.). It is so great to begin to put in to practice what we are learning. After reading the book we were able to go back and discuss the story. He was able to tell me everything we had read and make connections to the reading. I believe that if I had used the skills approach today, he would not have been nearly as successful in comprehending what he had read.
Katie,
ReplyDeleteI love what you wrote about each approach and really enjoyed that you mentioned figure 2.5 on page 34. It really is an excellent example of how the skills approach works. When talking about the sociopsycholinguistic you mentioned that if a reader can grasp the main idea or whole meaning of a passage, then they are better able to put meaning and understanding with individualized words. This is something I failed to mentioned in my blog post and am so glad you did. As readers we read we don't read every word in a sentence to gain meaning from each word. When working with a guided reading group during student teaching many of my readers would lack fluency in their reading because they were trying to read and gain meaning from each individual word. I think if we can teach our students using the sociopsycholinguistic approach and have them gain meaning from the whole passage it will ultimately help them become stronger readers.
Katie,
ReplyDeleteI like how you explain each approach. I love how you say "the meaning of a text is thought to just “happen” once the individual words have been identified and read." When you really think about that, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. How is someone suppose to just all of a sudden know a meaning? That is similar to saying, when I first read the word "sociopsycholinguistic." I could identify the letters and physically say the word; however, I didn't automatically know the meaning of the word. Once I read more about it and used context to understand the meaning through these chapters, I was able to apply and attach meaning to the word. I've developed schemas for the word. I really love how Weaver has described the comprehensive approach to literacy. I've been able to get a better understanding of my jumbled thoughts!