Marilyn Adams stated that “Skillful readers of English
thoroughly process the individual letters of words in their texts.” I
completely disagree with this quote. Now that I have been able to ‘dig’ deeper
into my understanding of reading, I know that reading is much more than
processing individual letters, especially with ‘skillful’ readers. Weaver has
explained very well how proficient readers are both effective and efficient. In
order to read proficiently, a reader must read for understanding. In order to
read for understanding, a reader must not focus on the individual letters and
words, but more of what the passage means. When readers focus on individual
letters and words, they are taking away from their ability to focus on the
meaning. In contrary to what Adams believes, research has found that ‘skillful’
readers do quite the opposite. ‘Skillful’ readers often miscue; however, it is
due to their ability to read past the specific letters and gain much
understanding and meaning from the text.
Katie,
ReplyDeleteI also disagreed with the quote presented in the Reading Reflection prompt. Just as you have delved into the process of reading, I have learned more about what the brain and eyes do, which is something a majority of people don't think about because it is so automatic.
I like your point that reading for meaning does not involve identifying every letter, but focuses on meaning. I agree that if a reader focuses on every letter, not only is he not going to be able to incorrectly read the English language, he will detract from the meaning in order to focus on the phonics rather than context and content.
Katie,
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you are saying, and I disagreed with the quote. Reading is much more than decoding letters and sounds. That is a grew point that readers must read for understanding, or why are they reading at all? I think it is important to allow students to have a strong letter-sound and phonics base, but to also teach children to look at what they are reading as a whole, whether that be the whole word or the whole text. Great points!
Katie,
ReplyDeleteI liked how you explained your reasoning for disagreeing with the given statement straight to the point. It was very easy to understand and reinforced the information we learned at the very beginning of the book. You are correct when you stated that "skilled" readers make just as many miscues as less proficient readers and that is because they are reading for meaning not reading to identify the exact wording. This example in a of itself fully answers the "why or why not" question from the prompt because it shows the readers are using more predictive skills.
Katie,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you in that reading is much more than processing each individual letter in a word. When I was reading. ”The Boat in the Basement” for example, I skimmed over several errors because I was trying to gain meaning from the text rather than look for errors in the passage. I really like how you pointed out that if readers are focusing on individual letters, than they are taking away from the overall meaning of the passage. I really like how the book included several activities to go along with the reading in order for me to experience not reading every single letter in the text. For example, on page 91 they had several letters missing and one is still able to decipher the word.