Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Sound It Out...Wait There's More!

When a child struggles with a word, you've always heard a teacher say "sound it out." "Many teachers are beginning to realize that although "sound it out" often comes to their lips, it isn't necessarily the best response. Why not? For one, the English language is not consistently phonetic." There have been so many times that I have told a child to sound it out but then say "Wait! This word doesn't follow the traditional rule." At that point, I have thought to myself... I have just truly confused this child! Did you know that 40 to 50% of the words in the English language cannot be sounded out? This is why we need to come up with other ways to help a child figure out to pronounce unknown words. When you watch a proficient reader, you know they don't rely solely on phonetics to figure out the unknown word. They use a variety of strategies and these are the strategies that we need to share with emerging readers and struggling readers. Do you prompt your students? Be sure "to keep your prompts short, specific, and to the point." When you prompt a student, this is asking the him to self-monitor. Proficient students continuously self-monitor as they read.  One prompt that is useful is asking the student "Does that make sense?" This is a powerful phrase which causes the student to think. "Our frequent repetition also fully supports the concept that everything we read is supposed to make sense." One way to model this is to make an intentional error and show how you monitor yourself for making sense. Another way to prompt is to use symbols to represent various strategic behaviors. "Introduce the symbols on strategy cards and show how we use them. The symbols represent in order: (1) checking the picture, (2) thinking about the story, (3) going back to reread, (4) checking the first letter(s), (5) checking unknown parts of the word, and (6) rereading to check and confirm." Leave these symbols on a nearby chart or on an index card next to the student so that the child can refer to it when you ask them for a strategy to solve the unknown word. Another strategy is to model rereading. When we model the rereading of a sentence or part of a sentence, it encourages children to do the same. We need to model in front of the entire class, in small groups, and when we work with students individually. While using these various strategies, we also prompting children to use meaning, structure, and visual information. All students need to use a balance of meaning, structural, and phonetic information simultaneously as they figure out unfamiliar words.  

4 comments:

  1. I am thankful that I have never been hung up on telling children to "sound it out". With my third graders normally I say something like "try it", does that make sense?, look at your picture, or skip it and see. I learned years ago that all students don't hear sounds or the correct sounds, and asking them to sound something out is beyond their understanding.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I so agree with you Rachel!!!! I also ask my students to try it, get their mouth ready for the first sound, and ask "does it make sense? Looking at the picture also is another thing I do with them. These things work so much better for the children then they way parents say "sound it out"!!! UGH!!!!! I wish we could hold a workshop teaching parents the correct way to help their child.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mrs. Horne - Daniel has never been afraid to "try" a new word and I am sure having you as a first grade teacher helped him to be that way. Of course, you know Daniel...when he "tries" a word and then you correct him, he is going to insist he is correct! :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Tracey,
    I loved this post! It is a powerful reminder of the importance of teaching with meaning in mind. Because our English language is full of words that are not easily decodable based on phonic rules, it is important to focus on meaning. You shared how the author suggested that we as teachers keep prompts to a minimum and to avoid always using "sound it out." Asking our readers "What does it mean?" allows them to build on their semantic knowledge of the word and the context of the sentence/passage. My favorite strategy you suggested was the modeling of a miscue and how we monitor our comprehension as proficient readers to go back and check our understanding, applying a strategy such as re-reading to help us build meaning. Excellent post! Remind us what text you are reading here.

    ReplyDelete