#6 AbelsM_Learning/ Word recognition vs. Acquisition/ Sociopsycholinguistics

           There are two different views of how to teach reading, according to Freeman and Freeman (2004). Word Recognition is the view that students need to be directly taught how to read and all of the skills and strategies that accompany reading. The sociopsycholinguistic view is that students, to some degree, will pick up on written language and acquire the necessary skills they will need to become readers. Both different perspectives, in the end, produce the same goal, they just are different paths of getting there.

**All information listed below is from Freeman and Freeman, 2004

Word Recognition View:
*The main idea:

• The main task is to identify words so that students can later phrase them together to read
• By directly teaching reading, students will have the skill set to make these necessary connections

*Goal:

• Help students learn to identify words
• Link words on paper to words that are already present in a student's vocabulary. Then use these words to make meaning of a text
• If a student can pronounce a word, they can understand that word
• Recoding- changing written language into oral language- which means the student understands
• There is the danger that students can read the words without knowing the meaning, so this part of the word recognition stage will be lost (happens more often with ELLs)

*Method

• Learning the rules of phonics- primary tool
• Develop a set of sight words, since there are some words that break the common patterns
• Learn how to chunk words into smaller components and then sound them out (learn the structural analysis of words)

*Classroom Practices

• Teach skills directly
• Pre-teach words or vocabulary students might not know using phonics, sight words, or structural analysis
• Define words, write definitions
• Have students read aloud often in the classroom
• Round-robin reading- teachers correct students or supply them with a word

Sociopsycholingustic View:
*The main idea:

• Reading is a process of constructing meaning (p. 24)
• Readers use their background knowledge in addition to their current reading skills to decode works and make sense out of texts that are unfamiliar to them, which helps them become proficient readers

*Goal:

•  Construct meaning based on background knowledge instead of identifying individual words
• This process of combining background knowledge and what the students know about the text in front of them occurs quickly
• Different readers come up with different meanings since they all have different background knowledge

*Method

• Letters and sounds are one source of information, but they are not the only source of information that students have- they should be combined with other methods to make the most meaning out of reading
• Look at visuals to infer meaning
• Look at the sentence structure (syntax) to help infer meaning
• Use knowledge of word parts- prefixes and suffixes

*Classroom Practices

• Students read on their own to gain vocabulary words and build up their individual vocabularies when they see words in different contexts and at different levels
• Students can figure out roles a word plays, endings it might have, multiple meanings, and if it is formal/informal if they see it on their own multiple times
• Read aloud is only done in reader's theater- most reading in this view is done silently
• Teach strategies for silent reading

          Both views of reading are very different, but could be successful for different students depending on their learning styles or the classrooms in which they are implemented.