Regular Word Reading

Beginning decoding ("phonological recoding") is the ability to:

• read from left to right, simple, unfamiliar regular words.
• generate the sounds for all letters.
• blend sounds into recognizable words.

Beginning spelling is the ability to:

• translate speech to print using phonemic awareness and knowledge of letter-sounds.

Why is Word Reading Important?

Because our language is alphabetic, decoding is an essential and primary means of recognizing words. There are simply too many words in the English language to rely on memorization as a primary word identification strategy (Bay Area Reading Task Force, 1996, see References).

Why is Word Reading in Text Important?

A primary goal of beginning reading instruction is to prepare students to read texts fluently so that they are able to construct meaning as they read (Texas Center for Reading and Language Arts, 1998 (see References).

Definitions:

• Decodable Text: Text in which the majority of words can be identified using their most common sounds. Reading materials in which a high percentage of words are linked to phonics lessons using letter-sound correspondences children have been taught. Decodable text is an intermediate step between reading words in isolation and authentic literature. These texts are used to help students focus their attention on the sound-symbol relationships they are learning. Effective decodable texts contain some sight words that allow for the development of more interesting stories.
• Decoding: The process of using letter-sound correspondences to recognize words.
• Nonsense or Pseudoword: A word in which the letters make their most common sounds but the word has no commonly recognized meaning (e.g., tist, lof).
• Phonological Recoding: Translation of letters to sounds to words to gain lexical access to the word.
• Regular Word: A word in which all the letters represent their most common sound.
• Sight Word Reading: The process of reading words at a regular rate without vocalizing the individual sounds in a word (i.e., reading words the fast way).
• Sounding Out: The process of saying each sound that represents a letter in a word without stopping between sounds.