Today was a very informational, interesting day at a teacher workshop I attended! Here is what I learned...
There is a woman named Marily Jager Adams who came up with this four part model which basically displays and explains how we learn to read, more specially how a child learns to read. What are the thinking and learning processes a child goes through while learning to read?
Our written language is based on an alphabetic systerm. Therefore in order to read an unknown word a child must:
1. Process the written symbols.
2. Link the written symbols to a phonological unit.
3. Link the phonological unit(s) to a word meaning.
4. Construct an ongoing understanding of the text.
The Four Part Mental Processing Model
Phonological (speech)
Orthographic (print)
Meaning
Context
Interesting tidbits:
1.) If a child has never heard a word used verbally, it will be difficult for them to pronouce it. For example: If a child has never heard the word "fan" and more specifially heard the different meanings. One being, the fan that cools us off, and Two being a sports fan. So when that child reads "My dad is a fan." That child may not be able to pronounce /f//a//n/, because that doesn't make sense. Their thinking process may be, "My dad is a thing that turns on the ceiling?" They will think that the word must not be "fan" even though the sounds are /f//a//n/, because, duh, that just doesn't make sense.
Silly sounding, I know, but it's true. That is why I completely and wholeheartly believe it is so important for parents to talk to their babies and as the child gets older engage in conversations with their child. I don't mean just telling their child what to do, when and where, but actually sit down, model good conversation skills by looking at them, asking open-ended questions ("WIll you please tell me how that makes you feel? What do you think about this?"), and showing good listening skills. Children watch more than we realize. More is "caught" than "taught".
I find this information very interesting.
Think back to when you learned how to read. Can you remember? How were you taught? Sounds first? Letter Recognition? How did you learn to comprehend text that you read or heard?
I honestly can't remember specifics of learning sounds and new words. Somehow I became a reader. However, the way reading and writing and that whole process is taught today in school has more meaning than the way I learned. When I teach I tell "why" we are doing something so they can make the connections and "school" has a point.
2.)There are about 41 phonemes in our language. (Phoneme are the sounds you hear.) For example: cat has three phonemes: /c//a//t/. rhyme also has three: /r//i//m/. It is amazing that out of all the words we speak, they all derive from about 41 different sounds.
When you think about it, every word that comes from your mouth is just a bunch of different sounds put together. Maybe I'm just nerd and think about such things. Languages are fascinating!! I think it would be so interesting to learn several different languages, because they too are just a bunch of different sounds that contruct meaning in different ways.
