Module 3: Reading Response

         

          I do not agree with Marilyn Adams who claimed that “skillful readers of English thoroughly process the individual letters of words in their texts” (1990, p.108)  because further research has determined that “skillful readers” process words in letter chunks much like syllables and are able to correctly identify words with specific letters missing. Due to proficient reader’s ability to use their prior knowledge and surrounding context to help identify words as well as through the use of their parafoveal region, readers do not need to focus on individual phonics rules when they are more likely to read the word as a whole through analogy with familiar letter patterns. “Clearly, fluent readers do no process words letter-by-letter. Just as we do not comprehend sentences merely by combining the meanings of individual words, so we do not perceive words merely by combining the perceptions of individual letters” (Weaver, 2002, p.96).

            I completed the activity on page 96 that was a replica experiment from Edmund Huey’s The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading (1908/1968, p.100) where I was to read a list of letters, four-letter words and eight-letter words where I timed myself on each. It took me ten seconds to read the column of letters, eleven seconds to read the column of four-letter words and sixteen seconds to read the column of eight-letter words. I also asked one of my friends to complete the same task so that I could compare our results. He was able to complete the letter column in seven seconds, four-letter word column in eight seconds and eight-letter word column in thirteen seconds. My results of the experiment verified that of Weaver and contradict Marilyn Adams claims because if it were true that we read every letter in every word then it would make sense that it would “take nearly four times as long to read the column of four-letter words as it took to read the column of single letters…[and] eight times as long to read the column of eight-letter words” (Weaver, 2002, p.95), and this was not the case in either attempt. Because we were supposed to identify the words as fast as possible,

“it should not be surprising that words can be identified under conditions that make it impossible to identify individual letters. More than a century ago, Erdmann and Dodge (1898) determined: (1) that words can be recognized lying too far from the eyes’ fixation point to permit recognition of individual letters; (2) that words can be recognized when they are constructed of letters so small that the letters cannot be singly identified; and (3) that words can be recognized from distances at which the letters exposed singly, cannot be recognized” (Weaver, 2002, p.96)

References

Weaver, C. (2002). Reading process and practice. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books.