Beyond "Sounding it Out": My Thoughts

Chapter 4 of "Catching Readers Before They Fall" seems to me one of the most beneficial chapters that I have read from any of my books this semester. Something that I had always thought about during my past field experiences is how to handle a reader when they cannot read a word. Chapter 4 gives you many scenarios about what to do/say when readers are struggling. In my classroom, I will definitely be using the "MSV" strategies of word solving with my students. I feel as if this is actually easier for the students to understand than "sounding it out".

When I was in elementary school, I remember teachers constantly saying "sound it out!" rather than, "does that sound right?".  But, like what Johnson and Keier explain, most of the words in the English language can't even be sounded out! The English language is so confusing and crazy that I don't know how people could rely so much on the "sound it out" method. I understand that some words it might work, but I feel as if it would just be too difficult to enforce that strategy with my students. How would they ever know if the word was "sound-out-able"?

In my M301 field experience this semester, I am placed in a 5th grade classroom. By 5th grade, most students have reading strategies down pretty well, but the occasional struggle on a word is quite common among the students in my classroom. Last Thursday, I was reading with a student in their history text book when they came across a word they didn't know. I waited to see whether or not they were going to figure out the word (and to see what strategy they would use) and the student seemed to sound out the word, stop, think, and then finally say the word correctly. I think that this student started to sound out the word then maybe realized that it wasn't working for them, thought about the context of the word, then realized that it was a word that they have seen before. I had not read Chapter 4 by this time and I really wish I had because it would have been a great learning experience for me! Next time I go into my field experience I am going to listen closely to strategies these students use to figure out words that they do not know.