Module Three Reading Reflection

Do you agree with Marilyn Adams (1990, p. 108) who argued that rather than relying on context, Skillful readers of English thoroughly process the individual letters of words in their texts. Why or why not?

After reading chapter 5 in Weaver's text. I found a lot of evidences to disagree with Marilyn Adams' statement. I disagree with Adams' statement  who argued that rather than replying on context, skillful readers of English thoroughly process the individual letters of words in their texts. Research  by Gollash's (1980) suggested  that we do not identify all the letters in a word before identifying a word, even if the word occurs in isolation (Weaver, 2002). An experiment in Weaver's book showed that we read to construct meaning from the text, not look for errors in the passage. When I read the passage "The Boat in the Basement" I did not notice many errors because I was trying to get meaning from what I was reading. When we read for comprehension, we do not first identify the smallest units of language, letters, and then work upward (Weaver, 2002). Proficient readers use prior knowledge, grapho/phonemically to automatically use context, and relevant knowledge to word meanings to help identify the word. Also, proficient readers use analogy, syllables, onsets, rimes, and pronounceable chunks to read unfamiliar words. Research and experiments were conducted to prove that this statement is wrong because good readers do not read word-by-word. Good readers read with fluency from left to right and they use many reading strategies to help them figure out unknown words. 

We should consider less proficient readers, they might read individual letters of words in the text because they do not have the knowledge to apply different strategies to help them figure out the unknown words. In Weaver's text, she explained that  less proficient readers pay less attention to beginnings and ends of words (Weaver, 2002). This helped me to distinguish my less proficient readers from my proficient readers. That way I can teach them to apply different strategies when they come to a difficult word. I found this so interesting  that children and adults don't often apply the phonic "rules" when they read. They both read new print by analogy with known words (Weaver, 2002). Well clearly I have to start focusing less on phonics and more on teaching readers to use context,schemas, semantics, syntax, and graphic cues.   

Weaver, C. (2002). Reading Process & Practice. (3rd Ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.