When
beginning to read chapter five, it amazed me how I did not pick up on several
of the errors in “The Boat in the Basement.” Weaver explains that readers read
for meaning rather than to hunt for errors. I then made the realization that “we
do not identify all of the letters in a word before identifying a word, even if
the word occurs in isolation. “ During reading, we do not identify each letter
in a word, which explains when I was skimming the passage as to why I did not
find all of the errors. Therefore I do not agree with Marilyn Adams when she
stated, “Skillful readers of English thoroughly process the individual letter
of words in their texts.” Readers process words in letter chunks, such as
syllables and rimes, rather than each individual letter. When referring to
figure 5.1 on page 91, several of the letters on the page are blurred out but one
is still able to recognize which word the book is referring to.
After
completing the exercises on pages 91-93, it is very evident that the beginnings
of words are far more important than the middle or ends of words. I was able to
identify rather quickly the word when the middle or end of the word was
missing. The book states that we read texts from left to right and therefore it
is more necessary to have the beginning of words. This activity was another
indication that readers do not process each letter while reading. I also really
enjoyed completing the activity on page 96. I was able to time myself with the
single letters, four letter words, as well as the eight lettered words. This experiment
clearly indicated to me that readers do not individually read all the letters
presented in a word. It took me almost the same amount of time to read the
single letters as it did to read the eight lettered words.
Taylor,
ReplyDeleteI didn't notice all of the errors that occurred in "The Boat in the Basement" either. When I realized how many errors there actually were, I was shocked that I did not pick up on them. The fact that I didn't pick up on all of them is evidence that Weaver is right! Proficient readers really do read for meaning and they read words as a whole rather than letter by letter. I had a similar outcome with the experiment on page 96. I think it is easier to read a word rather than a letter because we can attach meaning to it.
Taylor,
ReplyDeleteI also loved completing the activities throughout these chapters because it was amazing to see what the mind can do even if the words are unclear or letters are missing. I even got a few of my friends to go through the timing activity with the letters, four-letter words and eight-letter words. This activity furthered my understanding that we do not read words letter by letter, but more through recognition of words, their letter-patterns and syllables. As far as "The Boat in the Basement" was concerned, it blew my mind that I had missed all of the mistakes. There was only one that I recognized the first time through.