Transcript Concept of Word - RE3030 Fall 2010

Concept of Word
Flanigan (2005)
Image courtesy of http://www.halloween.ecsd.net/MB%20Halloween.htm
Jack has trouble matching spoken
words to printed words while reading a
memorized poem.
Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)
Young children lack concept of word
because …
• there is no simple physical basis for isolating
words in speech.
• there are usually no spaces between successive
spoken words as there is in printed text.
• when we speak, we pause between phrases, not
words.
• when we speak or listen to someone else, we
focus on the meaning of the entire message not
separate words.
• See spectrograph example.
Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)
Research Evidence
• Few kindergarteners could segment speech into words
(Holden & MacGinitie, 1972). Instead of tapping the poker
chip for each word of a memorized text, they combined
words (The book/ is in/ the desk) for each tap.
• Young children were asked to say “yes” if what they heard
was a word or “no” if it was not. They heard nonverbal
sounds (a cat meowing), isolated phonemes (the /s/ in
/sat/), isolated syllables (the /at/ in /sat/), short words, long
words, phrases, and sentences (Downing & Oliver, 1974).
All children confused syllables and phonemes with words.
Younger children (under 6 and half) confused words with
non-verbal sounds (like the cat’s meow), phrases,
sentences.
Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)
Phonemic Awareness
• The ability to attend to and manipulate the sound
structure of spoken words.
• Just as there is no physical basis for breaking
sentences into words, there is no physical basis
for breaking words into phonemes.
• Children hear the word /cat/ as one single pulse
of sound because all three phonemes in this word
are coarticulated.
• Through interactions with print, children develop
full phoneme awareness.
Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)
Why Is Concept of Word Important?
• Concept of Word serves as a bridge to full
phoneme segmentation ability.
Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)
A beginning reader with little to no knowledge
of letter-sounds may not be able to track
words in print.
Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)
• Beginning readers begin to attend to beginning letter-sounds
in words.
• Using memory of the story and spaces between words, they
can now match spoken to written words while fingerpoint
reading.
Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)
• Supported reading activities help stabilize the
concept of word in text.
• With knowledge of initial letter-sounds in words,
spacing between words as anchors, the reader
can now examine other parts of the word.
• After encountering the word “cat” the reader
begins attending not only to the initial consonant
“c” but eventually to the ending letter “t” also.
Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)
• At this second stage in Morris’ model, the
reader is able to attend to the word
boundaries (i.e., beginning and ending
consonants) and s/he becomes increasingly
adept at tracking text while fingerpoint
reading.
Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)
• In the third stage of Morris’s model, as the
concept of word is established, readers can
now examine the internal parts of the word—
the vowel.
• It is only after the beginning reader has been
able to segment speech into words that s/he is
able to segment words into phonemes.
Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)
• The final stage of Morris’s model entails the
ability to fully segment a word into its
constituent phonemes. This is the necessary
foundation for an increase in sight word
knowledge.
• Full phoneme segmentation ability allows
complete processing of all letter-sounds in
words, enabling the storage of words in
memory as sight words.
Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)
Questions
• According to the model, when should I start
teaching sight words with a beginning reader?
• What should I do to have the student attend
to the print of a pattern book if I see that s/he
is overrelying on pictures and memory of the
story.