Figuring Out Words

Figuring out words for us may seem simple but figuring out words for a five year old child is not an easy task. There is a lot of skills that go into teaching a young child to figure out words. According to Morrow, "Instructional activities designed to help youngsters learn emergent literacy skills and about the function, form, structure, and conventions of print should involve a wide variety of learning experiences" (Morrow, 145). There are four skills that need to be used by teachers when teaching a young child to figure out words: (1) Children need to be socially interactive when they are leaning about print; (2) Children need direct instruction with models to emulate; (3) They must learn through experiences that are meaningful and connected to real life; (4) Lastly, the experiences must incorporate what the children already now.
A teacher must remember when using one of these strategies or any other strategy that he/she must must forget to tell the children what the skill they are being taught is and what is is used for. Next, the teacher must model the skill and demonstrate what the skill is and how they are to used it. Then, the teacher must allow time for guide practice with himself or herself, which is followed by independent practice. Lastly, the teacher must review the skill that was taught often. With all that being said there are four strategies that can be used to help teach young children how to figure out words: Environmental Print, Morning Message, Language Experience Approach, and Using Context and Pictures.
Environmental print is a familiar print found in the child's surroundings. Environmental print includes: logos, food labels, road signs, and signs for restaurants. The most popular examples of environmental print for young children nowadays are the signs for McDonalds and Walmart. "Several researchers have found that children as young as age 2 can read familiar environmental print" (Morrow, 145). Environmental print is truly the first step to helpful children figure out words. In the classroom, environmental print may look like each student's name on their desk or cubby or labels such as book and chalkboard hanging around the room. The more children are introduced to words, the easier it is going to be for each of them to begin figuring words out.
The morning message is strategy that is used often in many elementary classroom but it must be done correctly to be beneficial to the students. This strategy gets the students into a routine of looking of the message of the day from their teacher. From this strategy, students can learn many different skills but one of the most is important skill a student can learn is that print (words) carry meaning. During the morning message, teachers can model writing, have students find a certain letter, or even have students had to the letter. All these skills used during this strategy will be helpful to students when trying to figure out words. Morning message can be used with other children too. When using this strategy with older children, one can incorporate more content into the message than if using the strategy with young children. Students are never to old for a morning message.
LEA, also known as Language Experience Approach is another strategy used to help children figure out words. "The language experience approach helps children associate oral language with written language, teaching them that what is said can be written down and read" (Morrow, 149). Along with connecting oral language to written language, it also helps children understand that writing goes left to right. LEA is used often when it comes to ELL students due to the personal aspect of the approach. A teacher can create vocabulary for an ELL student that is related to their culture. Also, a teacher can allow ELL students to create their on books to help them connect oral language to written language. Multiple skills and strategies can be used in the LEA approach.
The last strategy for helping children figure out words is using context and pictures. This strategy is a well known strategy and it is strategy that children pick up on quickly. Many children use the pictures of a book they are reading to help them figure out words. To model this strategy, a teacher can read to the class as a whole or small groups and really emphasize the fact that the illustrations and print are closely related. This technique is really useful when using a Big Book. Teaching children to use context clues works best when reading a well known book that repeats itself. A teacher can allow students to participate by having students fill in the blank of the text while she/he is reading. By having students fill in the blank, a student is using their prior knowledge of syntax and context to predict the word.
Overall, these four strategies are helpful strategies for every reader. Figuring out words is a process that must be taught. It is not a skill that just comes to a reader. If a teacher teaches strategies such as these to their students then it is likely that their students will have a head start in figuring out words. Being about to decode and figure out words leads to fluency which leads to comprehension. And comprehension is the main goal for a reader.