How would I know that?

It is amazing how this simple question, from an older struggling reader, directed us to a huge gap in the reading skills of many older students.

Bob, a ninth grader, paused when he came to the word thorough. I asked him to sound it out for me. He began by giving each letter a sound. When I told him that the word was actually pronounced with three sounds (th, or, ough), he immediately asked, "How would I know that?"

Ask yourself - when did we teach students that before you sound out a word going left to right, you have to first determine the letters that go together to make one sound? In our language that could be 2, 3 or even 4 letters. Students like Bob do indeed have trouble with decoding but not basic decoding. Their issue is with advanced decoding.

We need to change the way students like Bob see words. We have taken them back so many times to the basic decoding, one letter - one sound, go left to right, that they actually think they are doing something wrong and cannot be taught to read. These students need direct explicit instruction to learn advanced decoding. When taught advanced decoding their confidence soars along with their ability to read.

The next interesting piece of information came when I asked Bob to tell me what thorough meant. He gave me the correct definition. I then wrote down the words he missed in the rest of the passage. He was unable to answer most of the questions about the passage. However, when I asked him to define the words he missed, he defined them all correctly. His score showed poor vocabulary and low comprehension. Bob's issue was not vocabulary and comprehension, it was his inability to recognize words he understood when they were presented in print

Take a look at this short video on my website: http://turninganewpage.com/CrackingtheCode.htm

Interesting how a simple question actually has a simple answer.