Module 3 - Activity 2

What do you think of this video and statement?  What do such activities and “cracking the code” contribute to proficient reading? What else might a reader need to become proficient?

 
       The video focused on a student and how he broke up the sounds within words (phonemic awareness).  It also showed how powerful learning the letter-sounds are to decoding unfamiliar/nonsense words and creating whole words.  The student they focused on had a learning disability but flourished from one-on-one tutoring.  This type of tutoring reminded me of the Wilson Fundations program that the primary grades use at my school.  The students learn a great deal from “tapping out the sounds” then sliding the sounds together to form the word.  I believe that it is important for students to understand the sound of every letter as emergent readers.  However, as proficient readers, we should not rely heavily on the separate letter-sounds within the individual words.
       I feel that nonsense words have their time and place inside a classroom.  I have never taught kindergarten but, I believe nonsense words could help a student understand the basic sounds of all the letters.  I have used nonsense words on informal assessments in second grade to determine the lack of a student’s phonemic awareness.  A student should be able to tap out the sounds to any word (real or nonsense) if they have a firm grip on phonemic awareness.  I don’t think we should solely rely on nonsense words because I think we should give the students real words to practice since that is what they will encounter when they read texts.  Nevertheless, I love seeing the moments of success when a student can decode any word they encounter.  I believe using nonsense and real words will help develop a proficient reader who can read with atomicity (fluency) and be able to monitor their own comprehension.