4 ms·

Wait, so the idea that I've used for years, which is deriving meaning of a word based on context clues around how its used in a sentence, is a sham? I have bee

Wait, so the idea that I've used for years, which is deriving meaning of a word based on context clues around how its used in a sentence, is a sham? I have been doing this my whole life nearly, at this point. This hits me hard for some reason. And I tested in the top percentiles for reading too! (in 1997, 2004, and 2008) EDIT: I may be completely misunderstanding this here. Are you saying using context for word pronunciation or for trying to derive meaning?

AlanYx 3y ago
Not exactly. Most models of reading involve at least two steps: (i) decoding and (ii) assigning meaning. Decoding is translating written letters into blended sounds, then meaning is assigned. There is very strong evidence that skilled, fast readers rarely rely on context for decoding, and conversely, that students who are only taught context-based strategies for decoding rather than phonics tend to struggle with reading, find it a chore, and have trouble reading quickly. But for the next step, assigning meaning, context is valuable. Skilled readers do use a variety of context clues, including images, to infer meaning of words they have not encountered before or whose meaning is potentially ambiguous.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  okay gotcha. I'm definitely talking about the second example here (assigning meaning). I learned Phonics as a kid (Hooked On Phonics and all that), guess I never thought about it much as an adult. Though I'm not the fastest reader, my retention is typically higher than average, even as I age, and I wonder if that has anything to do with it.
  - taeric 3y ago
    Yeah, the story is about how phonics was basically abandoned. And how disastrous that has been for reading education.
gizmo686 3y ago
What is being discussed is using context clues to determine what a word is, in the sense of mapping the sequence of symbols on paper to a word. When you teach children to read, you want to use words that they already know. Once you have the word, infering the meaning of it is a seperate skill.
taeric 3y ago
I mean, sorta? Odds are super high that you learned to decode a word into constituent parts. This includes syllables, letters, and phonemes. For some languages, this also includes gender, tense, etc. The sham is that you can basically learn to read by learning to predict the missing word in a sentence all of the time. And that you can treat words in a phonetic alphabet as the same as words from a logographic set. To the point that many teachings flat out ignore the phonetic breakdown of how to decode a word. This is often hilariously displayed by having people not realize that English uses a phonetic symbol set. To your edit, both? I used the example of "sake" earlier. Just decoding that word, you can see roughly how it can be pronounced. Knowing that I said I was "drinking sake" likely changed how you originally pronounced it. But if you don't know what sake is, then it will take a lot of context to fill in the meaning for you. And a lot of learning is pitting words against expected meanings. Amelia Bedelia is a great set of books that go into this. Such that, yes, you almost certainly have to use context to really get the meaning of words, but you need to know how to decode words for a lot of that context to work out.
Manuel_D 3y ago
Not the meaning, but the pronunciation. Phonics is about teaching the sounds each letter, or letter combination ("th", "sh", "ch", etc.) produces and equipping students with the ability to sound out words they don't recognize. "whole word" approach is geared around making students memorize entire words, and hope that they can guess at how to pronounce unrecognized words based on context. You're definitely still supposed to derive meaning from context and clues. But you should be able to pronounce the word without this context.

AlanYx 3y ago

Not exactly. Most models of reading involve at least two steps: (i) decoding and (ii) assigning meaning. Decoding is translating written letters into blended sounds, then meaning is assigned. There is very strong evidence that skilled, fast readers rarely rely on context for decoding, and conversely, that students who are only taught context-based strategies for decoding rather than phonics tend to struggle with reading, find it a chore, and have trouble reading quickly. But for the next step, assigning meaning, context is valuable. Skilled readers do use a variety of context clues, including images, to infer meaning of words they have not encountered before or whose meaning is potentially ambiguous.

no_wizard 3y ago
okay gotcha. I'm definitely talking about the second example here (assigning meaning). I learned Phonics as a kid (Hooked On Phonics and all that), guess I never thought about it much as an adult. Though I'm not the fastest reader, my retention is typically higher than average, even as I age, and I wonder if that has anything to do with it.
- taeric 3y ago
  Yeah, the story is about how phonics was basically abandoned. And how disastrous that has been for reading education.

gizmo686 3y ago

What is being discussed is using context clues to determine what a word is, in the sense of mapping the sequence of symbols on paper to a word. When you teach children to read, you want to use words that they already know. Once you have the word, infering the meaning of it is a seperate skill.

taeric 3y ago

I mean, sorta? Odds are super high that you learned to decode a word into constituent parts. This includes syllables, letters, and phonemes. For some languages, this also includes gender, tense, etc. The sham is that you can basically learn to read by learning to predict the missing word in a sentence all of the time. And that you can treat words in a phonetic alphabet as the same as words from a logographic set. To the point that many teachings flat out ignore the phonetic breakdown of how to decode a word. This is often hilariously displayed by having people not realize that English uses a phonetic symbol set. To your edit, both? I used the example of "sake" earlier. Just decoding that word, you can see roughly how it can be pronounced. Knowing that I said I was "drinking sake" likely changed how you originally pronounced it. But if you don't know what sake is, then it will take a lot of context to fill in the meaning for you. And a lot of learning is pitting words against expected meanings. Amelia Bedelia is a great set of books that go into this. Such that, yes, you almost certainly have to use context to really get the meaning of words, but you need to know how to decode words for a lot of that context to work out.

Manuel_D 3y ago

Not the meaning, but the pronunciation. Phonics is about teaching the sounds each letter, or letter combination ("th", "sh", "ch", etc.) produces and equipping students with the ability to sound out words they don't recognize. "whole word" approach is geared around making students memorize entire words, and hope that they can guess at how to pronounce unrecognized words based on context. You're definitely still supposed to derive meaning from context and clues. But you should be able to pronounce the word without this context.