In this weeks blog I would like to talk about word decoding. More than half of the children diagnosed with a reading learning disability have decoding difficulties. So what exactly is decoding?
Decoding is the ability to apply your knowledge of letter sound relationships including knowledge of letter patterns, to correctly pronounce written words. Understanding decoding relationships is what gives children the ability to recognize familiar words and figure out unfamiliar words.
Struggling with word decoding can be extremely frustrating for a child. As a parent it can be difficult to read between the lines and figure out how to help. In doing some research I found a few good sites but I liked one in particular. Reading Rockets site talks about word decoding struggles from both a childs, parents, and teachers perspective. RR also has several ideas on how to help. One example reading rockets has for children is when you’re trying to sound out a word, pay close attention to the print. Try to look at all the letters in the word, not just the first one or two. Parents they have ideas for us to help as well. Here’s one of several.Talk with your child about the “irregular” words that she’ll often see in what she’s reading. These are the words that don’t follow the usual letter-sound rules. These words include said, are, and was. Students must learn to recognize them “at sight.” These are just a couple ideas, the whole article was a great read and site was very informative. Word decoding is important part of spelling and reading. The more we practice anything the better we will become.
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