Module 1: Reading Reflection

Module 1: Reading Reflection

Weaver Ch. 1-2

What are some of the major differences between a skills approach to literacy and a comprehensive or sociopsycholinguistic approach?

            Before reading these chapters, I’m not sure I have actually thought of my own definition of reading prior to or while I am teaching children to read.  While I was reading through the three views, in the book, I could see the importance of each during a child’s reading development.  However, when I reached the third view I realized that I agreed mostly with it.  As I continued reading I learned this view is known as the psycholinguistic view of reading.  I agree with this view because I too believe a reader must gain meaning from the text to be truly reading.

            Later in the reading, I came across the term sociopsycholinguistic.  I learned that the sociopsycholinguistic approach further extends on the psycholinguistic view by including the situational and social factors of the reader.  The sociopsycholinguistic approach views learning to read with a “top-down, whole-to-part” style.  This approach emphasizes that readers construct meaning from texts rather than absorbing meaning from the page.  I like this approach because it focuses on the fact that words have various meanings based on the context they are used in, and because it acknowledges that meanings of text develop as the reader transacts with the text and from the reader’s schema.

            The skills approach to literacy focuses on starting with letters and letter-sound relationship, then working your way up to words.  Through this view it is assumed that once children can read words the meaning of those words will take care of itself.  This is the “bottom-up, part-to-whole” style.  The skills approach follows seven steps that start with phonemic awareness and then uses phonics and decoding to guide the child though the reading process, and eventually ends with comprehension.  During the seven steps the child is never actually reading independently or proving that they understand the meaning of the texts. 

            Although, I find both approaches to be extremely beneficial during a child’s reading development I still have to agree with the sociopsycholinguistic approach being the approach that bests teaches a child what it means to read and actually understand what you read.  I have always done well in school, but reading classes and reading comprehension is something I struggled with as I got older, and I now believe it was because I was taught mostly the skills approach to reading as a child and never had a chance to grasp the sociopsycholinguistic approach as a young reader.  Being a first grade teacher this past year and teaching Saxon phonics for the first time I definitely see the benefit of teaching the skills approach to learn words, but from now on I will strive to offer more or the sociopsycholinguistic approach when teaching reading and comprehension.