Concept of Word

1. Concept of Word Flanigan (2005) Image courtesy of http://www.halloween.ecsd.net/MB%20Halloween.htm

2. Jack has trouble matching spoken words to printed words while reading a memorized poem. Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)

3. Young children lack concept of word because … • there is no simple physical basis for isolating words in speech. • there are usually no spaces between successive spoken words as there is in printed text. • when we speak, we pause between phrases, not words. • when we speak or listen to someone else, we focus on the meaning of the entire message not separate words. • See spectrograph example. Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)

4. Research Evidence • Few kindergarteners could segment speech into words (Holden & MacGinitie, 1972). Instead of tapping the poker chip for each word of a memorized text, they combined words (The book/ is in/ the desk) for each tap. • Young children were asked to say “yes” if what they heard was a word or “no” if it was not. They heard nonverbal sounds (a cat meowing), isolated phonemes (the /s/ in /sat/), isolated syllables (the /at/ in /sat/), short words, long words, phrases, and sentences (Downing & Oliver, 1974). All children confused syllables and phonemes with words.Younger children (under 6 and half) confused words with non-verbal sounds (like the cat’s meow), phrases, sentences. Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)

5. Phonemic Awareness • The ability to attend to and manipulate the sound structure of spoken words. • Just as there is no physical basis for breaking sentences into words, there is no physical basis for breaking words into phonemes. • Children hear the word /cat/ as one single pulse of sound because all three phonemes in this word are coarticulated. • Through interactions with print, children develop full phoneme awareness. Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)

6. Why Is Concept of Word Important? • Concept of Word serves as a bridge to full phoneme segmentation ability. Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)

7. A beginning reader with little to no knowledge of letter-sounds may not be able to track words in print. Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)

8. Beginning readers begin to attend to beginning letter-sounds in words. • Using memory of the story and spaces between words, they can now match spoken to written words while fingerpoint reading. Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)

9. Supported reading activities help stabilize the concept of word in text. • With knowledge of initial letter-sounds in words, spacing between words as anchors, the reader can now examine other parts of the word. • After encountering the word “cat” the reader begins attending not only to the initial consonant “c” but eventually to the ending letter “t” also. Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)

10. At this second stage in Morris’ model, the reader is able to attend to the word boundaries (i.e., beginning and ending consonants) and s/he becomes increasingly adept at tracking text while fingerpoint reading. Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)

11. In the third stage of Morris’s model, as the concept of word is established, readers can now examine the internal parts of the word—the vowel. • It is only after the beginning reader has been able to segment speech into words that s/he is able to segment words into phonemes. Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)

12. The final stage of Morris’s model entails the ability to fully segment a word into its constituent phonemes. This is the necessary foundation for an increase in sight word knowledge. • Full phoneme segmentation ability allows complete processing of all letter-sounds in words, enabling the storage of words in memory as sight words. Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)

13. Questions • According to the model, when should I start teaching sight words with a beginning reader? • What should I do to have the student attend to the print of a pattern book if I see that s/he is overrelying on pictures and memory of the story.