One of the topics included in this weeks readings was coaching word recognition. This coaching is done when the teacher gives cues during reading time to help his or her students recognize and sound out a word by breaking it apart. Kathleen Clark tells us how important this teaching strategy can be, and describes how more and more teachers are learning to do it after they have started teaching.
There are two different types of cues that teachers present to their children. They sometimes use general cues that make their students think about what to do on their own without giving any specific cue on how to say a word. Teachers also use more specific cues in which they prompt a student to focus on a certain part of a word or to the context around the word. Both types of cues are great tools to use in the classroom.
I see coaching through the use of cues as a valuable tool to use in my future classroom. By doing this it allows the students to recognize words using their knowledge that they already have about specific sounds or smaller words that make up bigger words that they are unfamiliar with. It seems like a very simple task that could really help the students in the long run.
To me, the whole idea of teaching cues is really familiar. I have seen teachers do similar things multiple times, yet I never knew that it was actually a teaching strategy. Do any of my blog readers recall being aware of the importance of cues? Does anyone have some different ideas for teaching word recognition that does not involve giving cues?
I do not remember cues being used, but I think that is part of the beauty of it. If the teachers make it seem like a spontaneous back-and-forth rather than a lesson, the students are learning and not aware that they are being taught a lesson. I think those cues that the teachers instill however were put to use in my reading when I was younger. I would spot familiar words or words used in classroom discussion. I did not think about the letters or sounding it out. It was more like recognition.
ReplyDeleteMy mother used cues with me all the time as I was growing up. I think this was mostly due to me not being told what the word was, but I think that it helped me significantly. I have worked with first graders that also benefited from that practice.
ReplyDeleteI do not remember my teachers or parents using cues for me while I was learning how to read. However, when I volunteered in a 3rd grade classroom last semester I noticed that the teacher constantly used cues in reading groups. The cues were mostly used in the lower level reading groups and I think it was very beneficial to their learning. Many of the students were not confident reading aloud so when the teacher interacted with them and used cues they really tried hard to sound out the word without giving up.
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