RUNNING HEAD: WORD RECOGNITION APPROACHES 1

Word Recognition Approaches when teaching elementary students

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Introduction

The goals of reading instruction numerous but include that children will read confidently,

understand what they read, and that they will consider reading knowledgeable and appealing. To

achieve these goals with elementary students, an effective classroom program must provide

students children with various experiences that relate to some important reading aspects.

Guidelines based on the approaches of aspects of reading instruction (i.e., sight word

recognition, context clues, phonics, and structural analysis). These strategies will help teachers in

selecting programs that help students be successful in learning to read. Word recognition

approaches are necessary when teaching elementary students.

Sight word recognition

The sight word approach is necessary when teachers want elementary students become

adequate readers. It is the foundation for students to become successful in reading. This approach

is used by teachers to help students in reading acquisition (Betty, Sandra, & Paul, 2011). This

strategy consists of learning to read words by sight and decoding to understand the relationships

between letters and words.

Context clues

Contextual is inferring meaning of unknown words. Students need to have this skill to

infer the meaning of unknown words. Contextual clues assist elementary students in defining the

meaning of unknown words; however, it does not help in developing accuracy (Betty, Sandra, &

Paul, 2011). Therefore, teachers need to help students to establish the meaning of the words

when they first encounter the words. Blackwell & Laman (2013) recommends that teachers need

to model the use context cues to help their students unlock the meaning of unknown words.
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Therefore, when students are able to infer the meaning, it will improve their vocabulary size,

hence enhancing their reading comprehension.

Phonics

Phonics is a strategy in which students are taught to decode words. It is the understanding

of this approach that contributes to a students decoding ability. Without this skill, the student

cannot progress to the next step in their literacy education. Phonics instruction is predominantly

effective when taught to elementary students. To be effective, teachers need to teach it

systematically and explicitly (Niedringhaus, 2013). Teaching phonics makes students understand

the meaning of text. In a phonics approach, teachers first choose on the appropriate type of

phonic to use in teaching students. All the phonic approaches include teaching elementary

students in sound and relationships but differ in the organization of the instruction process

determining the sequence of instruction. Students first learn the letters syllables, sounds, and then

reading text (Betty, Sandra, & Paul, 2011). Phonics is one of the foundations of reading. Without

an understanding of the relationship between sounds and letters, reading cannot take place.

Structural analysis

Teachers use this approach to improve students decoding skills in class. These advanced

decoding approaches assist students to learn some parts of words so they can easily decode

unknown multi-syllabic words. Teachers use structural analysis to teach students to read suffixes

and prefixes (Betty, Sandra, & Paul, 2011). Students should be taught explicit and direct

instruction through structural analysis, and learned suffixes and prefixes should be included into

spelling instruction and into the text as the students read.

Conclusion
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Word recognition approaches are necessary when teaching elementary students. Students

have been introduced to reading since kindergarten. They can start reading by identifying words

and how each word sounds. Reading activities and word recognition approaches can be done

during reading lesson in a classroom. Being able to read will help students in their speaking and

writing skills. A balanced approach includes modeled, guided, independent, and shared reading

is recommended by research for organizing in reading in classroom.

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References

Betty D. R., Sandra H. S., & Paul C. B. (2011). Teaching Reading in Today's Elementary School

(11th ed ): Cengage Learning.

Blackwell, R., & Laman, S. (2013). Strategies to Teach Sight Words in an Elementary

Classroom. International Journal of Education, 5(4), 37-47.

Niedringhaus, B. (2013). Best practice in early reading intervention: Implementing

a reading intervention program to reach below level readers. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI

Dissertation Publishing.