Decoding

A website for teachers to access research-based strategies, tools, and instruments for practical classroom use with struggling readers.

Assessment Tools

Recommended Teacher Resources

Strategies

Websites

Within this portion of the website, you will find links to specific strategies we felt would be useful when trying to teach readers who are having difficulty decoding.  We have tried to keep the information found under each link as concise as possible in order to get to the “heart” of the strategy. 

Definition of Decoding:

Decoding is the various skills a person uses to decipher a printed sentence into an understandable statement.

Definition taken from the following website: http://www.indiana.edu/~eric_rec/phonics/glossary/d_f.html

Decoding is distinguished from comprehension, which implies an understanding of the material read.

Definition taken from the following website: http://www.lblp.com/definitions/decoding.htm

The above definitions are from two separate websites that we felt best summarized the description of what decoding actually is. 

More simply put, decoding is the method or strategy a person uses to “figure out” a word.

Background Information ~ Decoding:

Instead of using basal readers, modern teachers will separate students into reading levels based on sets of “leveled” books.  According to Baker (2002), a way of teaching reading is to include shared reading, reading aloud to children, small group strategy lessons and literature circles.   

Using etymology across the curriculum helps students understand content material.  Hennings (2000) argues that etymology provides general principles for making word study strategies a natural part of ongoing studies in the subject areas.  “By analyzing and sorting words, searching for related words, and discovering ways words work, students learn clusters of words that share a common element or origin rather than individual words by memorizing definitions.” (Hennings 2000, p 269)

Miller and Felton’s (2001) case study of deficits in phonemic awareness involved a young man who showed early signs of dysnomia and reading disabilities. Their research supported that early identification is important, but the appropriate interventions must begin immediately.  If we do not implement the correct strategies, then students will not become competent readers.  The interventions focused on several components of reading:  phonemic awareness, decoding and encoding, sight words and fluency in reading.

Richgels (2001) has compiled guidebooks and activity books essential for phonemic awareness.  This article supports the theory that early word identification depends on phonemic awareness.  The list of guidebooks (< 100 pages) and activity books that we found very useful are as follows:  A Basic Guide to Understanding, Assessing, and Teaching Phonological Awareness; Teaching Phonics, Phonemic Awareness, and Word Recognition; Phonemic Awareness in Young Children:  A Classroom Curriculum; Road to the Code:  A Phonological Awareness Program for Young Children; Phonemic Awareness:  Playing with Sounds to Strengthen Beginning Reading Skills; Phonemic Awareness Activities for Early Reading Success:  Easy, Playful Activities That Prepare Children for Phonics Instruction; and Phonemic Awareness Songs and Rhymes.

According to Kane (1999), no one denies the crucial role decoding plays in reading.  Children use a combination of phonics, context, and background knowledge to take a stab at identifying a new word.  Every primary classroom should focus attention on early reading accomplishments such as the alphabetical principles (ABC’s), reading sight words, reading words by mapping speech sounds, to parts of words.  “Decoding skills must and can be introduced, taught, practiced, and reinforced within contexts meaningful to students.”  (Kane 1999, p 771)

One of the methods of understanding our complex English language is the word family pattern recognition.  In this article, Johnston (1999) explains rime and onset.  “Research over the last fifteen years has demonstrated that children are more successful at breaking apart the onset and rime in a word (t-op or st-op) than in breaking the word into individual phonemes (t-o-p) or breaking it in another place (such as to-p).”  (Johnston 1999, p 65) 

Baker, T. (2002). Strategic planning: Recognizing patterns for reading instruction.  Primary Voices K-6, 10(4), 16-22.

Felton, R. H. & Miller, L. L. (2001).  “It’s one of them…I don’t know”:  Case study of a student with phonological, rapid naming, and word-finding deficits.  The Journal of Special Education, 35(3), 125-133.

Hennings, D. G. (2000).  Contextually relevant word study:  Adolescent vocabulary development across the curriculum. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 44(3), 268-279.

Johnston, F. R. (1999).  The timing and teaching of word families.  The Reading Teacher, 53(1), 64-75.

Kane, S. (1999).  Teaching decoding strategies without destroying story.  The Reading Teacher, 52(7), 770-772.