Coaching Word Recognition

In Chapter 5 of Classrooms that Work, Cunningham and Allington discuss methods of coaching word recognition. The text mentions, "English is not a one-sound, one-letter language, there are different ways to pronounce certain letter patterns"(Cunningham and Allington 66). Before I continued with the chapter, I paused and considered a conversation I had while I was in Botswana with Joonas and Pekka, two of my international peers from Finland. Our conversation initiated because we were learning Setswana and I was horrendous at it because it required exaggerated rolling of R's and certain click-like sounds were difficult for me to create. Some of these sounds were designated by  "tl" and "tsh", those combinations were unfamiliar to me, and so the corresponding sounds were hard to understand. The "tl" is found in dialects of more indigenous Spanish, so my boyfriend (who was also in Setswana with us) could generate the correct sounds, as well. Returning to Joonas and Pekka, we began discussing that Finnish words had some crazy sounds and strange letter combinations that I, as an English speaker, believed were weird and more difficult than English. They disagreed, however, claiming that English was more difficult because we have words like "tear" that have the same spelling and different meanings. I specially remember Joonas saying something to the effect of, "Why would you do that?".

After my flashback, the discussion in the chapter that followed was especially interesting. It describes the process of looking for patterns in unfamiliar words, searching mentally for knowledge of similar patterns. Once pronunciation is decided, the reader rereads the sentence to see if the pronunciation makes sense given the context of the surrounding words. They continue on in their reading if it works, but if it does not, they look at the letters again and think what else would "look like this and make sense". I kind of laughed to myself when I imagined Joonas coming to tear in a context meaning a ripped piece of paper or something of that effect and going through the process mentioned and being completely confused because "tear" in the context of watering eyes did not make sense at all, but that is the proper spelling. Because of confusions like this, the concept of "coaching" is of increasing importance for reading instruction and developing word recognition for both English speakers and especially those English language learners.

As of last week, I will be volunteering at the Hispanic Center in Knoxville helping children with supplemental reading and math lessons in the evenings to enhance their performance in their normal classroom settings. Of the lessons provided, I especially like the "Using Words You Know" lesson and could see myself using it in the near future. You begin by presenting a few words that students know, then pronounce and spell these words. Then you make a chart and list words that usually rhyme with the initial words and have the same spelling pattern. Underline the spelling patterns to emphasize the similarities. Then show them some new words which they will add to the corresponding lists.

This was a similar activity that I thought would be useful and would be good as an independent activity that would reinforce what the class had done with the lists.

An activity of that nature would help set the groundwork for the "coaching" described in Clark's article. She explains that coaching provides cues in two ways: general cues that promote thought and cues that prompt specific action. Cues begin broad and become more focused on specific actions as needed. One of the concepts that she mentions that I liked most about coaching was to encourage the entire class to engage in word recognition which helps strengthen all of their knowledge and ability because it makes them all think about the unfamiliar word. I thought this was also important because it could alleviate some of the anxiety or pressure to decode alone experienced by the students who initially prompt the cues. This strengthens classroom community with the concept of "How can we?", rather than individual student internalization of "me vs. them" or "I can't" mindsets at the fundamental and base levels of their educational experience.

What lessons did you find particularly interesting? Did any personal experiences with coaching or word recognition come to mind as you read?