Do you
agree with Marilyn Adams (1990, p. 108) who argued that rather than relying on
context, “Skillful readers of English thoroughly process the individual letters
of words in their texts?” Why or why not?
I don’t agree with
Marilyn Adams’ quote. Based on the
readings from chapter five and the activities in that chapter, I don’t see how
this quote could be true. There were
some extremely interesting activities in this chapter. First, Figure 5.1 on page 91 was of mutilated
words where parts of words were distorted.
This figure began to prove to me that we don’t need the whole part of
every letter or even every letter to read words. I also found the activities with letters
missing from each word fascinating.
Seeing that I was able to read most words in each of these reading exercises
was evidence to me that readers don’t process each individual letter in texts.
Further into the chapter, I enjoyed reading about the brain’s function and the eye’s function or lack thereof in reading. One part of the reading in particular made it even clearer to me that readers don’t process every letter in texts. Weaver makes the statement that “the brain tells the eyes what data to gather, which parts of words to attend to” (Weaver, 2002. p. 97). Based on the evidence presented in chapter five, I don’t see how Adams’ quote could be accurate.
I feel the same way about Marylin Adam's quote. The book has so many theories and activities like the one you wrote about on page 91 that prove her theory incorrect. The brain only gathers the information it needs. The main parts of a word that are important are only the beginning, end, and consonants. The middle of a word and the vowels we could do without. This shows that we do not read letter for letter as Marylin states.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your statement that we don't need to focus on every letter in order to read words. We simply just don't do this. This is a foreign idea if you try to do it yourself when you are reading something. It just doesn't work. The book has done a thorough job in giving examples of how we look at the whole word first when we read versus looking at each letter individually.
ReplyDeleteI found Chapter 5 so interesting. I never really understood how our brain and eyes worked together to read text. I never studied this is my undergraduate program I do not believe. I agree with you on how we do not read letter by letter. This statement has to be false after what we read by Weaver.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone statements, and I found this weeks reading to be very interesting. I never understand how our brain and eyes worked together to attend to a text. It's amazing to read about, and see how "the brain tells the eyes what data to gather, which parts of words to attend to” (Weaver, 2002. p. 97). A reader doens't need to see the "whole" word, as the brian only need to attend to the important parts, which inlcude the beginning, end, and consonants. I throughouly enjoyed reading this chapter, and the excerises provided proof that readers don't focus on every letter in order read and construct meaning.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all of you ladies. I also think that it is amazing on how we actually read. I am like you Amanda I do not remember ever studying this before. It was very interesting to me. I did like the activities in chapter 5 where you read the words with only parts of the word there.
ReplyDelete