Word Recognition

By Harly Davidson Lumasag

Definition
is "the ability of a reader to recognize written words
correctly and virtually effortlessly." It is sometimes
referred to as "isolated word recognition" because it
involves a reader's ability to recognizewordsindividually
from a list without needing similar words forcontextual
help.
Since reading comprehension is the ultimate goal in
teaching children to read, a critical early objective is to
ensure that they are able to read words with instant,
automatic recognition (Garnett, 2011).

 Word recognition is measured as a matter of speed, such

that a word with a high level of recognition is read faster
than a novel one. This manner of testing suggests that
comprehension of the meaning of the words being read is
not required, but rather the ability to recognize them in a
way that allows proper pronunciation.

Critical Component for Word

Recognition
Phonological Awareness. It is a broad term
encompassing an awareness of various-sized units of
sounds in spoken words such as rhymes (whole words),
syllables (large parts of words), and phonemes (individual
sounds).
Failing to develop this awareness of the sounds in spoken
words leads to difficulties learning the relationship between
speech and print that is necessary for learning to read
(Snow et al., 1998).

 Decoding. A deliberate act in which readers must

consciously and deliberately apply their knowledge of the
mapping system to produce a plausible pronunciation of a
word they do not instantly recognize (Beck & Juel, 1995,
p. 9).
Providing students effective instruction in letter-sound
correspondences and how to use those correspondences to
decode is important because the resulting benefits to word
recognition lead to benefits in reading comprehension
(Brady, 2011).

 Sight Word Recognition. The third critical component for

successful word recognition is sight word recognition. A small
percentage of words cannot be identified by deliberately sounding
them out, yet they appear frequently in print. They are exceptions
because some of their letters do not follow common letter-sound
correspondences.
Interestingly, skilled readers who decode well tend to become skilled
sight word recognizers, meaning that they learn irregular sight
words more readily than those who decode with difficulty (Gough &
Walsh, 1991).

Skills and Strategies

Instant Recognition. Mature readers identify words with
remarkable speed and accuracy. Indeed, fluent word
identification appears to be a prerequisite for
comprehending text. If a reader must slowly analyze many
of the words in a text, memory and attention needed for
comprehension are drained by word analysis.

 Context Clues
There is a good research base for concluding that students can use meaning or
context clues to help identify words and that instruction can help improve their use
of such clues (Johnson & Baumann, 1984).
Three different types of context clues are frequently distinguished:
Semantic or Meaning Clues.There are general semantic clues. For example, when
reading a story about cats, good readers develop the expectation that it will contain
words associated with cats, such astail, purr,andwhiskers. Sentence context clues
are more specific. In the sentence "My cat likes to _____," given the sentence context
and what most of us know about cats, words likeplay, jump,andscratchseem
reasonable.
Syntactic or Word Order Clues.In the previous example, the order of the words in
the sentence indicates that the missing word must be a verb. Other parts of speech,
such as adjectives(nice, brown)or nouns(man, fence),make no sense or don't result
in what sounds like a real sentence.
Picture Clues.Illustrations can often help with the identification of a word. In the
example, if a picture of a cat leaping through the air accompanies the
text,jumpseems a very good possibility.

 Word Structure Clues. There are many groups of letters

that occur frequently in words. These are generally
perceived by more mature readers as clusters of letters.
Among these letter groups are prefixes (un-, re-, in-),
suffixes (-ful, -ness, -est), and inflectional endings (-ed,
-ing, -es). Common prefixes, suffixes, and inflectional
endings should be pointed out to students. Being able to
associate sounds with a cluster of letters leads to more
rapid, efficient word identification.

 Analogy Clues. As readers build an increasing store of words that they

can recognize with little effort, they use the words they know to help
them recognize words that are unfamiliar. For example, a child who has
seen the wordwillmany times and who knows the sound associated with
the consonantfwill probably have little difficulty recognizing the
wordfill. Building phonemic awareness for onsets and rimes builds a
foundation for being able to identify simple words and syllables by
analogy. Many teachers encourage developing readers to use analogy
strategies by engaging students in word family (man, ran, pan) and initial
consonant substitution ("What word would I have if I changed
theminmanto anr?") activities.