"Language is innate, but reading is a learned process". Today we were engaged in an extremely interesting discussion surrounding the reading process. The initial task analysis related to reading certainly highlighted the numerous factors needed in order for an individual to access information through reading, and I have a feeling that what was dicussed in a 3-hour morning segment was just the "tip of the iceberg" in terms of everything involved in the reading process.
It was interesting to think about letters and words as "scribbles on a page", because when it comes down to it, that is all that they really are. The letters we have selected to represent certain sounds is arbitrary, and without prior knowledge of the sound-to-symbol correspondence, reading proves to be a daunting task. I particularly enjoyed how this point was highlighted through the use of the Braille example, and discussion of other languages, such as Chinese. Out of curiosity, I looked up the number of phonemes in the English language, and it turns out that was have 44 phonemes that can be represented in over 1100 different ways! To think about learning how to match these sounds with the appropriate letter symbols, on top of all of the other components involved in reading (attention to task, emotional perspective of the student, visualization skills, etc.), it can be quite overwhelming. The overall reflection of the reading process really helped me to understand why many of our students shut down while learning how to read, particularly those students with a learning disability.
As a regular classroom teacher and program support teacher, I was also inspired to be introduced to so many forms of technology that can help students to access information while reading. I found suggestions of technology for the various age groups quite practical, as I agree that at the middle and high school level, it may be time to focus more on accessing the information, as opposed to remediation itself. I am anxious for future classes to come, in which we will have the opportunity to further explore programs like Kurzweil, Clicker 5, Start to Finish books, and Read Please, as these are all programs that seem better suited for helping students to connect meaning to text without being bogged down with decoding.
