It is crucial that children learn
to apply appropriate strategies for decoding challenging
or tricky words encountered when reading.
Strategies should initially be modelled.
When children are reading aloud
they may benefit from being prompted to select and use
a suitable approach from a bank of strategies
to solve a challenging word.
There are a range of strategies
children may find beneficial when reading.
This video provides five examples.
It's important to recognise that strategies
are rarely used in isolation.
A combination of strategies is often most effective.
Visual clues.
Contextual information in a text
can hold many clues about the words on a page.
When readers scan images, pictures, and graphics on a page
they may locate clues to problem solve
a challenging word in the text.
- When the yak starts yakking,
the frog starts humming.
The...
Bil, bible's bop?
- Oh, the bible's bop.
Let's see if we can find a word that makes sense there.
Let's have a look at the pictures to see if they can help us
and find an animal that might make sense.
What's that a picture of?
It's an Australian animal.
- A bilby? - It is a bilby.
Let's re-read that sentence and see if that makes sense.
- The bilbies bop.
- Did that make sense?
Yes, you used the visual clues to help you work out
that word that you didn't know. Good job.
- Sounding out.
Decoding with letter sound knowledge
is an important strategy.
When encountering a tricky word children may examine
the initial, medial, and end sounds in a word,
and use knowledge of letter sound relationships
to blend sounds together to identify the word.
- And the devil's...
And the devil's start, g...
- Now that's a very interesting word,
because the 'g' doesn't make any sound.
It's the next letter that makes the sound
that starts that word.
- /N/-/a/-/sh/-/ing/.
- Let's put them together.
- Gnashing.
- Start from here and read it again.
- And the devils start gnashing their jaws.
- The devils start gnashing their jaws.
Do you know what that means?
It's when they...
move their jaws together.
- Chunking.
Sometimes words are easier to read
if they are broken into smaller sections.
This is referred to as chunking.
When children search for patterns within a word
they can often identify familiar elements
which can assist in solving a challenging word.
Children may focus on syllables as chunks within words.
They may consider the onset and rime,
or they may look for smaller words within larger words.
For example, they may identify the two words
contained within a compound word.
- If the wallabies bounce, the bats start singing?
- Let's have a look at that word again.
- /Sw/-/ing/-/ing/.
- Lovely.
Now blend all of those sounds together to read the word.
- /Sw/-/ing/-/ing/.
- And the word is?
- Swinging.
- Reading on.
When a child reaches a challenging or tricky word in a text,
asking them to allow a short, silent pause,
to replace the word, then continuing to read
the rest of the sentence can often provide
enough information to identify the challenging word.
- The penguins...
- The...
- Let's keep reading.
- ... into applause.
- So let's go back and read again.
- The penguins br...
into applause.
- So what word might that be?
- Br...
- Something into applause, they?
- Break?
- Does that make sense? Let's read it again.
- The penguins break into applause.
- That makes sense doesn't it?
The penguins must have been excited
and they started clapping.
- Re-reading.
Re-reading a portion of text can sometimes help
to provide context for a tricky or challenging word.
It can also be an effective strategy for clarifying meaning
or gaining a deeper understanding of the text.
- When the treetops shake the sloth starts to shuffle.
Which ends up creating a mighty...
Ker...
- Okay.
Let's go back and start reading from here
and see if we can work out what that word is.
- The sloth start to shuffle which ends up creating
a mighty...
Ker...
/Ker/-/fuf/-/fle/.
- Let's put them all together.
- Kerfuffle.
- Great, let's go back and read from here.
- The sloth starts to shuffle
which ends up creating a mighty kerfuffle.
- Kerfuffle.
How did you work that word out?
- Because it rhymes with shuffle?
- That's right, listening for rhyming words
helps us work out unknown words, doesn't it?