What are some of the major
differences between a skills approach to literacy and a comprehensive or
sociopsycholinguistic approach?
There are many differences between a skills approach to literacy and a sociopsycholinguistic approach. According to the reading, skills approach involves teaching a student from the bottom up. A sociopsycholinguistic approach is the complete opposite. It involves a more in-depth and interconnected method for reading and comprehension.
With a skills approach to literacy, students learn to recognize letters and letter sounds, and then move on to more complex reading strategies, such as learning word families and sounding out words. Comprehension and meaning are completely left out of the equation until students are able to verbally say the words. The skills to reading are taught more in isolation rather than pulled in together. Reading is viewed as first being able to pronounce words and meaning as something that will develop later.
On the contrary, sociopsycholinguistic fully entwines all concepts of reading from a skills approach, as well as including schemas, and context. These skills are taught together versus in isolation. When a student is reading, he or she will use background knowledge, phonics skills, the context of how the word is used, the meaning of the word, and how the word looks in a sentence to full comprehend the text. The sociopsycholinguistic approach also understands that with each reader bringing his or her own skills and schemas, each reader may comprehend the text differently. Students transfer what they already know into the reading and develop their own meaning to the text.
In essence, skills approach to literacy focuses only on the basics of reading. Fundamental skills must be learned before comprehension can be factored into the learning, and skills are taught in isolation. Sociopsycholinguistic views reading as a whole. Students incorporate basic skills, such as letter names and sounds, but also use their schemas to determine meaning and context in order to create their own comprehension to the text.
Hi Kimberly,
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize that when a child is taught to read, we focus more on that child being able to recognize letters, and sounds. The meaning of the words are just as important as teaching the basics of reading such as letter and sound recognition. The sociopsycholinguistic approach teaches the elements of reading together with the other components and not in isolation like the skills approach. If we use this approach, then our students vocabulary and meaning level will exceed the standards.
I feel like schools focus and drill phonics. Like you, I agree that learning to read is more than strictly word identification.
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ReplyDeleteThe reading this week opened my eyes to the different approaches to reading. I thought it was important to teach a child to recognize letters and sounds. I always put the meaning of words as an important concept to teach children, but it always came after mastery of letters and letter sounds. It wasn't until last year, did I fully expereince the concept of teaching reading as a whole and not in isolation. I have started teaching reading through balanced literacy, which consists of reader's workshop, writer's workshop, and word work. I have throughly enjoyed this way of teaching reading. It allows students to expereince reading as a whole, with all components, instead of the components in isolation.
I agree that reading should not be isolated. With common core, we are integrating reading with math, science, and social studies.
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