Teaching Reading

?! Activity 1.

How do we read- (Materials: Boxes 10.2.1, 10.3, 10.4, 10.2.2)

Do you agree / disagree / agree with reservations with the ideas below- Account for your answers.

1. We need to perceive and decode letters in order to read words.

2. We need to understand all the words in a text in order to understand its meaning.

3. The more symbols (e.g. letters or words) there are in a text, the longer it will take to read it.

4. We gather meaning from what we read.

5. Our understanding of a text comes only from understanding the words of which it is composed.

Some conclusions:

- We can read words without necessarily being able to identify and 'decode' single letters.

- There is not a one-to-one relationship between the amount of text and the speed of reading. More significant: the number of sense units (i.e. letters combined into meaningful words, words combined into meaningful phrases, phrases combined into meaningful sentences); the more sense units there are in a text, the longer it will take to read it.