How do you read?
How did you learn to
read?
Reading Without Nonsense
By
Frank Smith
Smith claims, “All methods of
teaching reading can achieve
some success, with some
children, some of the time”
(5).
Do you agree?
• Smith would argue that “children cannot be
taught to read. A teacher’s responsibility is
not to teach children, but to make it possible
for them to learn to read” (7).
• What is the difference between teaching
them to read and making it possible for them
to learn to read?
A teacher must understand:
1. Methods
2. Materials
3. His/Her Students
4. Reading
5. How children must learn to read
You will only have one glance at the
following letters. How many can you
remember?
Are you ready?
FNVIEMSPQLSURNZMAQTADELPJ
You will only have one glance at the
following letters. How many can you
remember?
Are you ready?
SNEEZE FURY HORSES WHEN AGAIN
You will only have one glance at the
following letters. How many can you
remember?
Are you ready?
EARLY FROSTS HARM THE CROPS
25 Random Letters: the eye can only move fast enough in that
short amount of time to “see” 4-5 letters.
25 Letters Arranged into Random Words: you see as much,
but prior knowledge of letters allows you to “see” around 2
words or 10-12 letters.
25 Letters Arranged in a 4-5 Word Sentence: you “see” as
much, but prior knowledge allows you to “see” the entire
sentence.
When letters are grouped into chunks of information, we can
“see” more at a faster pace because we can access prior
knowledge in the brain. If we do not possess that prior
knowledge, we are merely seeing letters, or more simply,
shapes.
Smith calls this “tunnel vision” and claims
that it is caused by too much visual
information and too little non-visual
information to help the brain understand
and store the information.
**You can’t “read” German (visual info.) if
you don’t understand (non-visual info.) the
language.
867-5309
Jenny, right?
The short-term memory can hold six or seven
items at once.
What if you were asked to remember a list of
words that had no relevance to you at all?
Would you be able to remember them?
Smith believes that students’ short term memory
inhibits them from reading because they are forced
to read each and every word correctly instead of
reading for the meaning. He believes that some
students end up having the expectation that what
they read will not make sense.
“Being able to recognize words on sight is a skill that
comes with reading, not a prerequisite. Like any
kind of sight recognition—birds, stars, cars,
airplanes, trees—it comes with experience” (41).
Long-term memory is “organization” of
information. Smith considers putting new info.
into long term memory a method to destroy
comprehension.
New info. must be relevant to prior knowledge in
order to be “organized” in the long-term memory.
**Committing large amounts of information that are
irrelevant to the reader to long term memory does
not aid in comprehension. They have simply
memorized random information.
Eye sea too feat inn hour rheum.
DOES THIS MAKE ANY
SENSE?
Students who learn to read with phonics,
according to Smith, “are likely to develop
into disabled readers, the type of secondary
students who are condemned for being
‘functionally illiterate’ because they do
exactly what they have been taught and try
to read by putting together the sounds of
letters” (53).
DO YOU AGREE?
Smith’s point can be made quite easily with
the following example from his book:
How do you pronounce the letter combination
“ho?”
hot, hope, hook, hoot, house, hoist, horse,
horizon, honey, hour, honest
“Meaning is directly related to the spelling of
words rather than sound” (56).
Smith reiterates his point that through
experience students learn spelling and
phonics. They learn to recognize certain
words and what they mean, as well as, how
they are pronounced.
So if spelling doesn’t matter and
the sounds of the words don’t
matter, what matters? How
does a student understand, or
comprehend the text that s/he is
reading??
Theory is necessary for prediction. Prediction is
necessary for comprehension. Comprehension is
necessary for reading.
You cannot simply have a theory of what the book
may say before you read. You must have a theory
of the past before you can make predictions about
the future. You must make predictions before you
can comprehend. Once you can fully comprehend
then, you can read.
Smith declares that a reader must have a theory of
the world before s/he can read.
Smith then goes on to say that beyond reading,
a student has to learn, and in order to do
that, the student must experiment.
Experimentation=Reading
The more you read, the better you get at
developing your theory and your ability to
predict and comprehend. The better you
can do all of those things, the more you are
going to learn.
Now that we have looked at how everything
functions, let’s take a look at where the
teacher fits in to the equation. Smith
claims there are 9 things that a teacher
should NOT do. They are:
“AIM FOR EARLY MASTERY OF THE
RULES OF READING.”
According to Smith, there is no set of rules for
reading, so this is merely a hindrance.
“ENSURE THAT PHONICS SKILLS ARE
LEARNED AND USED.”
We have already talked about phonics and
Smith’s idea that they don’t work.
“TEACH LETTERS OR WORDS ONE AT
A TIME, MAKING SURE EACH ONE IS
LEARNED BEFORE MOVING ON.”
If the information is irrelevant, reading
becomes irrelevant.
“MAKE WORD-PERFECT READING A
PRIME OBJECTIVE.”
A reader is not maximizing non-visual info
when s/he is concentrating solely on visual
info.
“DISCOURAGE GUESSING; INSIST THAT
CHILDREN READ CAREFULLY.”
If a reader has a theory, then they can predict. If
they can predict, then they must comprehend. If
they can comprehend, they can read. If they are
not allowed to experiment, they do not become
better readers.
“INSIST UPON WORD-PERFECT
READING.”
Experiment, experiment, experiment!
“CORRECT ERRORS IMMEDIATLEY.”
If you correct too soon, then the reader relies
on the instructor every time a word is
difficult.
“IDENTIFY AND TREAT PROBLEM
READERS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.”
The label creates anxiety and separation.
“USE EVERY OPPORTUNITY DURING
READING INSTRUCTION TO
IMPROVE SPELLING AND WRITTEN
EXPRESSION, AND ALSO INSIST ON
THE BEST POSSIBLE SPOKEN
ENGLISH.”
Spelling and speaking are not the primary
elements of reading.
Smith truly believes that teaching a child to
learn to read is more beneficial than
teaching them to read for 3 reasons:
1. They will “understand the functions of
print.”
2. They will “gain familiarity with written
language.”
3. They get the “chance to learn.”