What are some of the major differences between a skills approach to literacy and a comprehensive or sociopsycholinguistic approach?
A skills approach to literacy and reading occurs from the bottom up and has a part-to-whole concept. Initially, the reader learns to read by starting with letters and letter-sound relationships, then transitions into words. In addition, the reader decodes texts by isolating the phonemes in words. Essentially, this strategy starts with the smallest pieces of language and works upwards. This strategy to reading assumes the meaning and understanding of words will take care of itself as the reader reads.
A sociopsycholinguistic approach to literacy encompasses a whole-to-part or a top down view. Readers take on meaning from their texts by making connections to the words and their contexts from prior experiences. The process of comprehending written text is an ongoing collaboration of visual aspects, letter-sound relationships, schemas, contexts, and words and their meanings.
Some major differences between the two approaches include dealing with the contexts, meaning, and prior knowledge. Those who believe in the skills approach do not believe that contexts, meaning, and prior knowledge are a factor in emerging readers identifying words. An educator who believes in sociopsycholinguistic approach believes the opposite; contexts, meaning, and prior knowledge are all intertwined . Another major difference between the two approaches is how the reader understands the text. Through the sociopsycholinguistic approach, readers will comprehend what they read through a variety of social and situational factors. A reader who is taught through the skills approach build upon the basics of language to construct meaning.
Allowing students to make connections to words using context and prior knowledge will help them develop. For example, many times teachers ask students to write a sentence about something and draw a picture to go with it. The connection with the picture may help the students write the sounds of the words they drew. Eventually this will lead to learning and identifying spelling patterns and strategies to correctly spell a word which will lead them to become better readers.
Tiffany,
ReplyDeleteI also learned the terms "part to whole" and "whole to part" because that is definitely the best way to describe the two approaches. Your example of allowing the students to write about something they are familiar with/interested in and allowing them to draw a corresponding picture is an excellent way to help the students gain meaning from the words they are writing. Another thing that would go great along with drawing pictures and writing sentences is having regular and daily reading out loud to the children, so that they can see other people's pictures with corresponding writing.
Tiffany,
ReplyDeleteI agree with the approach of having students draw pictures to go along with concepts can help students gain meaning. If you can play a "mind movie" with what you are reading it can lead to a deeper understanding of the concept. If you are able to visualize how something is that also shows your deeper understanding. Another great thing that isn't done as often as it should with older students is teacher read alouds. This is a great way for students to take the pressure off of reading and given the opportunity to enjoy books. This helps students work on making connections to other texts, self, or their world. I agree with Krista that students sharing their pictures or writing is a great way to see how other students interpret certain pieces as well.
Tiffany,
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your response, it appears as though we took away a lot of the same information from the reading. I too agree with you in that making connections with student’s prior knowledge will help them develop as readers. I feel as though it is very important for students to feel connected to the reading in order to gain meaning. I love the idea of creating a sentence and asking students to draw a picture to go along with it. When creating literacy centers this past year, one center always dealt with the students connecting their reading and writing to a picture. After they worked on this independently, they were able to share their writings and drawings with their peers. Thanks for such great insight about the reading.