Concept of Word

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Concept of Word

• Flanigan (2005)

Image courtesy of http//www.halloween.ecsd.net/MB
20Halloween.htm
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Jack has trouble matching spoken words to printed
words while reading a memorized poem.
Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)
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Young children lack concept of word because

• there is no simple physical basis for isolating
  words in speech.
• there are usually no spaces between successive
  spoken words as there is in printed text.
• when we speak, we pause between phrases, not
  words.
• when we speak or listen to someone else, we focus
  on the meaning of the entire message not separate
  words.
• See spectrograph example.

Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)
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Research Evidence

• Few kindergarteners could segment speech into
  words (Holden MacGinitie, 1972). Instead of
  tapping the poker chip for each word of a
  memorized text, they combined words (The book/ is
  in/ the desk) for each tap.
• Young children were asked to say yes if what
  they heard was a word or no if it was not. They
  heard nonverbal sounds (a cat meowing), isolated
  phonemes (the /s/ in /sat/), isolated syllables
  (the /at/ in /sat/), short words, long words,
  phrases, and sentences (Downing Oliver, 1974).
  All children confused syllables and phonemes with
  words. Younger children (under 6 and half)
  confused words with non-verbal sounds (like the
  cats meow), phrases, sentences.

Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)
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Phonemic Awareness

• The ability to attend to and manipulate the sound
  structure of spoken words.
• Just as there is no physical basis for breaking
  sentences into words, there is no physical basis
  for breaking words into phonemes.
• Children hear the word /cat/ as one single pulse
  of sound because all three phonemes in this word
  are coarticulated.
• Through interactions with print, children develop
  full phoneme awareness.

Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)
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Why Is Concept of Word Important?

• Concept of Word serves as a bridge to full
  phoneme segmentation ability.

Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)
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• A beginning reader with little to no knowledge
  of letter-sounds may not be able to track words
  in print.

Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)
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• Beginning readers begin to attend to beginning
  letter-sounds in words.
• Using memory of the story and spaces between
  words, they can now match spoken to written words
  while fingerpoint reading.

Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)
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• Supported reading activities help stabilize the
  concept of word in text.
• With knowledge of initial letter-sounds in words,
  spacing between words as anchors, the reader can
  now examine other parts of the word.
• After encountering the word cat the reader
  begins attending not only to the initial
  consonant c but eventually to the ending letter
  t also.

Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)
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• At this second stage in Morris model, the reader
  is able to attend to the word boundaries (i.e.,
  beginning and ending consonants) and s/he becomes
  increasingly adept at tracking text while
  fingerpoint reading.

Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)
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• In the third stage of Morriss model, as the
  concept of word is established, readers can now
  examine the internal parts of the wordthe vowel.
• It is only after the beginning reader has been
  able to segment speech into words that s/he is
  able to segment words into phonemes.

Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)
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• The final stage of Morriss model entails the
  ability to fully segment a word into its
  constituent phonemes. This is the necessary
  foundation for an increase in sight word
  knowledge.
• Full phoneme segmentation ability allows complete
  processing of all letter-sounds in words,
  enabling the storage of words in memory as sight
  words.

Direct quotes from Flanigan (2005)
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Questions

• According to the model, when should I start
  teaching sight words with a beginning reader?
• What should I do to have the student attend to
  the print of a pattern book if I see that s/he is
  overrelying on pictures and memory of the story.