Literacy specialist Lois Letchford describes how she could decode words but couldn't understand them, stuck in the SRA reading-box program with no adult help. She now works with children who read letters and sounds but can't make meaning, arguing that real reading is about understanding, not just decoding.
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Hello, I am Lois Letchford, the Literacy Problem Solver and author of the book Reversed: A Memoir. And I want to put up videos every week for you to enjoy, always adding a little bit to your knowledge. And today I wanted to talk particularly about reading words without comprehension. And this is a topic that's particularly close to my heart because that's actually how I grew up reading. Reading words with no comprehension. And I know that was the case when we had the SRA reading box, which is a box which had all these reading passages in them, and you're supposed to flip through it very quickly and easily, read the passage, answer the questions, and move up. I didn't move up. I was stuck on the lowest levels because I could read the passage. When I turned it over to answer the question, I made no connections. And I found it really distressing then that reading was enormously effortful for me. But worse than that was that not one person helped. No one ever said, this little girl isn't getting it. Either they didn't look at the test or look at the results or didn't connect that I couldn't do it. I knew that I couldn't do it and it was distressing. And throughout my whole elementary school, I read very few books. And the books that I did read took so much effort that it never encouraged me to pick up another book. So, as an adult, how do I use this knowledge? Today, when a child comes to me non-reading, I am asking what else is happening when they're coming to reading. What knowledge do they have? Why are they reading these words and not making meaning? And why are they reading these letters and sounds and not putting them into words and making the connections that they need to make? So I have used my background to really help me analyse a child's reading skills. That's the whole goal of reading. Reading is always about making print, making meaning from print, sorry. Reading is always about making meaning from print. So, I am Lois Letchford, the author of the book Reversed: A Memoir, and I am going to put up, you know, YouTube videos once a week. Please hit like, hit subscribe, and share this with your friends. And I hope we continue this conversation of thinking and talking about literacy. Thank you. Thank you.
