Why is decoding inaccurate

This model focuses on the sender and message within a communication encounter. Although the receiver is included in the model, this role is viewed as more of a target or end point rather than part of an ongoing process. You are left to presume that the receiver either successfully receives and understands the message or does not. Think of how a radio message is sent from a person in the radio studio to you listening in your car. The interaction model of communication describes communication as a process in which participants alternate positions as sender and receiver and generate meaning by sending messages and receiving feedback within physical and psychological contexts Schramm, Rather than illustrating communication as a linear, one-way process, the interaction model incorporates feedback, which makes communication a more interactive, two-way process.

Feedback includes messages sent in response to other messages. For example, your instructor may respond to a point you raise during class discussion or you may point to the sofa when your roommate asks you where the remote control is. The inclusion of a feedback loop also leads to a more complex understanding of the roles of participants in a communication encounter. Rather than having one sender, one message, and one receiver, this model has two sender-receivers who exchange messages.

Each participant alternates roles as sender and receiver in order to keep a communication encounter going. That makes sense because written language actually is a code. It uses symbols letters to represent sounds. Which sound or sounds each letter makes, like how a g sounds in goose and how it sounds in gel. How to take apart the sounds in a word and blend them. How groups of letters can work together to make a single sound, like s h in fish.

Kids learn these kinds of letter patterns when they study phonics. Kids typically start learning how to decode in kindergarten. Beginning readers start with decoding one-syllable words and work their way up to longer ones. Adults use decoding too. You had to sound it out. But after you encounter that new word enough times, your brain starts to recognize it at a glance. This is true for kids and adults. Decoding connects how words sound to how those sounds are represented by letters.

Phonics instruction helps readers make those connections. For example, when the letter c is followed by the vowels e , i , or y , it usually makes its soft sound, as in cell , city , and cypress. With other vowels, the letter c makes a hard sound, as in cap , code , and cut. Learn how phonics helps people become better readers and spellers. Decoding relies on the rules of phonics.

Most words in the English language follow those rules. Kids need to memorize these words so they recognize them instantly instead of trying to sound them out. Learn more about sight words. In order to read with sufficient fluency to comprehend what is being read, readers must be able to decode words and join the parts quickly and accurately.

Children with learning disabilities such as dyslexia, basic reading, or reading comprehension often have difficulty learning decoding skills and need a great deal of practice. Readers who do not develop decoding skills will also have difficulty with reading comprehension. The earliest phases of reading decoding instruction usually involve phonemic awareness and phonics instruction.

They will also likely work with both long and short vowel sounds. As children progress through the primary years, they learn to decode more increasingly complex words with more than one syllable. In the upper primary years, children begin to learn about prefixes and suffixes. They will also explore Greek and Latin roots to gain a better understanding of the meanings of complex words. As children become proficient with these skills, the skills become more automatic.

Children no longer feel the need to sound out each letter to decode words. They begin to rely more on sight recognition. It is not uncommon, however, for children with learning disabilities such as dyslexia to need more time and more practice with such skills than children without learning disabilities. As children become more proficient with recognizing words and parts of words on sight, they also begin to learn how to blend clusters of letters and recognize common groups of letters and how their meanings are affected by those clusters.

Children begin to read clusters of letters rather than letters individually. Children are typically taught to look for parts of words or root words that they already know to decode larger unfamiliar words. Children with learning disabilities in reading or dyslexia often have weaknesses in phonological skills, and this affects their ability to learn to decode with efficiency.

They can often fully understand passages that are read to them, but they lose the meaning of passages when they attempt to read them themselves. To address this problem, struggling readers often need repeated drill and practice of phonics and decoding activities over a longer period of time than non-disabled children.

Researchers typically recommend research-based instruction programs to address these needs. Many research-based programs include explicit instruction in decoding such as:. Teachers assess children's reading skills using paper worksheets and also by performance-based assessment. That is, students read aloud, and teachers listen carefully to note the specific types of errors children make as they read.

Teachers may have students read lists of words and also sentences and paragraphs to assess their skills.