Module 3: Reading Reflection

Do you agree with Marilyn Adams (1990, p. 108) who argued that rather than relying on context, Skillful readers of English thoroughly process the individual letters of words in their texts? Why or why not?

I do not agree with this quote by Mary Adams. I think that our eyes see every word on the page, but we don't process every letter of the word..  If we read letter by letter then we would make mistakes and it would hinder our comprehension of the text. When I read the “The Boat in the Basement” on page 88. It shows that as humans we make connections with the contexts around the words. I know that reading is much more than understanding and pronouncing distinct letters. I am also understanding that proficient readers are both effective and efficient and in order to read proficiently, a reader must read for understanding. Our eyes individually process each letter, when reading fluently proficient readers read quickly and do not focus on each distinct letters, nor do they read word-for-word. Throughout the book I saw many quotes from that support me with this. One that really stood out was "Furthermore-an observation from everyday life-good readers do not read word-for-word or even line-by-line when they choose to read more rapidly than that, as many good readers do, especially when reading for their own pleasure and their own purposes-even when their purpose is to gain information." (Weaver, 2011)

Unfortunately the English language is hard to learn. It is probably one of the most confusing ones to understand. We just adopted a new phonics program and I feel that it is important to know the individual sounds, but not emphasis so much while reading for fluency.