Sight vocabulary

[jotham]

Is this as easy to read, or even easy? If not, it seems to lend credence to the notion that we still engage in some analysis of the parts — the letters — even though they be juggled and we're good at putting them in order in our mind, provided they're all there.
A-------g to r------h at an E-----s u--------y, it d----t m----r w--t o---r t-e l-----s in a w---d a-e in; t-e o--y i-------t t---g is t---t t-e f---t a-d l--t l-----s be in t-e r---t p---e. T-e r--t c-n be a t---l m--s a-d y-u c-n s---l r--d it w-----t a p-----m. T--s is b-----e we d---t r--d e---y l----r by i----f, b-t r----r t-e w--d as a w---e.

[eddie1]

Jotham says ‘it seems to lend credence to the notion that we still engage in some analysis of the parts’

Is it not a given that we analyse everything we see?

The concept of ‘sight vocabulary’ has many precedents in visual memory. When we see something of the very first time, we analyse it closely in order to make sense of it. When that same image occurs very frequently, detailed analysis become superfluous. When we encounter minor changes in an image compared to one with which we are very familiar such as ‘hvea’ and ‘have’ we switch back to more detailed analysis.

If you Google up ‘sight vocabulary tests’ you will find that such tests are produced by reputable organisations including universities and are often free. Certainly the Dolch sight vocabulary tests are free. The notion that we all have a range of words which we recognise without the need for decoding is very well established and there seems to me to be general agreement that the content of an individual’s sight vocabulary is based entirely on the frequency of occurrence in reading.

‘You see it hundreds of times – you don’t need to serially decode it anymore!’ You still need to decode unfamiliar, lower frequency words because in order to subvocalise them, you have to be able to ‘voice’ them, albeit at a subvocal level. This decoding process requires a knowledge of the 160 grapheme/phoneme correspondences.

Eddie

[jotham]

I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for Stephen Jones, but this provides support for eddie1's view, or that of whole-language:
http://www.ncte.org/groups/wlu/features/107343.htm

[eddie1]

I think you have to get away from the idea that you are either a ‘phonics person’ or a ‘whole word’ person. Tens of millions of people (including myself) succeeded in learning to read without formal instruction in phonics. Equally, vast numbers learned to read by the phonics route. There can be no denying that phonics is the reading code. The outstanding question is how the phonics knowledge is acquired?

If it is acquired intuitively by building up a sight vocabulary of words which can serve as decoding references for lower frequency, unfamiliar words, is that ‘phonics’ or is it ‘whole word’

I suggest that it is both.

Eddie

[Stephen Jones]

The concept of ‘sight vocabulary’ has many precedents in visual memory.

Does it? Can you provide any links to recent research that explains the links?

We know that the brain has a module used for recognizing faces and nothing else. Are you suggesting there's a module that stores written words? Or are you suggesting that it works in the way that, having seen a certain number of cats and dogs we can distinguish between them (which is a very difficult task for even the most souped-up computer).

There is clear research that we store a list of irregular verbs in English and check against that list before applying the regular rule. What research has been done into the sight vocabulary you keep mentioning.

Earlier on in this thread you mentioned that there was a limit of 4,000 words that can be stored in 'sight vocabulary'. Where did that figure come from, or is it just a hangover from the myth that people learnt to read Chinese by remembering the full shape of the graphics. To quote Wikipedia
Some advocates claim that it is the same method used to acquire literacy in languages such as Chinese, assumed by the advocates to be based on ideograms. This claim would appear to be ignorant of the structure and semantic relationships of Chinese characters.

Holding the shape of the whole word in memory can at best be an intermediate crutch on the path to reading well, like using sticks or stones whilst doing mathematics. It is clear humans do not read that way. In fact I doubt if I have any whole shapes at all in my 'sight vocabulary' apart from one letter words and & We do not learn words in the same way we learn other symbols, such as company logos, Om, or Yin-Yang. The main reason is that the mind needs to learn many more words than it can hold the graphical representation of in memory. To quote again the wikipedia article,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_education
“The average number of words in daily conversations on the streets of any town in the world today is about 50,000. . . . But when people are asked to memorize what word goes with which abstract visual symbol scribbled on clay, or papyrus, or paper, the upper limit is around 1,500 to 2,000, not enough for any language. Not even close. . . . There is a natural limit on human memory for memorizing codes with too many confusing symbols. This limit, from the evidence so far, is around 2,000 symbols. . . .

A monlingual educated adult has a reading vocabulary of 50,000 words; as I am, or was, fluent in four languages, that would give a total of 200,000 words before we even consider my rudimentary Arabic, or 100 times the maximum number of words that can be contained in sight vocabulary.

As concentrating on sight vocabulary can at best make children progress from illiteracy to semi-literacy the question is 'why bother?'

[eddie1]

I believe it to be possible to cite research that will prove almost anything.

Whether or not there is a dedicated area of the brain to store the images of words is not in my view significant. It is only significant that when we see a word we have seen many times before, we recognise it and can voice it without going through the decoding procedure. Whether we can understand the word is another matter involving other, different mechanisms such as comprehension. I have seen cases of idiot savant who could recreate highly complex images that they had seen only briefly.

I believe we can and do store images of discrete words - whty not? We appear to be able to store discrete images of millions of objects - apples, horses, amoeba etc etc What is wrong with the idea of storing images of words. Certainly, most people concerned with literacy seem to accept that as reality. My wish is to move forward from that basis and I am in process of putting together a world-wide research project to do just that.
My last major research project also looked at proactively priming sight vocabulary but in a less direct way.

Eddie

[eddie1]

As concentrating on sight vocabulary can at best make children progress from illiteracy to semi-literacy the question is 'why bother?'

How on earth do you arrive at this very odd assumption. An effective sight vocabulary contains three quarters of the the words which we will, on average, encounter in any piece of text. That leaves one quarter to be actively decoded abd for which we will need some mechanism to assist
us in the decoding process.

There are only 160 possible graphem/phoneme correspondences and these can be represented in about 50 or so words. I am suggesting that if a child's sight vocabulary can be primed to contain about three examples of each of these correspondences, that child would have internalised an intuitive and therefore instantly accessible decoding reference for the 20% less familiar, lower frequency words which s/he will encounter in any piece of text.

My research will test that hypothesis and that intereste me and that is why I bother. Progress will only come from people with positive outlooks.

Eddie

[Stephen Jones]

Your explanation is completely and totally muddled.

If sight vocabulary is the whole graphic learned but not decoded then the maximum sight vocabulary is 2,000 words. If that, including repetitions, is sufficient to explain 75% of the words that occur it is still only 5% of the total reading vocabulary. So we are going to have one word in four in a text that is not understood, but the barriers to meaning will be greater because up to half of the words that occur and are understood will be grammar words such as articles and pronouns; the number of content words not understood, following your statistics will be nearer one in two.

If, as is abundantly clear, literate adults do not use whole graphic 'sight vocabulary' when reading, then any 'proactive priming' of 'sight vocabulary' in children seems pointless until one sees the relationship between that 'sight vocabulary' and advanced reading skills.

[eddie1]

And you say MY explanation is muddled. You realy need to read my posts again.

Nowhere do I say that sight vocabulary is words learned but not decoded. That is entirely your construct I say that sight vocabulary is words which have been learned because they have been encountered so many times in reading that decoding them is no longer necessary!

Where on earth do you get your 2000 from?

I wont be continuing with this thread. I can't cope with pseudo-intellectualism.

Best wishes.
Eddie

[jotham]

Tens of millions of people (including myself) succeeded in learning to read without formal instruction in phonics.

It doesn't matter whether you get instructions in phonics; what matters is whether you get it or not. If they do, then they learn phonics themselves. There is no difference between being taught phonics formally or figuring it out by youself, other than degree of efficiency. You mentioned earlier about breaking the code, and I also believe many children are bright enough to figure it out themselves. As I said earlier, I worry about those students that neither get instruction in phonics or can figure it out themselves. But that's the ideal student in the ideal agenda of whole language. When you talk of breaking the code and the desire to do so, you don't sound like a tried-and-true whole-language advocate. We seem to differ in that I think students being told the code instead of figuring it out themselves is much easier and more sure than them figuring it out themselves. You seem to think it is most desirable that students figure out the code rather than be told. This isn't the goal of whole language.

[Stephen Jones]

Where on earth do you get your 2000 from?

Here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_education
“The average number of words in daily conversations on the streets of any town in the world today is about 50,000. . . . But when people are asked to memorize what word goes with which abstract visual symbol scribbled on clay, or papyrus, or paper, the upper limit is around 1,500 to 2,000, not enough for any language. Not even close. . . . There is a natural limit on human memory for memorizing codes with too many confusing symbols. This limit, from the evidence so far, is around 2,000 symbols. . . .

I wont be continuing with this thread. I can't cope with pseudo-intellectualism.

If you can't cope with reading to the end of a paragraph or clicking on a simple link, it's amazing you can cope with getting out of bed in the morning.