ABSTRACT
Research studies reveal that students need to be able to automatically recognize a large amount of words in order to comprehend texts. This chapter highlights the high-frequency words that make up 90 percent of words in fiction and nonfiction. The Appendix includes the different word lists that all students should automatically recognize. The chapter then discusses the three cueing systems (syntactic, semantic, and graphophonic) and gives examples to show how students use these systems when they read and write. The Common Core State Standards Foundational Skills that include word recognition are listed. The Assessment section explains types of formal and informal word recognition assessments. The Intervention section describes activities emphasizing receptive and expressive vocabularies, sight words, sight vocabulary, context clues, analysis of monosyllabic and polysyllabic words, and structural analysis. The Technology section lists apps and websites teachers can use to enhance students’ word recognition skills. The chapter begins and ends with two different classroom scenarios with guiding and reflective questions that can be used for classroom discussions.
