Using cues for reading

A reader's goal is to make sense of print and to understand the meaning behind it.

To decode and understand the meaning of a text, readers use information from many interrelated systems. These systems provide cues to make meaning clear.

Readers direct their full attention to the cueing system that is most useful to them at the time. Then, as soon as meaning is established, they move on in their reading.

Here are some guidelines for readers using cues to understand a text:

• Look at the words and what they mean in their context (with other words around them).
• Look at how the words, phrases, and sentences are put together.
• Look at the individual symbols and words.

Here are some guidelines for teachers to help readers use cues to understand a text:

• Encourage readers to use all the cueing systems available.

• Integrate reading instruction as much as possible.

  Reason:

  This helps readers learn to direct their attention and to use available cues in a variety of ways.

• Task module: Using cues for reading
• In task module: Developing fluent readers, by Anne Klaassens (contributor), Martha A. Lane (contributor), Delle P. Matthews (contributor), and Trudy K. Stewart (contributor)
• In task module: Developing literacy skills, by Martha A. Lane (contributor), Delle P. Matthews (contributor), Leah B. Walter (contributor), Glenys Waters (contributor), Anne Klaassens (editor), and Trudy K. Stewart (editor, contributor)
• In task module: Teaching people to read and write, by Carole P. Spaeth (compiler)
• In task module: Implementing a literacy program, by Carole P. Spaeth (compiler)
• In modular book: Implement a literacy program, by Carole P. Spaeth (compiler) and Leah B. Walter (compiler)
• In bookshelf: Literacy

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 4.0, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 26 August 1999

© 1999 SIL International