1.   How do skilled readers recognize words so quickly?

Researchers have determined that skilled readers recognize words at such a swift pace and expend so little effort on basic word identification that the reader's attention can primarily be focused on extracting meaning from the passage. There are several things skilled readers do that increase the efficiency of their reading:

• recognize letters in groups, or chunks
• break words into syllables with little conscious analysis
• use their knowledge of how words are spelled to read by analogy (recognize words because they look like known words)
• employ their knowledge of how a written text is structured
• activate their extensive vocabulary

2.   How can teachers help students become efficient at recognizing words quickly? (What knowledge and skills do teachers need to provide instruction?)

• Teach phonemic awareness at an early age.
• Teach sound-spelling correspondences explicitly.
• Teach frequent, highly regular sound spelling relationships systematically.
• Model how to read through a word sound-by-sound.
• Provide opportunities for students to practice in readers that have a high percentage of words that can be sounded out using the skills that have been taught.
• Read aloud to students to develop vocabulary, background knowledge, and more complex language of books.