What do you mean, 'Sound it out'?

'Sound it out' is a pretty common phrase when it comes to reading and learning new words.  Most people will tell you that 'sounding out' a word means to sound out each letter of an unknown word and try to blend them together to figure out the word.  We can hear of many parents and students using this phrase as a technique for reading, but just how helpful is it?

When I think about having to sound out a word, I am more inclined to think about the game Mad Gab than I am to think about a good reading strategy.  Sounding out a word or phrase would be more helpful there in trying to figure out that "Thigh Sing Gone Thick Ache" is actually "the icing on the cake". However, it is not a very useful tool when it comes to reading.  The English language is full of words with silent letters, multiple sounds for single letters, and other complicated letter relationships, which would make this method unhelpful almost half the time.  Besides, simply telling a child to 'sound it out' over and over again does not seem very helpful at all.  No wonder children can get easily frustrated when trying to figure a word out and the only guidance they are given is, "sound it out".

In her article, "Sounding Out": A Pervasive Cultural Model of Reading, Catherine Compton-Lilly identifies some of the strategies children actually use when trying to figure out a word.  These strategies include, looking a pictures that may help identify the word, looking at the context of a story/sentence (what makes sense?), and visual features of words, or seeing if a child's pronunciation "looks like" the printed word.  Based on Compton-Lilly's research, many children will say they learn by "sounding it out" when in reality they are using these other reading strategies.  As adults we have become proficient readers and take for granted our ability to unconsciously figure out how to pronounce a word and understand it's meaning based on contextual clues.  When I come across a new word in my readings I do not need to sound it out; I have become familiar enough with the sounds letters make in certain associations that it requires little effort to figure out a pronunciation.  Children are still learning this skill.

As current or future teachers we can help children develop better reading strategies than just sounding out words.  We can teach them to use "...meaningful information gained from the picture, sentence context, or story line.  Or use "...structural knowledge as they think about what would sound right.  Or use their knowledge of visual information "...as they think about what word looks right" (Catching Readers Before They Fall, Johnson pg. 54).  While words are what make up a story, the story can also help our young readers figure out a word.  It may not always be an easy road, but it will be more beneficial and frustrate the teacher/parent and child less.