WORDS, FEATURES, AND CUES: PROCESSING FIT TO PRINT

Word recognition has been taught traditionally through a skills approach. The subskills method of teaching new words is based upon an assumption that individual components such as context clues, phonic analysis and structural analysis, when taught in a systematic fashion, can be later applied by the reader in unlocking unknown words. The feasibility of that assumption is examined and the skills acquisition view is modified through a focus on features and cues which readers note when encountering a variety of text.