Word Attack Skills/Decoding Words

 Word attack is the ways to help children decode, pronounce and understand
unfamiliar word.
 Children should be able to figure out the words on their own. However we can
help them by:
o Asking them to look at the picture for the clues to distinguish between
the words of almost similar sounds.
o Pronouncing the first sound of the word to emphasize the difference of
the sound.
o Stretching out the sound of the word which means the children will say
each sound and then put it back together.
o Looking for the parts in the word.
o Saying only the first sound of the unfamiliar word to give hint then finish
the sentence. Reread but let the children figure out the unspoken word
by referring to the whole sentence.
o Thinking about the meaning of the story by asking questions.
 Decoding/word attack skills is looking at the words around the word you do
not know in order to crack the code and guess the answer.
o Separate the sounds that are in a word and blend the sounds together
to have the correct pronunciation.
o Split words into smaller parts which means into syllables segmenting
(syllable by syllable). It is easier to decode the sound by making it into
small parts rather than read the longer one.
o Look for the familiar part in the unfamiliar word to break the code.
o Use the clues in the sentence to decode the meaning of the new word.
o Think about the subject such as the content of the reading material.
 Other ways to understand the meaning of the unrecognized words:
o Find the word in a full sentence, read the rest of the sentence to
assume the meaning of the unfamiliar word.
o Look at the pictures to get some ideas of the different meaning of
words.
o Search in the dictionary or internet.