Reading: A Psycholinguistic Guessing Game

1 reading : A PsycholinguisticGuessing GameKenneth S. GoodmanAs scientific understanding develops in any field of study, preexisting,naive, common sense notions must give way. Such outmoded beliefs clut-ter the literature dealing with the process of reading . They interfere withthe application of modern scientific concepts of language and thought to researchin reading . They confuse the attempts at application of such concepts to solutionof problems involved in the teaching and learning of reading . The very fact thatsuch naive beliefs are based on common sense explains their persistent and re-current nature. To the casual and unsophisticated observer they appear to explain,even predict, a set of phenomena in reading . This paper will deal with one suchkey misconception and offer a more viable scientific stated, the common sense notion I seek here to refute is this: reading is a precise process. It involves exact, detailed, sequential per-ception and identification of letters, words, spelling patterns and large languageunits.

2 In phonic centered approaches to reading , the preoccupation is with preciseletter identification. In word centered approaches, the focus is on word identifi-cations. Known words are sight words, precisely named in any is not to say that those who have worked diligently in the field of read-ing are not aware that reading is more than precise, sequential identification. But,the common sense notion, though not adequate, continues to permeate thinkingabout (8) presents a word version of this common sense view: Thus, inits simplest form, reading may be considered a series of word perceptions. The teacher s manual of the Lippincott Basic reading (6) incorporates aletter by letter variant in the justification of its reading approach: In short, fol-lowing this program the child learns from the beginning to see words exactly Singer, H., & Ruddell, (Eds.), Theoretical Models and Processes of reading (2nd ed., pp. 497 508).Copyright 1976 by the International reading Association.

3 Originally published in Journal of the reading Specialist,1967, 6, 126 most skillful readers see whole images of complete words with alltheir letters. In place of this misconception, I offer this: reading is a selective involves partial use of available minimal language cues selected from percep-tual input on the basis of the reader s expectation. As this partial information isprocessed, tentative decisions are made to be confirmed, rejected, or refined asreading simply stated, reading is a Psycholinguistic Guessing game. It in-volves an interaction between thought and language. Efficient reading does notresult from precise perception and identification of all elements, but from skillin selecting the fewest, most productive cues necessary to produce guesses whichare right the first time. The ability to anticipate that which has not been seen, ofcourse, is vital in reading , just as the ability to anticipate what has not yet beenheard is vital in this actual sample of a relatively proficient child reading reader is a fourth grade child reading the opening paragraphs of a storyfrom a sixth grade basal reader (5): If it bothers you to think of it as baby sitting, my father said, then don tthink of it as baby sitting.

4 Think of it as homework. Part of your education. Youjust happen to do your studying in the room where the baby brother is sleeping,that s all. He helped my mother with her coat, and then they were has not seen the story before. It is, by intention, slightly difficult forhim. The insights into his reading process come primarily from his errors, whichI choose to call miscues in order to avoid value implications. His expected re-sponses mask the process of their attainment, but his unexpected responses havebeen achieved through the same process, albeit less successfully applied. Theways that they deviate from the expected reveal this the common sense view that I am rejecting, all deviations must be treat-ed as errors. Furthermore, it must be assumed in this view that an error either indicates that the reader does not know something or that he has been careless in the application of his example, his substitution of thefor yourin the first paragraph of thesample must mean that he was careless, since he has already read yourand thecorrectly in the very same sentence.

5 The implication is that we must teach himto be more careful, that is, to be more precise in identifying each word or now let s take the view that I have suggested. What sort of informationcould have led to tentatively deciding on thein this situation and not rejectingor refining this decision? There obviously is no graphic relationship betweenyourand the. It may be, of course, that he picked up thein the periphery of his vi-sual field. But, there is an important nongraphic relationship between theandyour. They both have the same grammatical function: they are, in my terminol-ogy, noun markers. Either the reader anticipated a noun marker and suppliedone paying no attention to graphic information or he used youras a grammaticalsignal ignoring its graphic shape. Since the tentative choice thedisturbs neitherthe meaning nor the grammar of the passage, there is no reason to reject andcorrect it. This explanation appears to be confirmed by two similar miscues in thenext paragraph.

6 Aand hisare both substituted for the. Neither are the substitution of hischanges the meaning, the peculiar idiom used inthis dictionary definition, in the face of ill fortune, apparently has little mean-ing to this reader conclusion this time is that he is using noun markers for grammatical,as well as graphic, information in reaching his tentative conclusions. Altogetherin reading this ten page story, he made twenty noun marker substitutions, sixomissions and two insertions. He corrected four of his substitutions and oneomission. Similar miscues involved other function words (auxiliary verbs andprepositions, for example). These miscues appear to have little effect on themeaning of what he is reading . In spite of their frequency, their eliminationwould not substantially improve the child s reading . Insistence on more preciseidentification of each word might cause this reader to stop seeking grammaticalinformation and use only graphic substitution of hopedfor opencould again be regarded as careless orimprecise identification of letters.

7 But, if we dig beyond this common sense ex-planation, we find 1) both are verbs and 2) the words have keygraphic similari-ties. Further, there may be evidence of the reader s bilingual French-Canadianbackground here, as there is in subsequent miscues (harmsfor arms, shuckledforchuckled, shoosefor choose, shairfor chair). The correction of this miscue mayinvolve an immediate rejection of the tentative choice made on the basis of a re-view of the graphic stimulus, or it may result from recognizing that it cannotlead to the rest of the sentence, I hoped a does not make (It isn t decodable.) In any case, the reader has demonstrated the process bywhich he constantly tests his guesses, or tentative choices, if you substituted for sounded, but the two differ in ending sense might lead to the conclusion that the child does not pay atten-tion to word endings, slurs the ends or is otherwise careless. But, there is noconsistent similar occurrence in other word endings.

8 Actually, the child has sub-stituted one inflectional ending for another. In doing so he has revealed 1) hisability to separate base and inflectional suffix, and 2) his use of inflectional end-ings as grammatical signals or markers. Again, he has not corrected a miscue thatis both grammatically and semantically Iis a pronoun for pronoun substitution that results in a meaningchange, though the antecedent is a bit vague, and the inconsistency of meaningis not easily we examine what the reader did with the sentence Might as wellstudy word meanings first, we see how poorly the model of precise sequentialidentification fits the reading process. Essentially this reader has decoded graph-ic input for meaning and then encoded meaning in oral output with transformedgrammar and changed vocabulary, but with the basic meaning retained. Perhapsas he encoded his output, he was already working at the list word which followed,but the tentative choice was good enough and was not are two examples, in this sample, of the reader working at unknownwords.

9 He reveals a fair picture of his strategies and abilities in these miscues,though in neither is he successful. In his several attempts at philosophical,hisfirst attempt comes closest. Incidentally, he reveals here that he can use a phon-ic letter-sound strategy when he wants to. In subsequent attempts he moves awayfrom this sounding out, trying other possibilities, as if trying to find somethingwhich at least will sound familiar. Interestingly, here he has a definition of sorts,but no context to work with. Philosophicaloccurs as a list word a number oftimes in the story. In subsequent attempts, the child tried physica, physicacol,physical, philosovigul, phizzlesovigul, phizzo sorigul, appearsto move in concentric circles around the phonic information he has, trying devi-ations and variations. His three unsuccessful attempts at fortuneillustrate thissame process. Both words are apparently unknown to the reader. He can never re-ally identify a word he has not heard.

10 In such cases, unless the context or contextssufficiently delimit the word s meaning, the reader is not able to get meaningfrom the words. In some instances, of course, the reader may form a fairly accu-rate definition of the word, even if he never recognizes it (that is matches it witha known oral equivalent) or pronounces it correctly. This reader achieved thatwith the word typicalwhich occurred many times in the story. Throughout hisreading he said topical. When he finished reading , a check of his comprehen-sion indicated that he knew quite well the meaning of the word. This phenome-non is familiar to any adult reader. Each of us has many well-defined words in4our reading vocabulary which we either mispronounce or do not use ve used the example of this youngster s oral reading not because whathe s done is typical of all readers or even of readers his age, but because hismiscues suggest how he carries out the Psycholinguistic Guessing game in read-ing. The miscues of other readers show similarities and differences, but all pointto a selective, tentative, anticipatory process quite unlike the process of precise,sequential identification commonly s take a closer look now at the components the reader manipulates inthis Psycholinguistic Guessing any point in time, of course, the reader has available to him and bringsto his reading the sum total of his experience and his language and thought de-velopment.