There is another reason
why emphasis should not be put on the learning or dentification of words in isolation, and this is that it; is the most difficult way to do it All fluent readers use other cues when they are required to read letters or words
It is much easier to identify a letter when it occurs in a word or a word when it appears in a. meaningful sentence, than when it is standing alone.
As I have already pointed out, the. identification of individual words is not the most important part of reading.
Far more visual information is required to identify words standing alone (or as if they were. standing alone) than to identify words in a sentence.
Because of the information- processing limitations of our visual system and working memory, it is the handling of. large amounts of visual information that makes reading difficult.
One of the most important parts of learning to read is learning to use as little visual information as. possible. Fluent readers do not read words, they read meanings. Reading for meaning is far easier than reading words.
Children seem to know this instinctively,
no doubt
because of the strain that reading every word puts on their information-processing capacities