Strategy 6: Declunking
When good readers read a text, they often come across a word that they find difficult to pronounce or decode. This difficult word is referred to as a ‘clunk’. When a reader meets a ‘clunk’, they have to ‘declunk’ it so that it makes sense. This Comprehension strategy involves providing pupils with explicit instruction on what to do when they meet a ‘clunk’.
Two approaches are used in developing ‘declunking’ as a strategy:
‘I have a CLUNK’. When a reader comes across a word that they cannot understand, then they need to ‘declunk’. To indicate they this, they make the letter c on both hands and join them.
When good readers read a text, they often come across a word that they find difficult to pronounce or decode. This difficult word is referred to as a ‘clunk’. When a reader meets a ‘clunk’, they have to ‘declunk’ it so that it makes sense. This Comprehension strategy involves providing pupils with explicit instruction on what to do when they meet a ‘clunk’.
Two approaches are used in developing ‘declunking’ as a strategy:
- Developing decoding skills – sounding out, looking for letter blends, prefixes and suffixes in words etc.
- Extending vocabulary
‘I have a CLUNK’. When a reader comes across a word that they cannot understand, then they need to ‘declunk’. To indicate they this, they make the letter c on both hands and join them.
