Yeah I keep forgetting we are talking about the very earliest stages of language acquisition

But how do you know their definition

I would bet money it's the only book he has read

I guess in that respect how is decoding a word different from context clues

I feel really naive about all of this which is embrassing as a PhD student but I was a pretty terrible student in grade school so reading never came easy to me at that point in my life

I appreciate you humoring me, truly

Oh the assumption here is strictly very young people who have never encountered written words prior to their education. So "recognizers" just have a preternatural ability?? That seems like a worrisome conclusion

That would make sense for common language but not for rare words often only found in books. I feel like what is not being said here is a lot of the better readers just look up the definitions of words they don't know instead of imputing meaning upon them

Oh Jesus

How do you learn to recognize words in the first place

Maybe you can elucidate something for me—and this is possibly my poor reading skills—but it says better readers simply recognize words better. How does one "recognize" a word "better" if they have not encountered that word yet. Isn't this just assuming good readers are already well-read?

Also thank you lol