This is what Ken Goodman wrote in 1967:

“Reading is a psycholinguistic guessing game. It involves an interaction between thought and language. Efficient reading does not result from precise perception and identification of all elements, but from skill in selecting the fewest, most productive cues necessary to produce guesses which are right the first time. The ability to anticipate that which has not been seen, of course, is vital in reading, just as the ability to anticipate what has not yet been heard is vital in listening (Goodman, 1967, p. 127)

The term, psycholinguistic guessing game” has been commonly taken out of context and misunderstood by those who would propose a skills-based approach to reading instruction. Remember, context matters. In the context in which it was used, this term refers to the process used by your brain to maximize efficiency during reading.

In 1967, Ken Goodman published an article in Reading Research Quarterly with the title` Reading: A Psycholinguistic Guessing Game (Goodman, 1967). Here he applies Psycholinguistic Theory to the reading process. A pretty good article. I highly recommend reading it. However, two words have been pulled from the title ‘reading’ and ‘guessing’. These two words have become a Rorschach inkblot test for those who would disagree with or who don’t understand Dr. Goodman’s ideas. All sorts of dark and scary images have been projected upon them. These Rorschach-ian projections have been used for the last 50 years to misrepresent whole language and to discredit the work of Ken Goodman.

This is a wonderful conversation that I had with Claude Goldenberg. He has different ideas about things but he is a delight to talk with.