Java Programming

I'm trying to try a method that accepts a String object and displays its contents backwards.

Here is the method I wrote:

    public static String backwards(String word)
    {
        final int SIZE = word.length();

        char[] wordArray = word.toCharArray();  //converts String parameter to char array
        char[] backwardArray = new char[SIZE];

        for(int i = 0; i < SIZE; i++)
        {
            backwardArray[i] = wordArray[SIZE - i];
        }

        String backwardString = new String(backwardArray);

        return backwardString;
    }

I get the following exception thrown when I run the program:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 5
        at BackwardString.backwards(BackwardString.java:32)
        at BackwardString.main(BackwardString.java:16)
Press any key to continue . . .

There's probably an easy solution to this, but I don't see it. Could anybody help point me in the right direction?

Thanks.