Foundations of Reading Comprehension

Foundations of Reading

• Reading involves constructing meaning from written texts, a complex skill needing coordinated information from various sources.
• Reading involves building meaning through the interaction of existing reader knowledge and provided textual information.
• It also requires context of the situation.

Comprehension

• Reading is intricately cognitive and enables symbol decoding to extract meaning.

Reading Categories

• Intensive reading involves the detailed, in-depth analysis of a specific text, focusing on grammatical structures and discourse markers to grasp literal meaning, implications, and rhetorical connections.
• It employs a "zoom lens" approach, scrutinizing texts meticulously, often under the guidance of an instructor, with select, interconnected topics by a single author.
• Intensive reading is considered the final stage in the reading process.
• Extensive reading aims at general understanding across a wide array of texts, happening when a reader engages with numerous texts based on personal interest.
• It relates to broad, voluminous reading, leading the reader to the end of the reading process.

Reading Techniques

• Scanning involves rapidly searching for particular information previously identified as needed.
• It relies on quickness and precision to locate the required specifics.
• Skimming is reading quickly to identify the overall idea, text structure, and writer's viewpoint.
• It requires fast organization and recall to comprehend the whole text.
• Skimming helps with general questions about a work.

Reading Levels

• Primary reading is the most basic level, aimed at achieving literacy and identifying simple facts.
• Inspectional reading builds an overall sense of the text and forms an initial impression, offering a quick overview to determine if deeper reading is beneficial.
• Analytical reading employs critical thinking to thoroughly understand the text's meaning and the author's intent.
• It assesses accuracy, relevance, and whether the content is fact or opinion.
• Syntopical reading, involves compiling a collection of topics.

Strategies for Critical Reading

• Begin by examining the text: Assessing external features helps tailor reading to fit the text's type and genre.
• Preview and survey the material by glancing at images, headings, and subheadings.
• Associate findings with initial investigations of stored information to classify the text's nature.

During Reading

• Comprehension involves balancing different skills to completely understand the text.
• Prior questions and predictions are maintained for focus and active comprehension.
• Vocabulary expands throughout the reading.
• The reader adjusts reading speed based on difficulty and personal ability.
• Visualization of the text uses information and prior knowledge to form mental images while reading.
• Connections enrich comprehension by linking the text with stored knowledge.
• Inference connects text information with prior knowledge for insights and conclusions.
• Comprehension monitoring identifies and resolves reading difficulties.
• Rereading parts or the entire text is necessary if understanding fails.
• Contextual cues draw on strategies in the text to understand unfamiliar words.

After Reading

• Assessing comprehension involves answering questions to gauge understanding.
• Summarizing identifies main ideas and details, while synthesizing adds perspective aligned with personal understanding.
• Evaluation assesses accuracy and relevance, connecting the text's value to reading goals.

Identifying Fact vs Opinion

• Opinions reflect personal preferences or beliefs indicated by phrases.
• Facts can be proven through empirical evidence, research, or general knowledge.

Understanding Authors

• The purpose drives the author's motivation and reveals the problem or question the work addresses.
• The viewpoint shows preferences and influences interpretation.
• Writers imply feelings through word choice.
• Assess whether the author achieved the text's purpose.

Writing Styles

• Paraphrasing rephrases an author's ideas for clarity, crucial in crediting sources.
• Abstracts summarize research or studies, useful for quickly understanding research.
• Reviews critically assess a book's content and style from a personal perspective.

Informative Texts

• Informative texts present factual information clearly and impartially on topics like nature, science, history, and travel.
• Information relies on facts, not opinion, often answering who, what, when, where, why, and how, mainly to explain topics found in a real world context.
• Examples include encyclopedias, journals, news, textbooks, and websites.

Author's Purpose in Informative Text

• The text explains a subject, clarifies complex events, details world information, and researches topics.
• The main goal for author is to convey information, presenting core ideas early.
• Supporting details elaborate on main concepts and aid in a reader's understanding.
• The Writing styles include visual aids that offer representation.
• Emphasis highlights key terms, and citations reinforce facts.

Types of Informative Texts

• Historical accounts present verified events from either direct or indirect observations.
• Information reports detail knowledge about living and nonliving things, and are writing that requires thorough studies.
• Explanations describe why and how events unfold, often using visual aids.

Descriptive writing

• Descriptive Texts use powerful language to engage readers, often uses adjectives and adverbs to enliven characters, settings, actions, or objects in the reader's mind.
• Effective descriptions utilize senses and figures of speech enhancing the reader's imagery. Text presents qualities of individuals, places, or incidents.

Descriptive Characteristics

• Describing individuals includes traits, behaviors, or habits.
• Describing objects includes colors, sizes, tastes, or amounts.
• Describing places includes sizes, designs, or prominent site features.
• Describing events details individuals, locations, timings, or sequences.
• Subjective outlines originate from personal experiences.
• Objective outlines originate from factual accounts.

Cohesive Devices

• Cohesive Devices are devices providing idea flow in descriptive writing, and the use enables better expression within broader text or in stand-alone contexts.
• Reference uses text-related words.
• Substitution replaces words.
• Ellipsis omits parts, maintains clarity.
• Connectives link clauses or sentences, improving comprehension.

Descriptive Text

• Character descriptions detail a protagonist's appearance and actions which give insight.
• Descriptions of emotion focus on a character’s feelings, while setting descriptions use sensory details.
• Descriptions of a key object are relevant to the meaning.

Persuasive Writing

• Writing conveys beliefs on multifaceted issues; the texts use personal tone and opinion.
• Applications includes ads, recruitment materials etc.
• Employed to sway via ethical appeals.
• Ethos shows credibility, building confidence from expertise.
• Pathos evokes emotion for engagement.
• Logos employs logic evidence for validation, avoids attacking opposers.

Narrative Writing

• Narrative texts recount events about specific individuals, places, or times in a coherent story from start to finish.
• Goals include providing entertainment, instruction, or valuable life lessons.
• Nonfiction narrates actual occurrences, like historical accounts and autobiographies.
• Fiction narratives involve fictitious elements and include short stories, and novels.

Elements of Narrative Writings

• Characters can be developed, driving force.
• Protagonists are the driving point, antagonists stand as opposing.
• The Plot is the order of the events.
• There is also Theme, setting, and perspectives.