Teaching Language Skills- Reading PDF

Teaching Language Skills Reading  Introduction Reading along with listening is something viewed as passive skill. There are some similarities between reading and noninteractive listening (that is, listening to a monologue, news broadcast, lecture, etc.). Both involve...

Teaching Language Skills Reading  Introduction Reading along with listening is something viewed as passive skill. There are some similarities between reading and noninteractive listening (that is, listening to a monologue, news broadcast, lecture, etc.). Both involve processing ideas gathered by others that are transmitted through language. Both involve highly complex cognitive processing operations. Of course, there are important differences. Listening is ephemeral: the words are gone as soon as they are uttered, whereas the written word is permanent, and can be revisited. In addition, reading involves the processing of written language, and there are important differences between spoken and written language.  Reading in Another Language Unlike speaking, reading is not something that every individual learns to do. An enormous amount of time, money, and effort is spent teaching reading in elementary and secondary schools around the world. In fact, it is probably true to say that more time is spent teaching reading than any other skill. For hundred of years, being literate has been the mark of the educated person. One of the greatest indictments of many education systems is that some children spend up to twelve years in schools and do not become literate.  Reading in Another Language Reading purposes and strategies There are seven main purposes for reading: 1. To obtain information for some purpose or because we are curious about some topics; 2. To obtain instructions on how to perform some tasks for our work or daily life; 3. To act in a play, play a game, do a puzzle; 4. To keep in touch with friends by correspondence or to understand business letters; 5. To know when something will take place or what is available; 6. To know what is happening or has happened; 7. For enjoyment or excitement.  Reading in Another Language Reading purposes and strategies There are different types of reading: 1. Receptive reading: which is the rapid, automatic reading that we do when we read narratives. 2. Reflective reading: in which we pause often and reflect on what we have read. 3. Skim reading: in which we read rapidly to establish in a general way what a text is about. 4. Scanning: or searching for specific information.  Reading in Another Language Reading purposes and strategies It is difficult to draw clear boundaries between the types of reading termed skimming and scanning; in general life, scanning inevitably involves some skimming (and skipping) of large sections of text, and skimming, reciprocally, must embrace some scanning. Furthermore, skimming and scanning both involves fairly rapid superficial reading and both are aimed at searching, rather than deep processing of the text or reflection upon the content of the text.  Reading in Another Language Bottom-up and top-down approaches The bottom-up approach views reading as a process of decoding written symbols into their aural equivalents in a linear fashion. Thus, one first discriminates each letter as it is encountered, sounds these out, matching the written symbols with their aural equivalents, blends these together to form words, and derives meaning. Arriving at the meaning of a word is therefore the final step in the process. In teaching beginning reading, it would seem reasonable to teach learners these sound-symbol correspondences, and, in fact, this is the procedure underlying the most popular approach to the teaching of reading, known as the phonics approach. The alternative, known as the whole-word-approach, teaches words by their overall shape or configuration.  Reading in Another Language Bottom-up and top-down approaches Phonics approach is an approach to the teaching of reading in which learners are taught to decode words by matching written symbols with their aural equivalents. One of the assumptions underlying the phonics approach is that once a reader has blended the sounds together to form a word, then the word will be recognized. In other words, it is assumed that the reader will already know these words in their spoken form. This, in fact, is not an assumption that can be made with either second or first language learners. Most teachers who have taught initial reading using phonics are familiar with children who can read without understanding. In other words, they can sound out the words, but are unable to make sense of the text itself.  Reading in Another Language Bottom-up and top-down approaches Criticisms of phonics approach: 1. It de-emphasized meaning in the reading process. 2. The complexity and relative unpredictability of sound-symbol correspondence in English has been somehow ignored. 3. Research into human memory and speech processing has also shown that phonics is problematic. It has been shown that it takes around a quarter of second to match a letter of the alphabet with its aural equivalent. At this rate, given the average length of English words, good readers would only be able to process around 60 words per minute. However, we also know that the average reader can read between 250 and 350 words per minute. Reading, under phonics approach, would appear to be a logical impossibility.  Reading in Another Language Bottom-up and top-down approaches Criticisms of phonics approach: 4. In speech processing terms, phonics simply does not work because in many words it is impossible to determine the sound represented by the word until one has read the entire word. Of course, when actually reading, context plays a crucial role in helping the reader to predict the meaning of a upcoming word. 5. Another criticism comes from the analysis of errors made by the reader when reading the text aloud. This technique shows that reading is more than mechanical decoding, that readers who are reading for meaning generate miscues that make sense semantically.  Reading in Another Language Bottom-up and top-down approaches On the other hand, according to the top-down approach, one begins with a set of hypotheses or predictions about the meaning of the text one is about to read, and then selectively samples the text to determine whether or not one’s predictions are correct. Reading is a process of restructuring meaning rather than decoding form, and the reader only resorts to decoding if other means fail. Criticism: If reading is a process of developing and testing hypotheses, then reading would actually take longer than the decoding approach.  Reading in Another Language Bottom-up and top-down approaches Support: Learning to read and reading fluently must necessarily involve the same process. Fluent readers recognize words on sight. In other words, they function in the way suggested by proponents of the whole-word approach, and that, therefore, this is the way that children should learn to read. Suggestion: Fluent readers read by recognizing whole words on sight because this is the way that they have learned to read in the first place. It could well be that a phonics approach in the early stages of reading is the most effective and efficient way to teach reading. And, it could also be the case that different individuals learn to read in different ways, and that reading teachers need to adopt different strategies to meet these different needs.  Reading in Another Language Bottom-up and top-down approaches It has been suggested that reading is an interactive process in which the reader constantly shuttles between bottom-up and top- down processes.  Research into Reading Schema Theory Research has shown that we do not process print in serial, linear, step-by-step process. Nor do we process print as “visual tape- recorders”. Rather, we interpret what we read in terms of what we already know, and we integrate what we already know with the content of what we are reading. One interesting line of research in the second language area concerns the effect on reading performance of readers’ own internalized models of beliefs about the reading process. Key questions here are: How do second language readers conceive of the reading process? and, How do these internalized models affect their reading performance?  Research into Reading Schema Theory Schema theory suggests that our knowledge and expectations about the world will strongly affect our ability to understand new information by providing a framework within which that new information might fit. The basic principle behind schema theory is that texts themselves, whether spoken or written, do not carry meaning. Rather they provide signposts, or clues to be utilized by listeners or readers in reconstructing the original meanings of speakers or writers. Reading comprehension is thus an interactive process between the reader or the text, in that the reader is required to fit the clues provided in the text to his/her own background knowledge.  Research into Reading Schema Theory According to schema theory, the process of interpretation is guided by the principle that every input is mapped against some existing schema and that all aspects of that schema must be compatible with the input information. This principle results in to basic models of information processing, called bottom-up and top-down processing.  Research into Reading Schema Theory Bottom-up processing is evoked by the incoming data; the features of the data enter the system through the best fitting, bottom-up schemata. Schemata are hierarchically organized, from most general at the top to most specific at the bottom. As these bottom-up schemata converge into higher level, more general schemata, these too becomes activated. Bottom-up processing is therefore called data-driven.  Research into Reading Schema Theory Top-down processing, on the other hand, occurs as the system makes general predictions based on the higher level, general schemata and then searches the input for information to fit into these partially satisfied, higher order schemata. Top-down processing is, therefore, called conceptually-driven.  Research into Reading The transfer hypothesis A reasonable working hypothesis in the area of reading comprehension is that good readers in a first language will be able to transfer their skills to the second language. However, it has been found that L1 reading skill does not predict second language reading proficiency. Limited linguistic proficiency would appear to “short- circuit” the transfer of reading skills from one language to another.  Research into Reading Cross-cultural aspects of reading comprehension One line of research of particular interest to second language teachers is that into the effect of background knowledge, particularly cultural knowledge, on comprehension. Research results suggest that: Background knowledge was a more important factor than grammatical complexity in the ability of readers to comprehend the cohesive relationships in the texts. Schema-building activities and tasks, carried out before the students read, will facilitate their comprehension. Training students to make links between the text and what they already know can also help. Cohesive relationships should be taught explicitly.  Research into Reading Richards (1989) suggested that the following principles capture the essence of effective instruction: 1. Instructional objectives are used to guide and organize the lessons. 2. The teacher has a comprehensive theory of the nature of reading in a second language, and refers to this in planning his/her teaching. 3. Class-time is used for learning. 4. Instructional activities have a teaching rather than a testing focus. 5. Lessons have a clear structure. 6. A variety of different reading activities are used during the lesson. 7. Classroom activities give students opportunities to get feedback on their reading performance. 8. Instructional activities relate to real-world reading purposes. 9. Instruction is learner-focused.  Task Types The “good” reading task The DART (Directed Activities Related to text) model was developed by Davies and Green (1984) and Davies (1995) in reaction to traditional reading exercises, such as multiple choice, that, they argue, are extremely limited in their potential as learning activities.  Task Types The good reading task:  typically makes use of authentic and challenging texts;  provide students with a rhetorical or topical framework for processing and analyzing the text;  frequently involves an oral reading of the text by the teacher or a student followed by silent reading and rereading of the text;  involves the students interacting with the text and with each other;  involves students in direct analysis of the text instead of indirect question answering;  frequently involves the transfer of information from text to a visual or diagrammatical representation.  Task Types Through active reading tasks incorporating these features:  students make their hypotheses explicit;  hypotheses are evaluated by other students and checked against the text;  there is discussion about alternative interpretations;  students ask questions about what they do not know instead of answering questions to which they know the answer or which may be seen as irrelevant;  if necessary, the teacher can adopt a role of informant rather than inquisitor;  students learn to be critical in their reading of a text.  Task Types These principles were used in The DART model as an alternative to the traditional approach to reading comprehension. Within this model, there are two different task types: 1. Reconstruction activities: which require the reader to reconstruct a text; 2. Analysis activities: which require the reader to transform the information in the text in some ways.  Task Types Reconstruction activities Analysis activities Text completion (word completion, Text marking phrase completion, sentence completion) Sequencing Labeling Prediction Segmenting Table completion Table construction Diagram completion Diagram construction Pupil-generated question Summary  Task Types A useful typology of reading strategies is developed by Grellet (1981). He identifies three main types of strategy: Sensitization Making inferences Understanding relations within the sentence Linking sentences and ideas o Improving reading speed o Going from skimming to scanning Predicting Previewing Anticipation Skimming Scanning  Task Types Classroom techniques using these strategies include:  ordering a sequence of pictures  comparing texts and pictures  matching, using illustrations  completing a document  mapping it out  jigsaw reading  recognizing the information  comparing several texts  summarizing  note taking  Task Types Strategies-based approaches to reading tasks Strategy Comment 1. Having a purpose It is important for students to have a clear purpose and to keep in mind what they want to gain from the text. 2. Previewing Conducing a quick survey of the text to identify the topic, the main idea, and the organization of the text. 3. Skimming Looking quickly through the text to get a general idea of what is about. 4. Scanning Looking quickly through a text in order to locate specific information. 5. Clustering Reading clusters of words as a unit. 6. Avoiding bad habits Avoiding habits such as reading word- by-word.  Task Types Strategies-based approaches to reading tasks Strategy Comment 7. Predicting Anticipating what is to come. 8. Reading actively Asking questions and then reading for answers. 9. Inferring Identifying ideas that are not explicitly stated. 10. Identifying genres Identifying the overall organizational pattern of a text. 11. Identifying paragraph structure Identifying the organizational structure of a paragraph, for example, whether it follows an inductive or deductive pattern.  Task Types Strategies-based approaches to reading tasks Strategy Comment 12. Identifying sentence structure Identifying the subject and main verb in complex sentences 13. Noticing cohesive devices Assigning correct referents to performs, and identifying the function of conjunctions 14. Inferring unknown vocabulary Using context as well as parts of words to work out the meaning of unknown words 15. Identifying figurative language Understanding the use of figurative language and metaphors 16. Using background knowledge Using what one already knows to understand new ideas.  Task Types Strategies-based approaches to reading tasks Strategy Comment 17. Identifying style and its purpose Understanding the writer’s purpose in using different stylistic devices, such as a series of short or long sentences 18. Evaluating Reading critically and assessing the truth value of textual information 19. Integrating information Tracking ideas that are developed across the text through techniques such as highlighting and notetaking 20. Reviewing Looking back over a text and summarizing it 21. Reading to present Understanding the text fully and then presenting it to others  Designing Reading Courses Steps in design Process 1. Decide overall purpose The purpose of your program and the relationship of the reading component to other skills that you might be wanting to teach will determine the overall goals and objectives of your course. 2. Identify texts and tasks Tasks can be either target (relating to the kinds of things learners might want to do outside the classroom), or pedagogical.  Designing Reading Courses Steps in design Process 3. Identify linguistic elements Linguistic elements can be grammatical (e.g. tense, clause types), lexical and/or discoursal (reference items, conjunctions, linking expressions). It is suggested to select from these based on the following factors:  The proficiency level of the students  The elements that students need to know in order to reconstruct the meaning od the text  The elements that help define the generic structure of the text  Designing Reading Courses Steps in design Process 4. Sequence and integrate texts and tasks In this regard, several options are suggested:  Following the sequence in which texts would be dealt with in a real-world situation  Ordering the texts in terms of their difficulty  Beginning with texts most critical to students’ needs, and then introducing less critical texts  Grouping texts in terms of the type of language needed  Sequencing texts in terms of strategies  Designing Reading Courses Steps in design Process 5. Link reading to other language skills As it is comparatively rare to find courses dealing exclusively with reading, the final step in the design process is to link reading and other language skills. It has been suggested that to link reading to others kinds of language interactions that mirror sequences un daily life.  Conclusion In practical terms, the following implications for classroom action can be drawn:  Use pre-reding, schema-building tasks, particularly with lower proficiency students to help them apply what they already know to the task of reading;  Teach learners strategies such as predicting, skimming, scanning, and give them opportunities to match the strategies to the purpose;  Provide a variety of reading purposes;  With higher proficiency students, develop activities for helping them identify and track logical and referential relationships in texts;  Using activities that require students to transform data from one modality to another and from textual to non-textual form;  Give students opportunities to go beyond the texts, evaluating and critiquing what they read.