A.Maghsoudi- Reading

Introduction

Reading ability in second language is essential for any student and it is a primary way in language learning. There were various arguments about this skill in last few decades, which represented valuable knowledge about nature of reading comprehension. The research about reading helps us to understand why the skill of reading was a passive skill in last decades and had no place in language teaching. This essay represents changes of patterns over several decades in teaching reading. There were three approaches which are described below:

1. Reading within an environmentalist approach

At the end of 1960 the environmentalists had some ideas about language learning. They ignored the role of the mind in language learning and said that the facts are outside the person. In this approach reading was a passive skill and the readers were decoders of the symbols which were printed on a page. The environmentalists` idea not only developed the conceptions of the reading, but also developed the research about it. This approach defined the relationship between stimuli as words and responses as word recognition.

In the environmentalist`s view the reader`s duty was decoding the symbols in a printed page and translating them into word sounds. In this approach the errors were ignored and the readers must be fluent.

2. Reading within an innatist approach

Chomsky challenged the view of reading as a passive process. He provided a basis for the innatist theory that said children are born with an innate ability and cognitive process gained more attention. Goodman first explained the role of miscue and error that made by readers. That is the learners are able to read more context than without a context. And miscues were due to the readers` intention to read a passage. The errors became positive in the understanding in this approach.

Then Goodman said that reading is a psycholinguistic guessing game. In this game readers guess the context`s meaning based on their background knowledge and textual information, then approve their guesses and make the message. He introduced three source of information: 1) graphophonic cues or knowledge of phonemic features; 2) syntactic cues or knowledge of syntax; and 3) semantic cues or knowledge of meaning of the word. Smith said that the reading isn’t something to teach but also it is something which somebody does by reading. The hypothesis of Goodman and Smith was approved by Krashen. As a result of such view teachers teach students in order to become active readers and using their background knowledge and predicting and guessing the meaning. Goodman and Smith focused on the reader as a text processor.

3. Reading within an environmentalist approach

By the end of 1970s, the researches about disciplines of cognitive and sociolinguistic psychology were started. The researchers analyzed the process while reading and how readers store the text notions in the memory. In this approach the Story grammarians focused on the organization of narrative episodes. The story grammar for Stein and Glenn were: 1) setting; 2) initiating event; 3) internal response; 4) attempt; 5) consequence; and 6) reaction.

Schemata theory in this approach made the relationship between the background knowledge and text comprehension of the reader. In these decades the reading was an interactive process that is a dynamic interaction between the writer and the reader in which the reader recreates the meaning and activates his or her knowledge. The reading creates a social relationship among the people. And the reading in each country rooted from its culture. And also the family and social values influence on the learning. The researchers look at the reading as a dynamic and contextualized process.

Teaching reading within a communicative competence framework

Communicative approaches in second language learning have change over the past decades. Communicative competence includes grammatical competence and the rule of language use in a social context.

Reading skill plays an important role in communicative competence. And the communicative competence includes five frameworks which are described below:

1. Discourse competence

This competence is the core of the framework of communicative competence. Discourse competence includes the knowledge of written text features such as markers, coherence and cohesion. If the readers could be able to interpret a written text, they need to know how they use the features of discourse. So the reader plays an active role in the process of reading and need to develop his overall communicative ability in reading.

2. Linguistic competence

Linguistic competence includes linguistic system such as vocabulary and grammar rules. And also being able to recognize alphabet and punctuation and this features are at the bottom level of the reading process. In order to develop the automaticity skill, we must match the language of the text with the language level of the learner.

3. Pragmatic competence

Pragmatic competence includes the knowledge of utterance by understanding the situational and participant variables such as politeness issues. Kern introduced three features for pragmatic competence. 1) Typographical issues; 2) syntactic issues; and 3) lexical issues. In this competence the occasion and the physical aspect are also effective in reading.

4. Intercultural competence

Intercultural competence refers to understanding of how interpret a text in a social context. This includes the social knowledge such as knowledge of sociocultural background and recognizing the accent and dialects.

5. Strategic competence

Strategic competence includes all of the above competences and is crucial in developing reading skill. The reader must know the communication and reading strategies.

Teaching reading comprehension

There are three major stages in teaching reading in the class:

- Pre-reading: the purpose of pre reading activities is to motivate the students to want to read the assignment and to prepare them to be able to read it. Pre-reading activities include: 1) eliciting prior knowledge; 2) build background; and 3) focus the reader`s attention on the task. Students should be taught to generate question as they read and the topic should be introduced and the key words should be explained while the teaching reading.

- Reading: at the reading stage the major emphasis should be on process rather than product. The process of guessing, confirming or rejecting, reformulating and comprehending are being taught in this level until the students understand the text. Students should learn to monitor and resolve blocks to comprehension and should be given the opportunities to evaluate their own ideas. One old but efficient strategies for reading is SQ4R (survey, question, read, reflect, recite, and review).

- Post-reading: post reading activities are used to clarify the meaning of author`s overall message. They are used to check how students are able to recall information they have read and their reaction to the text.

Conclusion

Reading is one of the important activities in language classes. It enables the learners to increase their world knowledge. It also helps them to considerate their knowledge of language. In foreign language learning, reading is a means of getting information from different sources including scientific and literary books and journals and the internet. The approaches of language learning in reading were described and the activities and the communicative competence frameworks were introduced in this essay.