Reading skill

Hale Samavati

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 Towards acquiring communicative competence through reading 

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'''Approaches to learning and teaching reading '''

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-Reading within an environmentalist approach

Up to the end of the 1960s the field of language learning was dominated by environmentalist ideas that avoided speculation about the workings of the human mind and concentrated only on observable facts outside the person. Environmentalist ideas shaped not just the theoretical conceptions of what reading was but also research (Venezky 2002). Reading methods used to help learners to build fluent decoding relied mainly on the phonic method of teaching reading by sounding-out routines or the look-and-say method of whole-word teaching (Bielby 1994) .The rationale behind this teaching practice was that mastery in decoding skills had to precede the development of reading comprehension.



-Reading within an innatist approach

Chomsky’s (1957, 1965) theory of language provided the basis for the innatist theory of language learning, which claims that children are born with a predisposition to language acquisition. Thus, together with the advent of the discipline of psycholinguistics, which attempted to test Chomsky’s contentions of language and language development cognitive processes began to gain more attention. Goodman (1967) posited that reading was a psycholinguistic guessing game in which readers guess or predict the text’s meaning on the basis of textual information and activation of background knowledge, then confirm or of textual information and activation of background knowledge, then confirm he described the three sources of information (what he called cue systems) that readers make use of to reconstruct text meaning: 1) graphophonic cues (or knowledge of the visual and phonemic features); 2) syntactic cues (or knowledge of syntactic constrains); and 3) semantic cues (or knowledge of the meaning of words). Moreover, he added that semantic knowledge is refined by background knowledge. This approach to reading was reinforced by Smith (1971). He believed that the act of learning to read should be considered as any other natural comprehensible aspect of existence. As a result of such a view of reading, learners were taught to become active readers (Reid 1993), that is, to derive meaning from the text by predicting and guessing its meaning by using both their knowledge of language and their background knowledge



-Reading within an interactionist approach

By the late 1970s researchers were attempting to identify comprehension skills on basic processes in reading. They analyzed what happened during the reading act and they incorporated notions of how readers represented text in memory.







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<p class="MsoNormal">A major development within this field was the emergence of story grammars. A story grammar is a structural account of narrative stories that readers develop, based on acquisition of knowledge about human interactions and repeated exposure to stories. This research direction represented an effort to formulate some correspondence between the structure of the story or text and the processing properties involved in the reading process and its effect on understanding (Rumelhart1975). The task of considering the non-textual factors involved in the reading process gave rise to the most influential theory of the1980s: schema theory. To tackle the relationship between the background knowledge that readers bring to the text and text comprehension. A schema theory, in Rumelhart’s words (1980: 34), “is a theory about how knowledge is represented and about how that representation facilitates the use of the knowledge in particular ways.”

<p class="MsoNormal">On applying this theory to reading, researchers (Grabe 1988; Rosenblatt 1988; Swaffar 1988) found that reading was an interactive process, i.e., it was a dynamic interaction between the writer and the reader in which the reader creates meaning from the text by activating his stored knowledge and extending it with the new information supplied by the text (Grabe 1988). The most important consequence from the sociolinguistics view of reading was that it highlighted the vital role that institutions and the sociocultural environment play in the reading act.

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<p class="MsoNormal">'''-Teaching reading within a communicative competence framework '''

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<p class="MsoNormal">Hymes (1971) proposed the notion of communicative competence, which included grammatical competence as well as the rules of language use in social context and the norms of appropriation.

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<p class="MsoNormal">*Discourse competence

<p class="MsoNormal">Discourse competence involves the knowledge of written discourse features such as markers, cohesion and coherence as well as formal schemata (i.e. knowledge of how different discourse types are organized) with reference to the particular communicative goal and context of the written text.

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<p class="MsoNormal">*Linguistic competence

<p class="MsoNormal">Linguistic competence consists of the elements of the linguistic system such as grammar rules and knowledge of vocabulary. Moreover, the ability to read also involves the mastery of the mechanics of the language, such as the alphabet and punctuation (Scarcella and Oxford 1992). All these features are set at the bottom level of the reading process and they are fundamenta for the readers to be able to decode the written text..

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<p class="MsoNormal">*Pragmatic competence

<p class="MsoNormal">Pragmatic competence involves an understanding of the illocutionary force of an utterance by being aware of situational and participant variables within which the utterance takes place, as well as politeness issues. However, this information is missing

<p class="MsoNormal">when interpreting the communicative intention of a given written text and, therefore, readers must rely on a set of graphic, syntactic and linguistic devices that may help them to interpret the writer’s intended meaning.

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<p class="MsoNormal">*Intercultural competence

<p class="MsoNormal">Intercultural competence refers to the knowledge of how to interpret written texts appropriately within their sociocultural context. Therefore, it involves knowledge of the cultural factors such as knowledge of the sociocultural background of the target language community, knowledge of dialects, and cross-cultural awareness (Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei, and Thurrell 1995).

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<p class="MsoNormal">*Strategic competence

<p class="MsoNormal">This competence refers to the possession of both communication and learning strategies (Scarcella and Oxford 1992). Field (this volume) emphasizes the benefits of paying attention to reading strategies and metacognitive awareness in a reading program to develop fluency in reading

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<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none">''' Areas of research that influence L2 reading instruction '''

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<p class="MsoNormal">'''The nature of reading '''

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<p class="MsoNormal">We all read for a variety of purposes, and as we read for different purposes, we often vary the cognitive processes and knowledge resources that we use. It is possible to talk about a number of these purposes with general labels such as the following: Scanning, skimming, reading for general understanding, reading to learn, reading to integrate and reading to evaluate critically. All of these various purposes need to be related to underlying cognitive processes and resources so that we understand better how processes and resources define these purposes systematically.''' '''

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<p class="MsoNormal">'''Implications for reading instruction from reading research '''

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<p class="MsoNormal">1. Ensure word recognition fluency: Segalowitz, Segalowitz, and Wood (1998) demonstrated that L2 university students who were more fluent readers overall had better word recognition automaticity skills. In addition, they showed that less fluent students improved their L2 word recognition automaticity through L2 instruction over the course of an academic year.

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<p class="MsoNormal">2. Emphasize vocabulary learning and create a vocabulary-rich environment: Anyone who wants to be a fluent reader must have a large vocabulary.

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<p class="MsoNormal">3. Activate background knowledge in appropriate ways

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<p class="MsoNormal">4. Ensure effective language knowledge and general comprehension skills: Text comprehension requires both a) language knowledge and b) recognition of key ideas and their relationships (through various comprehension strategies). Language knowledge, for purposes of this review, primarily involves vocabulary knowledge and grammar knowledge. A number of individual comprehension strategies have been shown to have a significant impact on reading comprehension abilities.

<p class="MsoNormal">- Prior knowledge activation

<p class="MsoNormal">- Mental imagery

<p class="MsoNormal">- Graphic organizers

<p class="MsoNormal">- Text structure awareness

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<p class="MsoNormal">- Question answering

<p class="MsoNormal">- Question generating

<p class="MsoNormal">- Mnemonic support practice

<p class="MsoNormal">- Summarization

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<p class="MsoNormal">5. Teach text structures and discourse organization

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<p class="MsoNormal">6. Promote the strategic reader rather than teach individual strategies

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<p class="MsoNormal">7. Build reading fluency and rate: fluency involves both word recognition accuracy and automaticity; it requires a rapid speed of processing across extended text (i.e., reading efficiency); it makes appropriate use of prosodic and syntactic structures; it can be carried out for extended periods of time; and it takes a long time to develop(National Reading Panel 2000; Segalowitz 2000; Kuhn and Stahl2003).

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<p class="MsoNormal">8. Promote extensive reading

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<p class="MsoNormal">9. Develop intrinsic motivation for reading

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<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"> Developing strategic L2 readers… by reading for authentic purposes 

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<p class="MsoNormal">Reading''' strategies '''

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<p class="MsoNormal">Over the last 30 years or so, already many different reading strategies have been identified. Strategies can be categorized into metacognitive (including purpose-oriented, comprehension monitoring, and strategies that focus on learning from text), cognitive (including strategies for interacting with the author and the text, strategies involving different ways of reading, strategies for handling unknown words, and those making use of one’s prior knowledge in some way), as well as social and affective strategies, among others. Reading strategies – which are related to other cognitive strategies enhancing attention, memory, communication, and learning – allow readers to elaborate, organize, and evaluate information derived from text.

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<p class="MsoNormal">Reading''' in L2 classrooms '''

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<p class="MsoNormal">Current argues that much of the reading instruction that presently takes place in L2 classrooms unfortunately does not prepare L2 learners for the sorts of reading that they will encounter in real-life contexts, where they must be able to make immediate use of what they read in the L2. teachers of reading do indeed try to teach specific strategies, for example, by having students read specific texts in different ways (e.g., skimming for the general idea, scanning for specific information), but here too, in these contexts L2 learners are asked to do these things without much instruction in why they might want to read differently at different times, or in determining when they might want to read in different ways, or even what more of those different ways might be.

<p class="MsoNormal">Indeed, if we look at the big picture in which authentic reading occurs, we must acknowledge that reading “is a ‘goal-directed, context-specific’ behavior, which means that a literate person is able to use reading and writing in a transactional sense to achieve some purpose in the world at hand…”(Flower et al. 1990: 4).

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<p class="MsoNormal">'''How do good readers use reading strategies? '''

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<p class="MsoNormal">The picture that is beginning to form of good strategy users from the reading research is that they are “strategic,” which means that they:''' '''

<p class="MsoNormal">-Are primarily focused on the drive to obtain meaning from a text, not on“using strategies”.''' '''

<p class="MsoNormal">- Are aware of their purpose for reading.''' '''

<p class="MsoNormal">- Overview a text to decide if it is relevant to their purpose.

<p class="MsoNormal">- Know and utilize multiple strategies.

<p class="MsoNormal">- Make effective use of varying strategies for handling unknown vocabulary.

<p class="MsoNormal">- Differ in their use of strategies, depending on their gender, language and cultural background, age, beliefs, motivations, or learning style (Oxford1996).''' '''

<p class="MsoNormal">- Know if their strategy use was effective or not by assessing whether they were able to accomplish their purpose (Ediger 2000).

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<p class="MsoNormal">'''The importance of reading for a purpose '''

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<p class="MsoNormal">In “real-world” reading, there are many different authentic purposes for which readers read. For example, this might take place when we read a guidebook, a train schedule, or an Internet website in order to purchase a ticket as part of making the necessary arrangements to travel to a desired destination. It could also include reading for academic purposes, reading for business purposes, or even reading for entertainment, passing the time, or pleasure.

<p class="MsoNormal">These types of real-world reading are important to focus on because the strategies a reader uses in order to achieve them are different from those one needs or uses when reading to learn the grammar of a language, to“practice” reading, or when reading without any particular purpose at all.

<p class="MsoNormal">Another remarkable effect of reading for a purpose is that the purpose increases a reader’s interest and recall (Schraw and Dennison 1994) and provides a built-in motivation to read.

<p class="MsoNormal">Reading for real purposes also makes it easier for us to see that not all reading should be performed in the same way – it depends on what our purpose is.

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<p class="MsoNormal">'''Fostering effective reading strategy instruction '''

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<p class="MsoNormal">In order for strategy instruction to be effective, it should:

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0level1lfo1; tab-stops:list36.0ptleft175.5pt"> -           Focus on establishing a purpose for reading.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0level1lfo1; tab-stops:list36.0ptleft175.5pt"> -           Extend over time, be multi-componential, and thus, should focus on the teaching of multiple integrated strategies, oriented toward specific purposes.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0level1lfo1; tab-stops:list36.0ptleft175.5pt"> -           Be different for different learners, depending on their language background, ethnicity, goals of study, proficiency level, learning styles, and gender.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0level1lfo1; tab-stops:list36.0ptleft175.5pt"> -           Focus on helping students understand when and where to use strategies.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0level1lfo1; tab-stops:list36.0ptleft175.5pt"> -           Teach students to monitor how they are doing in their strategy use, and to take corrective action when problems are identified.

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<p class="MsoNormal">'''Using purposeful reading to develop strategic L2 readers '''

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<p class="MsoNormal">The following are some practical ways in which strategies, world knowledge, and vocabulary skills can be integrated into L2 reading instruction:

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0level1lfo1; tab-stops:list36.0ptleft175.5pt"> -           Integrate purpose into the overall curriculum design

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0level1lfo1; tab-stops:list36.0ptleft175.5pt"> -           Begin each lesson with a purpose

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0level1lfo1; tab-stops:list36.0ptleft175.5pt"> -           Teach students to regulate their strategies for achieving specific purposes

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0level1lfo1; tab-stops:list36.0ptleft175.5pt"> -           Help students access their world knowledge

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0level1lfo1; tab-stops:list36.0ptleft175.5pt"> -           Build students’ vocabulary recognition through multiple exposures

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;tab-stops:54.0pt175.5pt"> Reference

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<p class="MsoNormal">Current; Trends in the Development and Teaching of the Four Language Skills, P51.C86 2006

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