What is reading?

What does it involve?

Is it an active process?

Does meaning reside in the text?

The little girl ate candies.

Her mother slapped her.

The little girl cried.

Reading is a Constructive Process

Reading may be described as“getting meaning” from writtentext, and a reader’s skill incomprehension depends on threethings:

1.) the background knowledge of thereader;

2.) the accuracy with which thereader responds to printed or writtenmaterial; and

3.) the reader’s understanding of themessage of the text.

Reading involves a transaction

between the mind of the reader

and the language of the text.

Read the story below in parts.Stop after each sentence andask yourself:

Who is Tony?

What makes me think so?

Tony was on his way to schoollast Tuesday.

( Is he a student?a teacher?What makes you think so? )

He was really worried aboutthe Science lesson.

( a teacher?a student? What makes you think so? )

 

Last week, he had a problemin controlling the class.

( a teacher? a student?What makes you think so? )

It was unfair for the Dean toleave him in charge.

( a teacher? a student? What makes you think so? )

After all, it is quite unusual to

ask the janitor to take charge of

the class.

Were your answers correct?Why? Why not? What processes did you useto arrive at your answers?

The activity clearly shows that

your background knowledge

determines what you expect

from a text.

 

Cognitive Processes:

predicting, hypothesizing,

deducing, inferring and

drawing implications.

Reading is a constructive,

interactive process which takes

place behind the eyes.

Schema- the term used to describehow people, in general, organize andstore information.

 Schema activation- is the mechanismwhich people access what they knowand match it to the information in atext.

 Schemata- have been called ‘thebuilding blocks of cognition

Reading is a language

process that involves a

dialogue between the reader

and the author. (Widdowson,

1979 as cited by Hedge,

2000)

Learning with texts is a

strategic act.

HOW TO RUIN AN ASSOCIATION 

Once upon a time, the Midtown Chapter was one of the most active chapters in the association. It was a smooth-running, efficient organization that enjoyed great prestige in the community.

 Then one day, things began to change. One of the members said to himself, "No-one will miss me. I have so many other things to do, I think I'll drop out of the chapter's activities."

 So hx bxgan to avoid chaptxr functions. Hx rxfusxd to accxpt his rxsponsibilitixs, and thx chaptxr had to limp along with onx lxss mxmbxr. Of coursx, thx chaptxr could gxt along without him, but it mxant that onx of thx rxmaining mxmbxrs had to doublx up and do twicx as much work as bxforx.

 

Thxn, onx morx mxmbxr dxcidxd to givx up his sharx of chaptxr activitixs. This mxant thzt two mxmbxrs hzd to do doublx duty.

 Thxn z third mxmbxr droppxd jut, znd thrxx jf thx jthxrs hzd tj wjrk hzrdxr thzn xvxr.

Thxn z fjurth drjppxd jut, znd mjrx jf qhx rxmzining zctivx mxmbxrs sqzrqxd wjrking hzrdxr thzn xvxr.

Zs qimx wxnq jn, mzny mjrx jf qhx chzptxr mxmbxrs ljsq inqxrxsq, znd prxqqy sjjn qhx chzptxr wzs bxing run by jnly z fxw mxmbxrs, znd iq ljjkxd likx qhis: Qkj kzqxx kzjxq jxk jzkxqk kqjz xjq kzjx xjz. Zkxq kqx zkkxq, kjz zkzxjqk zkk xkkq xxkziq kzjxq.

 

Top-down processing- readingproceeds from whole to part;from inside-out.

The uptake of information is guided by an individual’s prior knowledge and expectations.

Bottom-up processing- readingproceeds from part to whole; from text to reader; or, from outside-inside.

The readers take in stimuli from the outside world -- letters and words, for reading -- and deal with those information with little recourse to higher-level knowledge.

In most situations, bottom-up and top-down processes work together to ensure the accurate and rapid processing of information.

Six Types of Knowledge to Make Sense of a Text

Syntactic knowledge- rules that govern the ways words combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences. It helps a reader decode meaning through his knowledge of language features.

Morphological knowledge- identification, analysis, and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, and parts of speech.

General world knowledge- this relates to

the reader’s prior knowledge andexperiential background.

Sociocultural knowledge- this is alsocalled schematic knowledge and isrelated to the reader’s backgroundinformation of things, people, eventsthat make up his socioculturalworld.

Topic knowledge- this has to do withknowledge of a topic, an event, asituation that enables the reader tomake sense of a text. Genre knowledge- this type ofknowledge enables a reader to workwith the language of the text in orderto interpret its meaning.