The Reading
Process
Copyright © Adam Waxler
www.teaching-teacher.com
Reading is much
more than simple word identification, reading is a process of making
sense of print. Efficient reading is creating that comprehension
with the least amount of effort. However, while we read in order to
comprehend, comprehension is not the end goal, or the peak of
the pyramid, in the reading process. In fact, there is no end goal,
comprehension is not the summit of a mountain that a reader tries to
climb. If this were the case then once that summit, or goal, were
reached there would be nowhere to go but down. On the contrary, the
reading process cannot have comprehension as it's peak, because once
comprehension is reached, it becomes part of the readers new "theory
of the world". The reader will then relate all new information to
this "theory of the world" in order to construct further meaning.
Therefore, instead of viewing the reading process as a pyramid, or a
mountain to be climbed with "comprehension" at its peak, it is more
accurate to view reading as a cyclical process. While comprehension
may be a goal of reading, that comprehension then becomes the
foundation on which future meaning can be constructed. The ultimate
goal, or rather the ultimate by-product, of this reading process is
actually life-long learning. Nevertheless, in order to
increase the likelihood that comprehension will occur when
transacting with texts, a foundation of four basic building blocks
must be in place. This foundation includes the reader himself,
reading strategies, classroom environment, and student interest.
The first
block in the foundation, and arguably the most important piece in
comprehension, is the reader himself, their "theory of the world".
Both Frank Smith (1994) and Ken Goodman (1996) refer to this
background information that the reader brings to the text as the
readers' "prior knowledge" or "non-visual information". Goodman and
Smith, as well as many other reading experts such as Andrea
Guillaume (1998) and Lettie Albright (2002), stress the important
role that students' prior knowledge has in understanding reading.
Goodman claims that what readers bring to a text is as important as
anything they use from the text. Likewise, Frank Smith claims that,
"there is only one way in which language can be understood, that
print can be comprehended, and that is by having meaning brought to
it" (p.31). It is the brain, Smith claims, not the eyes that
determines what we see. The more prior knowledge, or non-visual
information, the reader has, the less visual information the reader
needs. Without sufficient prior knowledge a reader becomes more
dependent on the visual information which may result in "tunnel
vision" where the reader actually sees very little (Smith, 1994).
Therefore, when there is insufficient prior knowledge, reading can
be difficult, even impossible
Having students
draw on their prior knowledge will not only increase comprehension,
but may also increase student interest, the second building
block in the reading process. We cannot downplay the role that
student interest and motivation play in constructing meaning.
Louise Rosenblatt, in her transactional theory, explains that
readers read for two purposes, efferently (for information) and
aesthetically (for feeling). However, both types of reading may
occur at the same time and, in fact, there are significant
advantages in doing so, particularly increasing student interest and
motivation. For example, song lyrics, political cartoons, poetry,
trade nooks, and even picture books, provide a great opportunity for
students to read for both efferent and affective purposes. The
result is an increase in student interest and motivation. However,
teachers should also encourage both efferent and affective
responses. Affective responding, such as writing poetry, writing
letters, writing journal entries, or even creating skits may
motivate children to read and this may lead children to become
independent readers.
There are many
different reading strategies that can be used by teachers to access
and build on students' prior knowledge, and increase student
interest. These reading strategies are the third building block in
the reading process. K-W-L charts, discussion webs, and other
prediction strategies are a great way to tap into students' prior
knowledge. In a study by Lettie Albright (2002), starter questions
were used prior to reading that focused on making predictions about
the text. She noted that not only was she able to activate
students' prior knowledge about the subject matter but also increase
their interest in the topic. By activating students' prior
knowledge and increasing student interest, students will be less
dependent on the visual information of a text, students will want
to learn, and the likelihood that comprehension will occur will
increase. An extremely effective strategy that activates students'
prior knowledge and stimulates student interest is to provide
hands-on experiences before reading. Too often, teachers use
labs, activities, and films after reading, when these
activities should actually be done first. Andrea Guillaume (1998)
argues that providing these hands-on activities prior to reading
will remove "concept deficiencies", and will become part of the
students' knowledge thereby making future reading easier to
comprehend. Teachers should also teach reading with content area
texts so students are reading for a purpose.
There are many
strategies that can be used in the classroom that both activate
students' prior knowledge as well increase student interest and
motivation. However, all of these are worthless without the fourth
building block in the reading process: a positive classroom
environment. First and foremost, students must feel comfortable
taking risks in the classroom. For that to take place, an
atmosphere of mutual repect must be in place between teacher and
student as well as between the students themselves. With an
atmosphere of respect there can be a high degree of interaction
between students and between the teacher and student. However, the
physical environment affects the nature and types of interaction
that will occur (Vacca & Vacca, 1999). While straight rows are
conducive for lectures, students need to have an opportunity to
share information with their peers and learn from one another.
Therefore, the layout of the room must change depending on the
lesson to make the most efficient use of social interaction. The
room should change from rows to pairs to groups to circles and so on
depending on the social interaction expected in the lesson. While
this may drive the janitors crazy, it will certainly increase
student interaction and involvement in the lesson. This
student-centered classroom offers students the opportunity to share
information with their peers, thereby reinforcing what they already
know, and quickly clearing up any misunderstandings. Students are
then much more likely to participate in class. Still, teachers must
also create an environment that reduces student anxiety. Severe
anxiety can result in poor performance, can interfere with attention
to, learning of, and retrieval of information (Woolfolk, 1998).
Teachers can reduce anxiety by making instructions clear, avoiding
unnecessary time pressures, and providing alternate assessments for
students (Woolfolk, 1998). When teachers reduce student anxiety and
create an atmosphere of mutual respect, students will feel more
comfortable taking risks.
The classroom
environment is a crucial piece in the foundation of the reading
process, for once this student-centered classroom is established,
teachers can freely implement the reading strategies that both
activate students' prior knowledge and increase student motivation
to learn. With the four basic building blocks of the reading
process in place teachers can then, and only then, add the text.
Text includes traditional textbooks, trade books, realistic fiction,
and other print sources such as newspapers, letters, magazines, the
internet, etc. (essentially anything in print). Regardless of the
style of text, in and of itself, the text is nothing more than
"visual information". With the four building blocks in place, the
reader becomes less dependent on this visual information and is more
likely to be an efficient reader. With the four building blocks in
place, the reader is less likely to get bogged down with the
graphophonic and syntactic cueing systems. The graphophonic system
is the surface structure, what we see or hear. It focuses on
written symbols, sounds and spelling. The syntactic system is the
grammar of sentences, how we arrange words, and punctuation. As
stated earlier, however, reading is more than simple word
identification, reading is making sense of print. When the four
building blocks of the reading process are in place, readers reduce
their dependency on these two cueing systems and are able to focus
more on the semantic cueing system, the system that involves the
meaning that is constructed by the reader. This is the deep
structure level, where readers read for meaning and comprehension.
When teachers
activate students' prior knowledge, use various reading and teaching
strategies, create a positive classroom environment, and increase
student interest, classroom readers will be less dependent on the
visual information of the text. Dependency on visual information
may lead to "tunnel vision" in which the reader actually comprehends
very little. Therefore, by decreasing the dependency on the visual
information, comprehension will likely increase. That new
comprehension then becomes part of the readers' "theory of the
world" that they will bring with them in making sense of other,
future readings. Therefore, comprehension can be seen as much as a
beginning in the reading process as it can be seen as an
end.
Applying the reading process in the
general education classroom
To examine how
the reading process is applied in the general education classroom,
the following information will focus on an eighth grade social
studies lesson on the Panama Canal. The lesson is a forty minute
lesson that is part of a larger unit on Foreign Policy. Keep in
mind, that in order for the reading process to be effective and
maximize comprehension, the four building blocks must all be in
place. The actual reading is done at the end of the lesson and is
only a short section from a traditional textbook. However, the goal
here is to show that when the reading process is implemented
correctly, student comprehension will increase. The students will
be able to make sense of the printed text at the end of the
lesson because of the things that take place before the
reading.
As this lesson
takes place two months into the school year much of the positive
classroom environment is already established. The students are
comfortable sharing information with their peers and taking risks.
The basis of the positive class environment revolves around the one
classroom rule: Respect People, Respect Property. The rule is
simple and positive and applies to everyone including the teacher.
The desk arrangement changes from day to day depending on the
activity and on this day the desks will be arranged in pairs so
students can easily interact with their partner. In an effort to
reduce anxiety, the students are clearly told the days' agenda (to
review foreign policy and study the Panama Canal) and the objective
of class (to be able to argue what type of foreign policy the United
States was using in constructing the Panama Canal).
With the agenda
and objective of the class made clear, the classroom environment is
established and the teacher can now work on the other three building
blocks of the reading process. Keep in mind that none of these
"building blocks" works in a vacuum and are all actually
interconnected. The class begins with the teacher activating
students' knowledge on foreign policy by having them define the four
basic foreign policy choices learned in previous lessons.
Afterwards students, share their definitions with their partners
before discussing them as a class. This discussion time allows
students to check their answers with their partner, both reinforcing
their knowledge of the content while at the same time increasing the
likelihood that they will share their answers with the class. Once
the foreign policy definitions are reviewed, the teacher displays a
political cartoon on U.S. imperialism in Panama and the students
answer a series of questions based on the cartoon. Again, students
are given the opportunity to share their answers with their partner
before discussing them as a class. The political cartoon not only
reinforces their foreign policy definitions, but also piques their
curiosity and stimulates their interest in the topic.
Following the
introduction to the lesson, the students watch an eight-minute video
clip from a documentary on the Panama Canal. The order of these
activities is significant. It is common for teachers to want to
show the video clip at the end of the lesson. However, by showing
the video clip first, the teacher increases student interest and
motivation, removes "concept deficiencies", and creates a foundation
of new knowledge to which the students will be able to relate the
upcoming reading to. The video is followed by a short geography
exercise in which the students work with their partner to interpret
a map of Panama and answer a series of questions that reinforce
information from the map and the video.
The four
building blocks of the reading process are now in place. There is a
positive classroom environment, the teacher has used a variety of
teaching strategies that both activate and build on students' prior
knowledge, as well as increase student interest and motivation to
learn. Now the teacher can add the text reading. While a variety
of methods can be used to read the material in class, in this
particular case the teacher uses a read-aloud. A teacher reading
aloud can be an extremely effective way to convey the powerful
meaning of a text. However, to make sure the students are reading
and listening for a purpose, the teacher does three things. First,
the teacher restates the objective of the class. Second, the
teacher explains that the students will use this information to help
them write a letter to President Roosevelt about this foreign
policy. And third, the teacher explains that roughly half way
through the reading the students will stop to do a
"think/pair/share" in which they share one thing they learned with
their partner. These three simple reading strategies keep the
students on task and reading for a purpose.
However,
reading strategies to increase comprehension do not stop once the
reading is over. Upon completion of the reading, students begin
their closure/homework assignment, in which they write a letter to
President Theodore Roosevelt as if they were living in the United
States during the early 1900s. The letters must include the
following: the date, the type of foreign policy Roosevelt was using
to build the Panama Canal, whether or not the student agrees with
this foreign policy and why, and any emotions or concerns the
student may have regarding Roosevelt's foreign policy. The letter
is designed to encourage both efferent and affective responding.
Once again, the
order of the activities of the lesson is of extreme importance.
Many teachers may be concerned that it would be difficult to
motivate children to work after the video and that the video
needs to be held over their head in an "if your good we'll get to
it" type of way. In fact, the exact opposite is true. The video,
as well as the other activities, spark the students' interest in the
topic and actually motivates them more. The students are not only
enthusiastic about the text reading, but they are actually eager to
start writing their letter. The proof that the students were able
to construct meaning from the printed text (and that this reading
model is accurate and viable) is obvious when reading the students'
letters to President Roosevelt.
References
Albright, L.K.
(February, 2002). Brining the ice maiden to life: Engaging
adolescents in learning through picture book read-alouds in content
areas. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy.
Goodman, K.
(1996). On Reading: A
common sense look at the nature of language and the science of
reading. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann.
Guillaume, A.
M. (March, 1998). Learning with text in the primary grades. The
Reading Teacher, 51,
476-486.
Smith, F.
(1994). Understanding Reading (5th ed.).
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers.
Vacca, J.L., &
Vacca, R.T. (1999). Content area reading: Literacy and learning
across the curriculum (6th ed.). New York:
Longman.
Woolfolk, A.E.
(1998). Educational Psychology (7th ed.). Boston:
Allyn and Bacon.
Adam
Waxler is a middle school social studies teacher, teacher mentor,
and the author of eTeach: A Teacher Resource for Learning the
Strategies of Master Teachers. Adam is also the
editor and publisher of The Teaching Teacher’s Newsletter.
For more information about his ebook or to sign up for your free
monthly newsletter log onto:
http://www.teaching-teacher.com
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