TEACHING

READING
ENGLISH METHODOLOGY II
PROF: R. Correa
I Semester 2008
 INTERACTIVE
SOCIOGOGNITIVE PROCESS
TEXT

READER SOCIALCONTEXT
 IS THERE ANY OPTIMAL
WAY TO TEACH READING?

 From the parts to  Overall

the whole. construction of
meaning from
connected or
whole texts
From the parts to the whole/Overall constrution
of meaning

 Part Centered  Socio-

phsycho-
 Code- linguistic
emphasis  Meaning-
emphasis
 Bottom up  Top-down
The bottom up view of
Reading
 It was influenced by behavorist psychology of
the 50s’ some patterns of language
are reinforced.
 Today,
 bottom up is associated to phonics
( match letters with sounds).
The bottom up view of
Reading
Reading is considered a linear process by
which readers decode a text word by word,
linking the words into phrases and then
sentences. ( Gray and Rogers 1956)

Textual comprehension involves the adding

the meaning of words to get the meaning of
clauses.
The bottom up view of
Reading

Most activities are based on recognition and

recall of lexical and grammatical forms
The top-down view of
Reading
 In the 1960’s a paradigm shift occured in the
cognitive sciences.
 Behaviorism became somehow discredited as
the new cognitive theory represented the
mind´s innate capacity for learning.
 This gave new explanatory to how humans
acquired their first language and produced and
impact in the field of ESL/EFL
The top-down view of
Reading
 The emphasis on meaning -Ausebel
1968, meaningful learning – informed the
top-down approach.
 In this view , Reading is not just
extracting meaning from a text, but a
process of connecting information in the
text with the knowledge the reader
brings to the act of reading.
The top-down view of
Reading
 Reading is a matter of making sense of
written language rather than decoding
print sound ( Smith 1994)
The top-down view of
Reading
 Schema theory:
It describes how the the background
knowledge of the learner interacts with
the reading task and illustrates how a
student’s knowledge and previous
experience with the world is crucial to
deciphering a text.
Schema theory and the
reading process
 Schema theory is based on the notion
that past experiences lead to the creation
of mental frameworks that help us make
sense of new experiences.(Nunan,1999)
 A reader comprehends a message when
he is able to bring to mind a schema that
gives account of the objects and events
described in the message( Anderson
1994)
Schema theory and the
reading process
 A learner’s schemata will restructure
itself to accomodate new information as
that information is added to the system
(Ommaggio 1993)
Schema theory and the
reading process
Content and formal schemata
 FS: knowledge about the structure of a
text.
 CS: knowledge about the subject matter
of a text.
CS and FS enable students to predict
events and meaning as well as to infer
meaning from a wider context.
Schema theory to L2
reading
 Select texts that are relevant to the
students needs , preferences, individual
differences and cultures
 After selecting the text follow the three
stages that are used to activate and
build students’ schemata: Pre, While and
Post reading actvities
Schema theory to L2
reading
 While schema activation and building can
occur in all three stages , the pre-reading
stage deserves special attention since it
is here where their schemata will be
achieved
Pre-reading activities

 To activate existing schemata

 To build new schemata
 To provide information to the teacher
about what the students know.
 Devices for bridging the gap between the
text’s content and the reader’s schema
(Chen & Graves 1995)
Pre-reading activities

 Formal schemata will be activated by

using devices such as advance
organizers and overviews to draw
attention to the structure of the text.
 Content schemata will be activated by
using various pre-reading activities to
help learners brainstorm and predict how
how the information fits in with their
previous knowledge.
Pre-reading activities

 Predicting
 Previewing
 Semantic mapping
 Reconciled reading lesson
The Interactive Model (IM)

 This model considers the interaction

between bottom-up and top-down
processing skills.
 The IM acknowledges that lower level
processing skills are essential for fluent
and accurate reading.
The Interactive Model (IM)

 It emphasizes that as bottom –up

becomes more automatic , higher-. level
skills will become more engaged.
 Efficient and effective readers entails
both processes interacting
simultaneously.
Interactive Process

Nunan (1999) “…reading is an interactive

process, in which the reader constantly
shuttles between bottom-up and top-
down processes”( p. 254)
Experiment
 Study the text below an answer these
questions.As you do the task, make a
mental note of the strategies you use to
make sense of the text.
 How many words can you make out?
 What type of text do you think it is?
 What do you think the text is about?
 What do you think is the purpose of the text?
 What lg is the text written in?
TOK BILOG GAVMAN

Sipos yu painim sompela Japan i les long pait,

yu gifim dispela pas. Sipos i savi wakabut, i
kan kam ontaim yupela nau painim soldia
bilong yumi. Im i sik tumas, orait, yu brinim tok.
Tok im gut, mipela mokan kilim ol, kalabus
dasol,nau salim ol iko long Astralia, na weitim
pait i pinis.
WOK BILOG GAVMAN. I GAT PEI
To think about…

 Relying too much on either top-down or

bottom up processing may cause
problems for beginning ESL/EFL readers.

 To develop reading abilities both

approaches should be considered, as
Nunan and the interactive approach
suggest.
 Reading Purpose and
Reading Comprehension(RC)

 The purpose for reading determines

the appropriate approach to reading
comprehension.
THE TRANSFER HYPOTHESIS

 Good readers in a first language will be

able to transfer their skills to the second
language.
THE TRANSFER HYPOTHESIS

 It has been found that L1, reading skill

does not predict second language
reading proficiency, especially at low and
intermediate proficiency readers.
 Advanced readers tend to transfer them
more often.
CROSS CULTURAL ASPECTS OF
READING COMPREHENSION

 It refers to the effect of background

knowledge, particularly cultural
knowledge, on comprehension, beyond
grammatical complexity.
GOOD READERS
 GOOD READERS:

 Read extensively
 Integrate information in the text with
existing knowledge
 Have a flexible reading style,
depending on what they are reading
 GOOD READERS:

 Are motivated
 Rely on different skills interacting:
perceptual processing, phonemic
processing, recall
 Read for a purpose; reading serves a
function
THE GOOD READING TASK

 makes use of authentic and challenging texts;

 provides students with a topical framework for
processing and analyzing 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 it may involve the transfer of information
from text to a visual or diagrammatic representation.

Davies (1995)
DART MODEL

 Davies developed the DART( Direct

Activities Related to Text) model , which
includes 2 different task types,
reconstruction activities and analysis
activities.
RECONSTRUCTION ANALYSIS
( using text modified by teacher) ( using straight text)

 Text completion  Text marking

 Sequencing  Labeling
 Prediction  Segmenting
 Table completion  Table construction
 Diagram completion  Diagram construction
 St generated
questions
 Summary
Reading Comprehension

Reader skills and strategies

type of text reading purpose

Strategies for Developing
Reading Skills
 Previewing
 Predicting
 Skimming and scanning
 Clustering
 Guessing from context
 Paraphrasing
 Inferring
Strategies for Developing
Reading Skills
 Identifying genres/purpose
 Identifying paragraph/sentence structure
 Noticing cohesive devices
 Using background knowledge
 Evaluating
 Reviewing
How to promote Reading
Strategies?
BEFORE READING: Plan for the reading task
 Decide in advance what to read for
 Decide if more linguistic or background
knowledge is needed
 Determine whether to enter the text from the
top down ( overall meaning) or from the bottom
up (focus on the words and phrases)
How to promote Reading
Strategies?
During and After Reading: Monitor
comprehension
 Verify predictions and check for
inaccurate guesses
 Decide what is and is not important to
understand
 Reread to check comprehension
How to promote Reading
Strategies?
After Reading: Evaluate comprehension and
strategy use
 Evaluate comprehension in a particular task or
area
 Evaluate overall progress in reading and in
particular types of reading tasks
 Decide if the strategies used were appropriate
for the purpose and for the task
 Modify strategies if necessary
 Some conclusions

 Use pre-reading,schema-building
tasks,particularly with lower proficiency
students.
 Teach learners strategies and give them
the opprtunity to match strategies to the
purposes.
 Provide a variety of reading purposes.
 Some conclusions

 With higher proficiency students, develop

activities for helping them identify and track
logical and referential relationships in texts.
 Use activities that require students to transform
data from one modality to another and from
textual to nontextual.
 Give students opprtunities to go beyond the
texts, evaluating and critiquing what they read.
 There are worse crimes than
burning books. One of them is
not reading them.

Joseph Brodsky, Russian poet

Nobel Prize in Literature (1987)