Now, I know that if you are reading this, then you are likely a fluent reader. Like myself, you have likely developed a variety of Discourses in which you are fluent (or at least can mushfake, or fake it 'till you make it) depending upon the various contexts in which you must call upon those Discourses (the PTA meeting, your Graduate Assistantship, the "teacher talk" you must assume when you are with colleagues versus the "teacher talk" you use to establish yourself to a new class at the beginning of the year versus the "teacher talk" you use in Professional Learning Communities with your English Department colleagues... or Art teacher friends or Science teacher co-workers). Doubtless, you can read. Yet, like me, you are still developing and revising your theories of reading, just as beginning readers use their home and school experiences to constantly inform their own reading theory development. And, as an educator engaged in the co-construction of knowledge, your own theories of reading (shifting though they may be) are informing your students' own theories of reading. Is reading active or passive? Political or neutral? Interpretive or didactic?
Chapter Three investigates the complex processes involved in reading, primarily through the psycholingistic and social constructivist perspectives. The authors focus on these approaches because the behaviorist model of reading is simply too-outdated to remain helpful, and because it is extremely difficult to "observe the behavior" of comprehension. As we saw with Jeremy in the Mosaic of Thought excerpt, students may be orally fluent while still struggling with comprehension. In the behaviorist model, there is only one right answer, but as we know, meaning is constantly negotiated between the text, the reader, and the context of the reading. Psycholinguistic theory offers a more complex approach in which the reader must take an active role in making sense of the text. The authors offer the following model by Goodman, Watson, and Burke (1996) to better explain a psycholinguistic model of reading:
Reading as a Linguistic Process
The authors outline a number of important levels of knowledge necessary for comprehension, including understanding grapho-phonic (letter-sound) information, syntax (the relationship among words in a sentence, including word order), morphological information (word endings like -ed or -ly that imply how the word is used), and semantics (knowledge of the word and its relationship to the world). They remind us that meaning is constructed through the reader's levels of knowledge and the context in which words are used. For instance, "He was struggling to get out of the bunker" means two very different things within the context of a golf magazine or a WWII short story.
Context, Prediction & Schema
Great readers usually draw upon their own schemas, or "structured knowledge about the world," in order to make sense of new text and to predict what the text may be about. As has been widely discussed, this means that prior exposure to an idea helps readers to predict how new information is related to that old idea. For instance, a student who lives in Seattle may be more apt to understand the concept of tidal waves than a student in Albuquerque, who may have had little exposure to the movement of large bodies of water. Accordingly, "readers select the most salient features of letters, words, phrases, and sentences, depending on the background knowledge they bring to the reading, as the basis for sampling, predicting, confirming, or correcting" new knowledge. The authors further argue that "readers whose knowledge of text organization and rhetorical structure is strong will use that structural knowledge to negotiate meaning and will need to do less 'wandering around' in the text in an attempt to make sense of it."
Three Tips for Teaching Reading
First, it is important that texts are accessible to students at every level (elementary and secondary). Early readers may benefit from the predictable nature of familiar stories, poems, and rhymes so they can make predictions about the text, while secondary students will likely benefit from "materials to which they can relate, materials with enough familiar concepts and familiar styles of writing, materials that help them connect their own expeirences to those being represented in the text." If the text is inconsiderate or unfamiliar, the teacher must work hard to help students fill in the background knowledge they might need to comprehend more fully (audio-visuals are often helpful in this regard).
Second, reading fluency does not indicate comprehension (as we remember from the example of Jeremy in Mosaic of Thought). Following any oral reading, it is important to check for comprehension by having the reader retell the story or summarize the main ideas in his/her own words for a quick comprehension check.
Third, texts cannot be taken as infallible; rather, students should be encouraged to question textual authority by learning to read the subtext and to develop critical literacy skills. "Readers must learn to separate their own views from the author's. Lessons on bias and opinion, on implicit and explicit expression, on taking a skeptical stance, and on setting criteria for making judgments are therefore crucial to effective critical reading strategies. Only then will readers see themselves as participants in the construction of knowledge, not as mere recipients of someone else's views."
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