Psychological Bases of Reading
RE 5120
Carol Holt
Reading
Reading is the cornerstone of learning therefore literacy plays an increasingly important role today in the United States. Prior to taking Psychological Bases of Reading with Dr. Omer Ari, I knew that reading is a complex process but I was not well-informed of the cognitive processing that has to take place for comprehension to occur. This course has impacted my view of reading after reading research on topics such as phonemic awareness and decoding, word recognition, vocabulary acquisition, fluency, working memory, proposition construction and comprehension.
The Simple View of reading is Reading = Decoding x Language Comprehension. It may be a simple view, but there are many processes working simultaneously for comprehension to take place. A reader must recognize words so that connections are made among the phonological and orthographic representations. A reader must read with fluency in order to construct an accurate interpretation of the passage. In addition to word recognition and fluency, a reader must access prior knowledge and make sense of the reading through semantic representation (Adams, 2004). A Connectionist Model involves an orthographic processor receiving visual information from written text, which is connected to the phonological processor which holds pronunciations for text. At the same time, the meaning processor gives meaning to words, while the context processor constructs interpretations of the text. When all the processors are interacting and activating these sources of information, feedback is quick and becomes automatic with practice.
Comprehension of language, whether read or heard, is a bottom-up process beginning with word recognition (Kintsch, 2004). Struggling readers who labor over word recognition are not able to construct meaning. Building word recognition assists comprehension processes when reading on the appropriate level. According to Kintsch (2004), when we comprehend what we have heard or read, it becomes deep structure. A person uses deep structure to construct meaning of the propositions or meaning units. Language comprehension is Construction Integration. Kintsch explains the construction phase as building and activating all possible propositions or meanings. During the integration phase or process, the context is utilized and deactivates incorrect propositions. In turn, propositions that make sense within the context are then strengthened. Kintsch says when processing propositions, a good reader picks the most important information to hold onto in working memory. Working memory involves processing and storage of information. Unlike good readers, poor readers are slower at processing and are not able to hold relevant information in working memory and connect with the propositions in next sentence. Struggling readers seem unable to select the most important propositions or block extraneous information. Good readers can process text and build relevant propositions while suppressing irrelevant propositions. A successful reader will understand text by constructing a graph of propositions that include argument overlap. An inference is made if propositions do not connect. For Kintsch, construction plus integration equals comprehension.
Learning to Read
Ehri (1994) found that beginning readers identify words in four ways. First, beginning readers can retrieve information from memory based on prior experiences with that word. A second way that beginning readers can identify words is to decode words by sounding out letters and blending the sounds together to pronounce a word. Third, readers can use knowledge of a similar word to identify an unknown word. For example, to read the unfamiliar word mellow, readers can think about how it is similar to the word yellow. Finally, beginning readers use meaning-based cues in the text, such as words in the sentence, syntax and pictures.
In order to identify words, beginning readers must first learn graphemes or letters and how they match with letter sounds. Ehri says matching letters with their respective sounds is graphophonemic awareness. Matching the letter with the sound is developing the bottom-up process in reading. Ehri (1998) proposed that words become amalgamated, or bonded, with the phonological (speech sounds), their pronunciations in memory and how the word is spelled. Then students are able to read words and begin building a lexicon (vocabulary) of sight words. Once word recognition becomes automatic, readers can begin to develop fluency in reading words.
Fluency is the bridge between decoding and language comprehension in the Simple View of reading. Reading with fluency means that the reader can decode individual words accurately, quickly and read in a smooth, conversational manner with appropriate prosody. Fluent reading allows readers to focus on comprehending and gaining meaning from text.
Reading comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading. Reading words with automaticity allows the reader to easily glide through the words on the page devoting all his or her attention to comprehending the printed material. In order to achieve comprehension, the reader must have word recognition proficiency, syntactic knowledge, vocabulary knowledge, background knowledge, and comprehension monitoring skills.
Teaching Reading
This course has impacted my view of teaching reading to be mindful of developmental issues with struggling readers. After examination of the current cognitive theories of reading and performing the various psycholinguistic tasks, I have a better understanding of psychological reading processes. From initial reading assessments to understanding text comprehension, this course has changed how I teach reading.
Teaching reading should involve balanced instruction by embedding phonics in a meaningful way and immersing students in text that is interesting. Teachers should set clear objectives and give students a purpose for reading. Prior knowledge needs to be activated among students so connections in reading can be made. Predictions and meaningful discussion should take place before, during and after reading. Extension activities that follow reading are important for extending learning of new concepts.
Prior to instruction, reading assessments must be conducted and reviewed in order to gauge where instruction should begin. With assessments, having students read pseudowords is a perfect measure of decoding skill because students cannot have memorized them and must use decoding skills to correctly pronounce these words. The Perfetti and Hogabaum study (1975) revealed that highly skilled readers perform better than low readers with low frequency words and pseudowords, but they are matched with the low skilled readers on high frequency words. Results also revealed that low readers are relying heavily on sight words, because decoding skills are weak. With the English language, there are many exceptions to the rule. Some sight words have to be learned as whole words such as have and said, because words like these cannot be sounded out. However, being able to decode words is an important skill, because the less skilled readers in this study were low in comprehension skills due to the deficiency in decoding. With my struggling readers, phonics instruction is incorporated within textual reading and direct instruction is provided with phonics and phonics activities such as word sorts to help strengthen decoding ability.
In addition to decoding ability, fluency and comprehension, working memory is an important component for skillful reading. Long and Chong (2001) discovered that unskilled readers were not able to hold information in working memory because storage capacity is used for processing text. Processing skills among these readers are inefficient and reading is not fluent. Poor readers who do not pay attention and monitor their reading may need to break up a longer passage into parts, reading a paragraph or so at a time, and summarize each section to make sense of the text as a unit.
Students struggling with reading comprehension may have short reading spans (working memory) as Daneman and Carpenter (1980) found when students with short spans had difficulty answering questions where answers were located deep within a passage. One strategy students can use on standardized tests is to go back, reread, find and underline answers to questions in the text. Fortunately in North Carolina, students can be given more time to complete end of grade tests which can be an aid for students with smaller reading spans.
Passages used for assessments can be compared to determine if passages are similar in the number of arguments. Having passages with the same number of arguments is important information for comparison data.
Reading in context is better than reading flash cards, because poor readers can use the context to figure out unknown words. According to the study conducted by Fleisher et. al 1979, flash card training only improved the reading rate of words in isolation. Flash card training did not significantly improve reading rate in context, and comprehension did not improve at all. After reading the results of this study, students in my groups are spending time wisely reading text as opposed to reading flash cards.
In summary, reading is the process of constructing meaning through text, and comprehension takes place through an interaction of many cognitive processors. Reading is a bottom-up process beginning with letter identification and the sounds letters make, words become recognized and have meaning. Once word recognition becomes automatic, reading fluency develops and the focus can be on comprehending text. For some students, reading comes naturally and others struggle with the process. It can be problematic at times to identify the area of difficulty and address the reading gaps among struggling readers. This course has provided insight on the thought-processing complexity involved in reading. After reading the current cognitive theories of reading, this course has given me a wealth of information and a new outlook on the thought processes that take place for successful reading to occur.
References
Adams, M. (2004). Modeling the connections between word recognition and reading. International Reading Association, 1219-1243.
Daneman, M. and Carpenter, P.A. (1980). Individual differences in working memory and reading. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 19, 450-456.
Ehri, L. (1998). Research on learning to read and spell: a personal-historical perspective. Scientific Studies of Reading, 2: 2, 97-114.
Ehri, L. (1994). Development of the ability to read words: update in theoretical models and process of reading. Newark: International Reading Association.
Fleisher, L., Jenkins, J., & Pany, D. (1979). Effects on poor readers' comprehension of training in rapid decoding. Reading Research Quarterly, (1), 30-48.
Kintsch, W. (2004). The construction-integration model of text comprehension and its implications for instruction. International Reading Association, 1270-1317.
Long, D & Chong, J. L. (2001). Comprehension skill and global coherence: A paradoxical picture of poor comprehenders’ abilities. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 27, 6, 1424-1429
Perfetti, C. and Hogaboam, T. (1975). Relationship between Single word decoding and reading comprehension skill. Journal of Educational Psychology, 67, 4, 461-469.