READING

READING The process of extracting meaning from written or printed language: one of the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, WRITING) and one of the two key aspects of LITERACY (reading and writing). The activity is of two kinds: reading aloud, so that others can hear (and benefit from) what is being read, and silent reading.

Reading aloud

People who are learning to read often read aloud, in order to relate what they see to the spoken language. Depending on the skill and confidence of the novice reader, this may be accompanied by tracing the line of text word by word with the index finger. In scribal societies, reading aloud appears to have been the norm, even for private, personal purposes. The shift to mature silent reading may have been encouraged by the advent of print, the spread of literacy, an awareness that reading aloud disturbs others within earshot, a view among teachers that saying (or muttering) what is being read indicates a low level of skill, and perhaps also appreciation of a silence that makes the message more personal. Reading aloud in public is an ancient practice that lies at the roots of publishing (‘making public’), and in many parts of the world continues to be an important means of disseminating information and educating the young. It includes dictation that is read out to be written down by students and lecturing from a prepared text at a pace that allows note-taking: compare French lecture (reading). Reading aloud well involves control of breath, voice, and body, a capacity to look up from a text and back without losing one's place, and, depending on subject and occasion, an element of drama and display. In public presentations, such reading has traditionally been from a document held in the hand or placed on a lectern (a special sloping surface that holds whatever is being read). On television, however, there is increasing use of an electronic prompting device (a teleprompter or trade name, an Autocue) placed between reader and audience. This enlarges the elements of a script line by line, so that someone may see it easily and use it without appearing (too obviously) to be reading.

Silent reading

Private reading is so basic a skill in present-day society that its nature is little discussed and its existence largely taken for granted. It differs from other forms of scanning one's surroundings by being focused, sustained, relatively disciplined, and accompanied by thinking about the meaning of what one sees. The concept of reading is often extended to other kinds of disciplined, reflective activity, such as ‘reading’ someone's face for a message, ‘reading’ a landscape for information, or asking Do you read me? (Have you understood me?) after sending a radio message. One can also ‘read’ semaphore signals at a distance, braille by touch, and Morse code by listening. The eye movements that occur in conventional reading consist of jerks and stops. Each jerk entails a change in focus, and is technically known as a saccade (from French: the jerk on the reins of a rider controlling a horse); each stop is a fixation, a moment of stability in which signals are transmitted from retina to brain. On average, readers make three or four fixations a second, and each may register several letters or several words, depending on such factors as distance from text, size and kind of lettering, and familiarity with language, orthography, and subject matter.

Readers use both visual and phonetic skills, combining a capacity to decipher writing and print letter by letter with an indirect awareness of the heard equivalents of what is graphically displayed. This cross-association of graphic and phonic symbols appears to be natural: readers may at any time audibly or inaudibly say a syllable or word so as to help grasp its nature, function, and meaning: in doing this, they may be returning to the historically and individually ‘early’ stage of moving the lips while interpreting the signs of the text. In this process, they are not usually put off by homophones, such as right and write or dun and done, which suggests that visual interpretation can function independently of phonetic backup. They may, however, be put off by homographs and polysemous words, such as the various uses of bank and crane. The fact that some people read so fast (over 500 words per minute) that they exceed the capacity of their phonetic backup to check what they are seeing is evidence for an element in reading that is not in any way tied to physical sound or ‘sounds’ in the mind.

Learning to read

There has long been controversy among teachers of reading over the primary means by which children learn (or should learn) to read. Attitudes and policies tend to vary between a whole-language, whole-word, global, holistic, or look-and-say approach on the one hand (in which words are minimal units to be learned as gestalts) and a symbol-to-sound, code-based, atomistic, or phonic approach (in which reading is like cracking a code that consists of correspondences between speech sounds and graphic symbols, with letters or graphemes as the prime units). Some teachers favour one approach over the other, while many favour a compromise that allows a judicious use of elements from both approaches. Some also make a distinction between a ‘whole language’ approach in which children work from so-called ‘real books’ (as opposed to specially prepared readers) and the older ‘look and say’ method that is closely associated with readers, reading schemes, flash cards, and other aids. There is some evidence that concentrating on the atoms of reading in the early stages leads to a higher rate of word recognition later, followed by an expansion of global comprehension through the quality and interest of what is being read. It is also likely that strategies may differ depending on the writing system used: for example, learning to read the blend of logographic and syllabic signs used for Japanese may require a different approach from learning the set of signs used for such ‘alphabetic’ languages as Spanish, Italian, German and English.

Six stages?

The American researcher Jeanne S. Chall (Stages of Reading Development, New York, 1983, and with Steven A. Stahl, ‘Reading’, International Encyclopedia of Communications, New York, 1989) has proposed that reading in English proceeds through six (relatively idealized) stages, more or less as follows (with ages specific to educational experience in the US):

Stage O: Pre-reading and pseudo-reading.

Before they reach the age of 6, children are likely to ‘pretend’ to read, retelling a story when looking at the pages of a book that has already been read to them, increasingly naming letters, recognizing some signs, printing their own names, and playing with the general paraphernalia of literacy. This process develops naturally as a response to being read to by adults or older children who take a close and warm interest in that response. Most children at this stage can understand simple picture books and the stories read to them, but have a hazy perception of what reading really is.

Stage 1: Initial reading and decoding.

Between 6 and 7, children may learn the relations between sounds and letters and between spoken and printed words, read simple texts containing short, high-frequency words that are spelt more or less regularly, and ‘sound out’ monosyllables. If they receive instruction in phonics, they are often read to from a level just above their own ability to read. Generally, their level of reading at this stage is well below their capacity to manage speech. Although it is not easy to quantify words known and used, Chall estimates that they can understand some 4,000 spoken words and some 600 written or printed words. A reading specimen of this stage is:‘May I go?’ said Fay. ‘May I please go with you?’
(from American Book Primer).

Stage 2: Confirmation and fluency.

Between 7 and 8, children may consolidate their skills, increasing their range of reading, their fluency, their general vocabulary, and their ability to decode the elements of words. Again, help may often include being read to at a level above their own ability. At the end of this stage, they can understand an estimated 9,000 spoken words and 3,000 written or printed words. A reading specimen of this stage is:
Spring was coming to Tait Primary School. On the new highway big trucks went by the school all day (from Ginn 720, Grade 2).

Stage 3: Reading for learning.

Between 9 and 14, reading is no longer an end in itself but becomes a means by which further knowledge and experience can be gained. Use extends beyond the immediate subjects of school and includes textbooks, reference books, and periodicals (from comic books to newspapers and encyclopaedias). Reading becomes part of a general experience of language that is likely to include explicit discussion of language skills, especially writing and spelling. At the beginning of this stage, listening comprehension of the same material is more effective than reading comprehension, but by the end the two are roughly equal. For some young people, reading may have edged ahead. Two reading specimens of this stage are:
She smoothed her hair behind her ear as she lowered her hand. I could see she was eyeing beauty and trying to figure out a way to write about being beautiful without sounding even more conceited than she already was (from Ginn 720, Grade 5).
Early in the history of the world, men found that they could not communicate well by using only sign language. In some way that cannot be traced with any certainty, they devised spoken language (from Book F, New Practice Reader, Graves et al., 1962).

Stage 4: Multiplicity and complexity.

From 14 to 17, if all has gone well, students are reading fairly widely from a range of increasingly complex materials, both narrative and expository, and varied in view-point. Such materials are both technical and non-technical, literary and non-literary, and may involve a parallel study of words and their elements. For poorer performers, listening and reading comprehension are about the same, but for stronger performers reading comprehension is better than listening comprehension, especially in technical subjects. A specimen for this stage is:
No matter what phenomena he is interested in, the scientist employs two main tools—theory and empirical research. Theory employs reason, language, and logic to suggest possible, and predict probable, relationships among various data gathered from the concrete world of experience (from A. B. Kathryn , ‘College Reading Skills’, in John & Mavis Biesanz (eds.), Modern Society, 1971).

Stage 5: Construction and reconstruction.

Beyond 18, young adults should have developed the capacity to read for their own purposes, using their skill to integrate their own knowledge with that of others and to assimilate their experience of the world more effectively. In stronger performers, it is rapid and efficient, and serves as a basis for a lifetime of reading for personal and occupational purposes. Interested readers go beyond their immediate needs and in the writing of essays, reports, summaries, and other materials continue to integrate the four skills. A reading specimen for this stage is:
One of the objections to the hypothesis that a satisfying after-effect of a mental connection works back upon it to strengthen it is that nobody has shown how this action does or could occur. It is the purpose of this article to show how a mechanism which is as possible psychologically as any of the mechanisms proposed to account for facilitation, inhibition, fatigue, strengthening by repetition, or other forms of modification could enable such an after-effect to cause such a strengthening (from Edward L. Thorndike , ‘Connectionism’, Psychological Review 40, 1933).

Conclusion

The above stages resemble the developmental phases of the child's mind as proposed by the Swiss researcher Jean Piaget. They are both a generalization from objective study and an idealized assumption about an average child who progresses fairly smoothly through such stages in an English-speaking society that has an adequate educational system, without any significant social or personal problems. The order may be universal, but the age ranges will vary between individuals, cultures, and countries. Unfortunately, not all climb smoothly from the bottom to the top of this ladder and not all societies provide an adequate educational service. In addition, many competent readers might have serious difficulty with the specimen that Chall provides for Stage 5, many adequate readers with the specimen at Stage 4, and so on down the line to the large percentage of people whom English-speaking societies now recognize as functionally illiterate: that is, those who, for whatever reason, never managed to get successfully through Stage 1 or 2. Recent definitions of literacy have classed as illiterate all those who read less efficiently than they would like, including many who have moved well beyond Stage 2.See CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION, DYSLEXIA, EDUCATION, ILLITERACY, PROSE, SPELLING.