Theoretical article discussing
The nature of schema and its application to the reading process. The researchers synthesized several models of schema theory to give a unified overview of the importance of schema in both l1 and L2 reading.
Theory
Generally, schemata are knowledge structures. The researchers here propose that they are organized hierarchically, such that larger, more general categories subsume smaller, more specific categories. For example, under the category “a restaurant” one would find the smaller categories of “fast food,” “Italian,” “diner,” etc. Under these categories would be other, more specific categories as well. When information from texts is processed, all information must be taken into account. For correct schema activation to occur, the reader must use the incoming data to locate possible specifics in the schema. This activates the top down processing, which searches for the appropriate schema to account for all the details in the input.
Schema processing can be blocked in two ways and often are in L2 reading. First, it is data-limited and depends on the reader’s ability to receive data. therefore, factors such as a lack of vocabulary knowledge can derail it. Secondly, the processing system is resource-limited. It cannot use more resources than those available in the working memory. If both the vocabulary and the structure of the text, for example, are unfamiliar, the reader will not be able to allocate sufficient working memory resources to top-down and bottom-up processing. The reading will therefore short-circuit because the process demands of the reading exceed the resources of the learner.
Findings
The researchers used a short text, an Aesop’s fable entitled “Stone Soup,” to illustrate how schema is invoked at different levels of comprehension by a reader. They argue that schema plays a role even in orthographic processing, where it is invoked to more quickly process words. Skilled readers do not need to look at each letter to process a word. Rather, they apply their schema of English orthography. A similar phenomenon occurs at the level of syntactic processing, in that the learner invokes background knowledge of English sentence structure to more quickly process the syntactic relationships within a sentence. At the semantic level, the reader fills in the details that are not in the text. For example, the fable opens with the statement that a poor man went to a large house. The reader must invoke her/his knowledge of “poor men” (that they don’t have wealth) and “large house” (that they cost a lot of money) to understand that the house does not belong to the poor man. Semantic processing of this sort must happen throughout the text in order for comprehension to occur. Finally, schema of the nature of fables (that they normally have a moral) is applied at the interpretive level for the reader to understand the point of the story.
Comments on the Study
This is an excellent synthesis of the various schema theories that were proposed in the psychological and educational literature in the seventies and eighties. It clearly explains the notion of schemata and how they apply to the reading process at all levels. Unlike many subsequent top-down processing articles, this does not neglect the importance of bottom-up processing strategies, but rather indicates that they are essential for the activation of schema.
Implications for Practice
Schema theory not only applies to meaning-based concepts, but to all knowledge structures. Application of schema in reading requires background knowledge of concepts as well as background knowledge of the language and orthographic systems.
Key Words
Schema
Top-down processing
Models of reading
Areas for Further Research
Researchers could investigate techniques for helping L2 adult learners to apply schema at in at levels of processing—phonological, semantic, syntactic, interpretational, etc. The impact and role of culture in applying schema could also be researched.
Theoretical article discussing
The previous research that attempted to characterize the nature of reading difficulties and abilities in second languages. While the fact that reading in a second language is a difficult task for most second language learners had been well established in the literature, it was unclear whether this difficulty stemmed from problems in learning the language or problems in reading. Alderson surveyed the studies to determine what factors contribute to reading difficulties.
Study Design
Alderson surveyed empirical studies of second language reading from the seventies and eighties to determine whether difficulties in reading in a second language were prompted by imperfect understanding of the second language or by poor reading strategy use. The studies he included examined the second language reading of a variety of learner populations, ranging from adolescents to adults. Some studies were conducted in a second language context and others in a foreign language context. Alderson used the findings of these studies to form two major hypotheses and two modified hypotheses, then searched for evidence from previous studies to confirm or reject the hypotheses.
The first major hypothesis is that poor reading in the second language is caused by poor reading in the first language. This hypothesis is also examined in a modified form, that poor reading in a second language is due to the transfer of strategies from the first language that are not effective in the second language.
The second major hypothesis is that poor reading in the second language is caused by inadequate knowledge of the second language, both oral and syntactic. This hypothesis is also examined in a modified form, that poor reading in the second language occurs when readers have not crossed a threshold of second language ability, beyond which reading strategies from the first language can be applied to second language reading.
Findings
While some studies have shown evidence of the transfer of reading ability from one language to another, only very moderate or low correlations were found between first and second language reading when the same subjects are tested in both languages. This indicates that reading ability in the first language may not be the best indicator of reading ability in the second language.
For the modified hypothesis about the transfer of ineffective strategies from the first language to the second, the parallel processing hypothesis is examined. Proponents of this hypothesis believe that bilinguals have separate syntactic processors for dealing with each language. At early levels of language learning, learners might transfer the language-specific processing strategies of their first language to reading in their second language. In areas where the languages differ syntactically, they will have poor reading comprehension. After a certain level of language learning is attained, the readers gain syntactic processing strategies specific to the second language. While some studies seem to support this hypothesis, Alderson presents several studies that show that readers at even low levels of language proficiency are able to apply second language syntactic constraints to the interpretation of texts, refuting the parallel processing hypothesis.
The second hypothesis, that poor reading in a second language is due to inadequate knowledge of the second language, seems to be supported by most of the studies Alderson surveyed. However, the strongest support for this hypothesis comes from studies involving learners at lower levels of language proficiency. When readers with high levels of language proficiency are included, reading differences between native and non-native speakers are no longer easily attributable to language proficiency issues. This provides tentative evidence for a threshold hypothesis, but also indicates that language proficiency may only be the cause of poor second language reading among low proficiency readers. At higher levels of proficiency, it is possible that reading processes are more influential. However, as Alderson points out, we know virtually nothing about reading in a second language at higher levels of proficiency. More studies are needed to determine how the reading process changes as learners increase their language proficiency in the second language.
Comments on the Study
As Alderson points out, the study is limited because few of the studies surveyed are designed to answer the exact questions he has asked. While his interpretations of results of other studies appear to be reasonable, studies specifically designed to answer this question are needed before these questions can be adequately addressed. However, Alderson’s survey is one of the first attempts to address the question of language learning and reading ability, which should be at the core of second language reading research.
Implications for Practice
If indeed second language reading is constrained more strongly by second language proficiency than by first language reading ability, literacy teachers should strive to increase their students’ language proficiency, especially through the acquisition of vocabulary. This is most important at lower levels of reading ability. It is possible that, until students reach a threshold of language proficiency, reading strategy instruction will not be helpful. Linguistically modified texts that use restricted vocabulary, however, could be employed to help beginning learners read despite their inadequate language proficiency. These studies also indicate that the reading needs, and by extension instructional needs, of beginning and advanced students may be very different in terms of the balance of language instruction and strategy instruction. Teachers should be aware of the different needs of their students.
Key Words
Reading skills transfer
Reading strategies
Second language proficiency
Vocabulary
Areas for Further Research
Further research could address the needs of advanced level readers. Also, longitudinal research could be used to determine how the reading behaviors of learners change over time and how their instructional needs evolve.
Experimental study of
The likelihood of different words being acquired by students from dual oral/visual input. The researcher wanted to know if the frequency of word use (either in general usage or in the specific input) affected students’ acquisition of a word, and if the saliency of the word (either because it was central to comprehension or because the learners recognized that they did not previously know the word) would affect the likelihood of the word being acquired.
Learner Participants
The learners were all students at an intensive English institute in the United States. Students from each of the center’s five levels participated in the research. Eighty-five students completed all the pre- and post-tests for the study. The learners included in the study came from mixed ethnolinguistic backgrounds. Approximately one-third of the participants were male; the other two-thirds were female.
Study Design
An interactive videodisc program based on the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark and designed for ESL learners was used in the study. The videodisc allowed the students to watch scenes while reading the transcript. They could also check glosses of key words used in the scene, and could choose to do exercises that asked questions about the scene. All students had access to the videodisc in the computer lab.
To find out which words were most frequent in the specific context, a frequency test was run on the transcript for the video. The words from the video were divided into fifteen levels according to frequency. The most frequently used words fell into level one, then the second most in level two, and so on. A random sample of fifteen words was selected from each level for possible inclusion in the study.
To find out which words were most frequent in general, the Brown corpus—a commonly used corpus of naturally occurring language—was used. A frequency test was also run on the Brown corpus, which was also then divided into fifteen levels as in the case of the video script. Words were randomly selected from each level of the Brown corpus and matched with words from the corresponding level of frequency for words in the video. Random selection continued until there were ten words for each level. For each group of ten words, two occurred in Raiders but not in the Brown corpus, two occurred more frequently in Raiders than in Brown, two occurred equally in Raiders and Brown, two occurred more frequently in Brown, and two occurred in Brown but not in Raiders.
The words were divided in terms of saliency according to two variables: focus and gap. Focus was measured by whether or not the word was used in exercises or in glosses; gaps were considered to be created when the word was used in the exercises without appearing in the script—when this happened, it was assumed that the student would recognize the presence of a gap because of seeing the concept without hearing the word.
Once the words were selected, a multiple-choice vocabulary test was created to test them. All the students were given the vocabulary pretest before they began working on the videodisc. Students were taught how to use the videodisc program and could choose to use it—records were kept of who used the program and how much during the term. At the end of the term, the students completed the same vocabulary test as a post-test.
Findings
In general, frequency appeared to significantly affect the likelihood that a word would be acquired—generally frequent words were more likely to be acquired than words that were only frequent in the context of the program. However, an analysis of covariance indicated that the relationship frequency in general and acquisition was at the lower end of significance (F(1,1)=4.27, p=.040).
Saliency seemed to have a stronger impact on the acquisition of vocabulary. Almost all of the words that were most likely to be gained were ones that were central to the plot of the program. Many of these were low frequency words both in general and in the context, indicating that saliency in context may strongly influence the acquisition of words. Closer analysis of the data indicated that saliency caused by focus in the exercises or glosses did not affect acquisition (F(2,1)=.93, p=.395), but that saliency caused by creating gaps did (F(2,1)=5.25, p=.006). This indicates that saliency is more likely to contribute to the acquisition of vocabulary when learners recognize that they need a word that has not yet been acquired.
Comments on the Study
The report is very technical. The statistics are carefully done and well explained. While it is possible to say with some certainty that the high saliency words from the program itself were most likely acquired from exposure to the oral/written data, it is harder to be sure that the generally frequent words were acquired because students had varying degrees of exposure to this input. In the ESL context, the students most likely had many opportunities to learn generally frequent words (in everyday speaking situations and in the reading for their ESL courses). It is impossible to say whether the acquisition of these words came from exposure to the computer program or from some other source. Ultimately, the findings on frequency indicate that people learn the words they hear and read the most, which is not a novel finding.
Implications for Practice
Learners are most likely to learn words that are necessary for comprehension, or when they have a concept prior to learning the word. They are also more likely to learn words when they recognize that there is a gap in their knowledge. It is possible that teachers could increase vocabulary learning by creating a need for specific words before teaching them, perhaps through pre-reading exercises.
Key Words
Vocabulary
Areas for Further Research
Researchers could compare the acquisition of words made salient through explicit instruction and words made salient through gapping in reading exercises to determine which condition is more conducive to language acquisition.
Experimental study of
The metacognitive awareness of second language readers and their reading comprehension in their first and second languages. Research on first language reading has indicated that metacognitive strategies, or the way in which learners organize their learning, can play an important role in reading comprehension. This study sought to determine what role metacognition played in second language reading.
Learner participants
There were two groups of students in the study. One group was comprised of 45 native speakers of Spanish studying ESL either at a pre-academic IEP (n=28) or in university composition classes for non-native speakers (n=17). The second group was composed of 75 native speakers of English studying Spanish at an American university. This group was composed of first year students (n=39), second year students (n=23), and third year students (n=13).
Study Design
The students completed a metacognitive strategies questionnaire designed for this study. The questionnaire consisted of thirty-six statements about silent reading strategies. Using a 1-5 scale (1 = strongly agree, 5 = strongly disagree), students were required to indicate how closely each statement reflected their own reading behaviors. The questionnaire was designed to investigate students’ confidence in reading in the language (confidence), their strategies when they do not comprehend what they are reading (repair), the reading strategies they considered effective (effective), and aspects of reading they found difficult (difficulty). Each student completed the metacognitive strategies questionnaire twice: once about their native language reading and once about their second language reading. All questionnaires were administered in the students’ native language. An example of a statement is: “When reading silently in English, if I don’t understand something, I keep on reading and hope for clarification later on.”
The students were also tested on reading comprehension in their first and second languages. The test for each language consisted of two reading passages (controlled for difficulty) followed by ten comprehension questions. All the passages were on the general topic of language, to control for schematic knowledge. The texts were also controlled for textual organization, so the tests were parallel.
Findings
For first language reading, there were no significant correlations between reading comprehension and confidence or repair. For the Spanish L1 participants, there was a negative correlation between some of the effective items and reading ability. Therefore, better L1 readers tended to claim not to use certain strategies. These tended to be local, bottom-up strategies. Students who claimed to not use bottom-up strategies and who also claimed that bottom-up processing caused them no problems tended to be the best L1 readers.
For second language reading, confidence and repair strategies seem to significantly influence reading comprehension. Specifically, students who felt able to distinguish main and supporting points and to critically question the author tended to be better readers. Students who reported giving up and stopping reading when unable to comprehend tended to have lower comprehension. Also, for L2 readers, focusing on sentence-level syntax seemed to be related to higher reading comprehension.
The students were further grouped as having “local” (using bottom-up, decoding) or “global” (using top-down, background knowledge of content) preferences based on their answers to both the difficulty and effective items on the questionnaires. For the English L1 group, it seemed that local processing was related to higher comprehension in Spanish reading; for the Spanish L1 group, it seemed that global processing was related to higher comprehension in ESL reading. The authors attribute this difference to the relatively higher proficiency of the ESL group compared to the Spanish as a second language (SL) group, and to the differences between ESL reading and foreign language (FL) reading. They indicate that the lower proficiency readers who also had little outside exposure to Spanish literacy might have to rely more on bottom-up, textual processing while the higher proficiency readers with extensive English literacy exposure might be better able to integrate their world knowledge and the texts.
Comments on the Study
The study is well designed and carried out:There were an adequate number of participants tested for both groups and their targeted readings were comparable (all about language). From the study, it seems that effective second language metacognitive processing strategies may be dependant both on student proficiency and on the context in which the language is learned. In other words, for metacognitive strategy instruction, it is important for teachers to understand that there may not be one set of universally effective strategies, but rather that strategy efficacy can be dependent on other factors.
The findings on the differences between SL and FL strategy use are only suggestive and should be interpreted with caution, because the SL and FL groups (as the authors point out) are not strictly comparable in level.
Implications for Practice
Teachers should be aware that metacognitive processing can influence reading comprehension. Students should be encouraged to monitor their metacognition in reading and focus on effective processing strategies. Teachers and students should be aware that effective strategies may vary from one context to another, and from one proficiency level to another.
Key Words
Bottom-up processing
Reading strategies
Top-down processing
Areas for Further Research
To directly compare effective strategies in ESL and EFL context, this study could be replicated using an ESL group from the same L1 background (as this study did) as well as an EFL group from that same L1 background with similar educational backgrounds and English proficiency.
Experimental study of
The effects of both first language reading ability and second language proficiency on learner’s second language reading ability. The study was conducted in response to Alderson’s (1984) article calling for research that tested reading ability in the first and second languages of the same participants to separate out the effects of first language reading proficiency from those of second language proficiency in second language reading.
Learner Participants
There were two groups of participants in the study. The first group was composed of ESL students from an intensive English center in the United States and of students enrolled in composition courses for non-native speakers at a university in the United States. All of the forty-five ESL participants spoke Spanish as their native language. Based on the English Proficiency Chart of the Consortium of Intensive English Programs (CIEP), they fell into three proficiency groups: eight at level three, twenty at level four, and seventeen at level six (these seventeen were the matriculated university students).
The second group of participants in the study was comprised of native speakers of English studying Spanish at a university in the United States. These seventy-five students were rated by their teachers according to the same rubric as the ESL students. Based on these results, these students were also divided into three groups: thirty-nine at level two, twenty-three at level three, and thirteen at level four. Thus, the overall L2 proficiency level of the English L1 students was generally lower than that of the ESL students, and direct comparisons were only possible at levels three and four.
Study Design
Two Spanish passages and two English passages (each of approximately 315-350 words) were selected for the study. The passages also had similar levels of reading difficulty: one for each language was rated at tenth grade, while the second English passage was rated at fifteenth grade, and the second Spanish passage was rated at twelfth grade. One passage from each language was written in a comparison/contrast style, the other for each language was written in a problem/solution format. In all the passages, the authors’ intent and personal opinions were clear. To limit the effects of topic, all the passages were on the topic of language, since this was assumed to be an interesting topic for second language learners. Ten multiple-choice questions that required the students to draw inferences from the readings were prepared for each passage.
All the students completed the instruments first in their second languages and then in their native languages. Their scores on the multiple-choice questions were used as their second language comprehension score.
Findings
Predictably, Spanish speakers out-performed English speakers on the Spanish test; English speakers out-performed Spanish speakers on the English test. The overall mean for the English test was higher than that of the Spanish test, most likely because of the overall lower proficiency level of the L1 English participants. Both first language reading ability and second language proficiency level were significant predictors of second language reading ability. In terms of the relative importance of each of these factors, first language reading ability was a more important predictor of second language reading ability for the ESL learners; however, for the L1 English participants, second language proficiency level was a more important predictor of second language reading ability. Carrell gives two possible explanations for this discrepancy. First of all, part of the difference could be attributable to the nature of second language learning (in the case of the ESL participants) and foreign language learning (in the case of the students of Spanish). Also, the L1 English learners of Spanish had overall lower second language proficiency than the ESL learners. It is possible that second language proficiency is a more important predictor of second language reading comprehension until a certain level of proficiency is attained, after which first language literacy becomes a more important predictor of comprehension.
Comments on the Study
The study filled an important gap in the literature by directly comparing first and second language reading for the same group of students. The comparisons drawn are very carefully explained.
It is unclear why the more advanced texts at the same level of reading difficulty were not chosen for the study. It may be that the difference between reading a twelfth grade text and a fifteenth grade text influenced students’ reading comprehension scores.
Also, it is possible that the order in which the students did the tasks influenced the scores. Rather than having all students perform the tasks in the same order, the design should have been counter-balanced to control for design-order effects.
The most troubling limitation of the study was the mismatch between the groups. While it is possible to draw inferences about the second language reading of each individual group, it is impossible to compare the ESL and L1 English learners, since the proficiency levels of the groups were so disparate.
Implications for Practice
One of the most interesting conclusions of this study was that, at all the levels included in the study and for all subjects, both second language proficiency and first language reading ability were predicting factors of second language reading comprehension. This implies that, at all levels, reading teachers need to address both language learning and reading skills and they need to be aware of their students’ L1 reading ability.
Key Words
Reading skills transfer
Second language proficiency
Areas for Further Research
The research could be replicated with a counter-balanced design and with subjects from a broader range of proficiency levels. Further research could also include sensitive second language proficiency measures in order to more clearly relate language proficiency, first language reading, and second language reading comprehension.
Experimental study of
The effect of strategy training on second language reading. The study addressed the questions of whether strategy training enhanced L2 reading, whether a particular type of strategy training was more facilitative of L2 reading, and whether the effectiveness of strategy training was related to student learning style. The styles of strategy training examined were making pre- and post-reading semantic maps to help students focus on the details and relationships among them and the Experience/Text/Relationship (ETR) approach. In the experience step of the ETR approach, the teacher leads the students in a discussion of how their own knowledge or experience relates to the passage to be read; in the text step, the students read the text in chunks, with the teacher asking content questions about each section; in the relationship step, the teacher directs the students to make connections between what they already know about the subject (what they discussed in the experience step) with what they have learned about the topic from reading the text and answering questions about its content (text step). The students are directed to draw relationships between the text and their expectations.
Learner participants
Twenty-six ESL learners of mixed ethnolinguistic backgrounds (Greek, Arabic, Japanese, Malaysian, various African groups, Chinese, and Spanish) in an intensive English program at an American university participated in this study. Their ages ranged from 19-43. Nineteen were male, seven were female. Seventeen students were preparing to begin undergraduate studies; the others were preparing to begin graduate studies. Their Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) scores ranged from 470-524. (Most universities require a score of at least 600 for admission to credit bearing classes.)
Study Design
The students came from four reading classes from the same level. At the beginning of the study, all the students completed a reading comprehension test based on three TOEFL reading passages. For each passage, the students answered three multiple-choice questions and two short-answer questions. They were also required to complete a partially constructed semantic map (a diagram of vocabulary related to topic to be read) after each of the first two passages. After the third passage, they were asked to construct a semantic map without any scaffolding.
The students also discussed learning styles in their classes, and after the discussion completed a learning styles inventory, the Inventory of Learning Processes (ILP). The inventory consists of 62 true-false questions, divided into four subsections. The subsections are designed to measure students’ tendencies to critically evaluate information, personalize information, memorize information, and engage in a drill-type study behavior. it is thought that people who exhibit higher tendencies to abstract and evaluate information on the inventory should be better able to comprehend texts well.
During the treatment phase of the study, one class (nine students) participated in the semantic mapping activities over four days of course, using three different texts. The second class (nine students) participated in the ETR activity using the same texts. The last two classes (three and five students) held regular classes based on the same texts (no discussion is included of their activities these days).
Following the instruction, the students retook the same pre-reading test. On the pre- and post-tests, the multiple choice questions were scored as correct or not. Semantic maps were scored based on the percentage correct of possible responses. The short answer questions were graded on a scale of 1-3 based on how well the student’s answers demonstrated understanding.
Findings
The control group did not significantly increase their scores on any part of the comprehension tests. The group that participated in semantic mapping improved their comprehension as measured by open-ended questions and by creating a semantic map without scaffolding. The group that participated in ETR significantly improved their comprehension as measured by open-ended questions and on the partially completed semantic maps.
A significant interaction was found between improvement on the post-tests and learning style type. The relevant learning styles dealt with the critical evaluation of information and the tendency to personalize information. In the control group, only students with tendencies to critically evaluation information scored better on the semantic mapping questions.
Comments on the Study
The results should be interpreted with caution for several reasons. There were very small numbers in each of the groups, so these results should be generalized with caution. The number of students in each group is technically too low for the assumptions of the statistical measures used, undermining the validity of the findings.
Secondly, one of the strongest findings, the increased performance of the semantic mapping group on making semantic maps, is most likely due to the practice effect rather than strategy training.
Lastly, the control group’s activities were not explained. It is by no means sure that their instruction during the treatment days contained similar amounts of reading input and practice to that experienced by the treatment groups. Their improved comprehension scores could therefore be the result of increased input, rather than strategy training.
Implications for Practice
The study does seem to indicate that strategy training can lead to improved second language reading comprehension. Teachers and curriculum designers need to consider the role of reading strategies and strategy instruction in the development of ESL reading comprehension. They also need to look at providing a variety of strategies to meet the learning styles of the students.
Key Words
Reading strategies
Top-down processing
Areas for Further Research
Other types of strategy instruction should also be systematically evaluated in classroom settings to determine what types of instruction might help students better improve their ability to read and comprehend English texts. Researchers could also look at the impact of further developing strategies that students exhibit a preference for, and developing strategies that students do not indicate a preference for.
Practitioner research study of
The effect of oral story telling on ESL adult literacy and language development. Some researchers believe that a lack of exposure to oral genres like storytelling can contribute to reading difficulties for both first and second language learners. The author sought to establish a link between learning or practicing an oral genre like storytelling in the second language and the development of literacy skills in that language.
Learner participants
The learners were Chinese adults enrolled in a three-month community-based ESL course. The class focused on developing oral and written storytelling skills.
Teacher participants
The researcher was the teacher of the course, and
was committed to the concept of developing understanding of the storytelling
genre.
Study Design
The course lasted three months. During this time, students participated in storytelling several times. In each case, the stories came from their own experiences in China. During the study, the researcher recorded qualitative impressions of the students’ progress in processing oral and written input.
Findings
The teacher reported that the students increased their confidence in speaking in public and developed more native-like oral language. They also increased their reading comprehension when reading narratives.
Comments on the Study
It is difficult to support the claims that the students’ language or reading skills were more target-like by the end of the study because only impressionistic data was collected and reported. It is not clear how the teacher was measuring the increase in learner confidence. Moreover, the lack of control group or any comparison data prevents us from drawing conclusions about the effectiveness of this technique as compared with others.
Implications for Practice
This study was inconclusive. However, increasing students’ exposure to oral genres may help them better comprehend related written genres. This may be especially worth considering in the case of pre-literate learners, as oral practice is more familiar and accessible to them ad may serve to support their reading.
Key Words
Second language development
Written-oral/reading relationship
Areas for Further Research
The thesis of this study could be investigated with more structure and design validity, including pre- and post-program measures of language use and reading comprehension.
Experimental study of
(a) The relationship between reading in the L1 and in the L2, (b) the relationship between writing in the L1 and in the L2, (c) the relationship between reading and writing in the L1, and (d) the relationship between reading and writing in the L2.
Learner participants
48 native speakers of Chinese and 57 native speakers
of Japanese enrolled in pre-academic intensive English courses or in university
basic writing courses in American universities. Students were at the low intermediate
to advanced proficiency level (TOEFL scores ranged from 400-525) and were literate
in their first languages.
Study Design
The students each completed four tasks in a two-week period: writing a short essay in the L1, writing a short essay in the L2, completing a cloze task in the L1, and completing a cloze task in the L2. Essays were scored based on the 6-point rubric of the Test of Written English (part of the TOEFL exam) –where 6 points “clearly demonstrated competence in writing and 1 point was “incompetent” in writing; cloze tests were scored based on exact-word scoring.
Findings
There were significant correlations between L1 reading and L1 writing and between L2 reading and L2 writing for both language groups at all proficiency levels. There was also a significant correlation between L1 reading and L2 reading across language groups and proficiency levels. However, there were only weak or non-significant correlations between L1 writing and L2 writing. This could be attributed to insufficient variance.This indicates that while first language reading ability may affect second language reading proficiency, first language writing ability may not affect second language writing ability. This suggests that students may be able to transfer their reading skills from their native language to English, but may be less able to transfer writing skills. It also suggests that students’ reading ability in both their first language and in English can be an important influence on their writing ability.
Several variables, including educational background in the first language and the length of time students had studied in the United States, may have also affected students’ first and second language literacy skills.
Comments on the Study
Students from both L1 groups scored lower on average on the L1 cloze than they did on the English cloze. This may indicate that the L1 cloze tests were not reliable for measuring L1 reading ability. This is a possibility because of the nature of Japanese and Chinese writing—there are no clear defining orthographic characteristics of words in these writing systems (such as the spaces preceding and following words in English writing). As such, constructing Chinese or Japanese cloze exercises is awkward. Also, the participants were likely unfamiliar with cloze exercises in their L1.
There were not enough participants at different proficiency levels to directly compare their performances. This study does not show when the transfer of reading skills from first to second language is likely to take place.
Implications for Practice
The study indicates that students can transfer literacy skills from their first to their second languages, and possibly should be encouraged to do so.
Key Words
Reading skills transfer
Written-oral/reading relationship
Areas for Further Research
The authors assume that proficiency levels are an indication of the transfer of reading skills. However, L2 reading proficiency might be built on a separate set of abilities. A more direct measure of reading comprehension, such as recall, should be used.
Experimental study of
Effects of teaching to build new knowledge schemata. Schema theory has conclusively shown that students demonstrate higher levels of reading comprehension when reading on a topic for which they have prior or cultural knowledge (Jagar-Adams & Collins). This study investigated the effect on reading comprehension of teaching students about a new topic to help them build schemata.
Learner participants
The learners were thirty-eight beginning level amnesty students. The amnesty program was designed to give illegal aliens in the United States an opportunity to establish residency in the United States during a transitional period in immigration legislation. The adult students were required to attend 40 hours of a 60-hour ESL course or take a test on United States history similar to the United States citizenship tests. The goal of the amnesty classes was to provide adult ESL students with the coursework necessary to receive a green card, and to help prepare students to eventually go on to complete the citizenship process if they chose to do so.
Teacher participants
The teachers in this study were the researcher and one other amnesty teacher. Both were master’s students in teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL).
Study Design
All the students were given one of two reading passages (one complex and one simple) about Abraham Lincoln and asked to complete an objective test, a written free recall, and an oral guided recall based on the reading. Five days later, the students divided themselves into two groups to receive special history classes. The experimental group spent two class periods discussing Abraham Lincoln, while the control group spent the time learning about Martin Luther King, Jr. using similar materials. All the students then again read one of the two passages about Abraham Lincoln and repeated the pre-test measures.
Findings
The written recalls were scored by counting the words in each student’s recall that were reproduced from the original text. Points were deducted for incorrectly spelled words. The experimental group’s improvement on the written recall between the pre- and post-tests was significantly better than that of the control group, indicating that they were able to more exactly recall the text after having learned about Abraham Lincoln. On the objective test and the oral recall, which was scored based on the ideas replicated from the reading, there were no significant differences between the control and experimental groups. The author interprets the performance of the experimental group on the written recall as evidence for the effectiveness of helping students to build schematic knowledge for improving reading comprehension.
Comments on the Study
The researcher allowed the students to self-select group membership in the experimental or control groups, rather than assigning half of the students who had used the simple text to each group and half the students who had used the complex text to each group. It was therefore impossible to separate out the effect of the text complexity from the effect of receiving instruction. It cannot be determined from the analysis whether the difference in the scores is caused by the instruction or by having read a particular text.
The written recalls were scored according to the words reproduced from the text, as opposed to according to the number of ideas remembered from the text. Using this sort of scoring, a student who didn’t comprehend the text well but memorized some words would score higher than a student who understood the text well enough to explain it in his or her own words. It is not clear that this is an appropriate measure of comprehension. This is further complicated by the deduction of points for poor spelling. While spelling ability may be a reflection of reading comprehension, it may also be related to the students’ writing ability.
The control groups’ topic for the days of instruction, Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement, may not have been sufficiently different from the experimental groups’ topic, Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. For the students to understand the civil rights movement, they would have to receive some information on slavery and the Civil War, as well as subsequent political movements involving race. The schema-based instruction for the control group was therefore not entirely controlled.
Implications for Practice
This study encourages teachers to teach students the background knowledge associated with the texts they are reading. It suggests that this may help students increase their reading comprehension.
Key Words
Schema
English for Specific Purposes
Areas for Further Research
This study should be replicated using a controlled design to separate the effect of text complexity from the effect of instruction. A replication should also include more adequate measures of comprehension and should involve a control group that works with a completely unrelated topic.
Longitudinal research could investigate the long-term effects of instruction to help students build schema. Delayed post-tests, for example, could be used to determine how long the effect of the instruction lasts.
Descriptive study of
The effects of pleasure reading on the reading habits and vocabulary of adult ESL learners.
Learner participants
Four adult female learners participated in this study: three Koreans and one Spanish speaker. All had studied English for several years; all but one had lived in the United States for several years. All were literate in their native languages and had varying levels of English literacy. None reported engaging in pleasure reading in English before this study.
Study Design
The researchers hypothesized that if they gave adult ESL students comprehensible and interesting reading material in English the students would read more and increase their language proficiency. They chose books from the Sweet Valley series. This series of popular children’s’ books consists of three separate series—Sweet Valley High (sixth-grade reading level), Sweet Valley Twins (fourth-grade reading level) and Sweet Valley Kids (second-grade reading level). All participants began by reading books from the Sweet Valley Kids series. They were told simply to read as much as they liked. They were not asked to study new vocabulary, and they were not told that they would be tested for comprehension.
To aid their comprehension, the researchers gave the participants background knowledge about the series and occasionally discussed the plots of the stories and relevant aspects of American culture. The women also were asked to underline words they did not know the first time they encountered them in the readings. They were not given any instructions about the use of dictionaries—some chose to look up words; others did not.
Additionally, one of the researchers discussed the plots and characters of the books in Korean with the Korean-speaking participants. During the conversations, the plot and characters of the books were discussed. These conversations most likely increased the Korean readers’ comprehension of the texts. This likely affected the findings
Findings
All of the participants were very enthusiastic about the readings. They read between two and six books a week in their free time and reported that they were eager to read more. They also reported that they had noticed improvements in their oral communication while participating in this research. The participants were tested on the words that they had underlined as new words in the books. Their scores indicated that they had learned between 60 and 80% of the new words they had found.
Comments on the Study
The study did not employ rigorous pre- and post-testing procedures, without which conclusions about vocabulary acquisition are questionable. Also, the researcher’s hypothesis was that learners would gain vocabulary knowledge through comprehensible input, not through a focus on vocabulary learning. Having the participants underline new words while they read changed the nature of reading. We cannot say whether the growth in participant vocabulary is the result of the reading or of focusing participants’ attention on the vocabulary as they read. Furthermore, the reading done was discussed with a teacher, so it was a modified version of individual extensive reading.
The study suggests, however, that pleasure reading may give students more access to comprehensible language. It should be remembered, however, that some pleasure reading depends on cultural and genre knowledge that English language learners may not have yet acquired.
Implications for Practice
Students are more likely to engage in reading if the reading materials are interesting to them. Narrow reading (reading works from the same genre or by the same author) may be more likely to facilitate pleasure reading, as it continues student engagement in the topic. The study also suggests that engaging students in pleasure reading can facilitate incidental vocabulary learning, especially if the words are repeated often.
Key Words
Extensive reading
Pleasure reading
Vocabulary
Reading behavior
Areas for Further Research
This research could be replicated among other populations, using other texts relevant to them. Also, while the books may be a good resource for conversational language -- dialogue can be hard to read in L2 if you aren’t familiar with the spoken language it tries to simulate -- they most likely do not facilitate the learning of academic or professional language. Narrow reading should be examined using books that are more directed to professional learning.
Experimental study of
Explicit instruction in high-frequency vocabulary and its effect on ESL reading comprehension. The researchers hypothesized that explicitly focusing student attention on words from the 2,000 most common words in English may help them to automatize lexical recognition of those words while reading in English. Automaticity in processing certain text elements increases the cognitive resources available for processing text elements that have not become automatic yet. The hypothesized effect of this was increased reading comprehension.
Learner Participants
All the learners involved in this study were students enrolled in an intensive English program. No information was given on their L1 educational backgrounds. For phase one of the study, there were twenty-two subjects in the experimental group and twenty in the control group. No information was given on subjects’ English proficiency level, although descriptive statistics from the study indicate that there was a range of proficiency levels. Also, the group selection mechanisms are not explained, although is seems most likely that existing classes were used for the study. In phase two of the experiment, forty-two students were involved in the study. For this phase of the study, there was no control group.
Study Design
In phase one of the experiment, all the students completed two pre-tests: a thirty-six item vocabulary multiple choice synonym test derived from a basic vocabulary list and the Degrees of Reading test from the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) (this multiple choice reading comprehension test was created for native speakers). The control group received no specialized reading or vocabulary training other than the regular English instruction they received along with the experimental group.
The experimental group spent one hour per week for eight weeks working with a computerized vocabulary-learning program. The program presented them with words from the 600-2,000 frequency range of the most frequent words in English. Each time a student began a lesson, he would see a list of twenty words from this lesson. The student could select any unknown words to see definitions and sample sentences, and to add his own mnemonic cue to remember the word. The computer would generate multiple choice practice tests and unit tests. Selected words and words missed on tests would be added to a personalized review file, which could be used to create individualized units.
At the end of the eight-week period, all students completed the same vocabulary and reading measures that were used for the pre-test.
In phase two of the experiment, all students had access to the vocabulary-learning program. The vocabulary and reading comprehension measures were altered for this phase: the vocabulary was selected randomly from the computer program, and a different version of the reading test was used, one that included readings targeted at lower levels of reading comprehension. The phase two students also completed a short, closed-ended questionnaire asking them to evaluate the computer program.
Findings
The results from both phases of the experiment indicate that studying high-frequency vocabulary does increase reading comprehension. In phase one of the study, students from the experimental group experienced significantly greater gains in both reading comprehension and vocabulary knowledge than the control group (F(41,1)=9.55, p<.005). In the second phase of the study, the students significantly increased their reading comprehension scores and their vocabulary scores, according to matched t-tests (p<.05 for each reading comprehension and vocabulary). On the questionnaire, the majority indicated that they enjoyed using the program and felt that it had helped them to learn vocabulary and improve their reading comprehension.
Comments on the Study
The study seems to indicate a link between studying high frequency vocabulary and reading comprehension. It would have been strengthened by separately considering the performance of students at different proficiency levels rather than grouping them into unified control and experimental groups. It is possible that learning high frequency vocabulary is more effective for learners at certain levels of reading proficiency than for others.
Also, closer examination of the statistics reveals that the control and experimental groups were not equivalent at the beginning of the study. The experimental group started the study with a much lower mean score on the reading comprehension test than did the control group. Both groups improved their reading comprehension during the study, but the control group’s gains were more pronounced than the experimental groups. On most language proficiency measures, more dramatic gains are made by lower-proficiency learners; thus, it is not possible to determine whether the experimental group had more dramatic reading proficiency gains because of exposure to the vocabulary-learning computer program or because of the disparity of learners’ proficiency levels before the treatment.
Also, it is important to remember that this study does not investigate the effectiveness of vocabulary learning on reading comprehension in general, but rather the effect of one specific, individualized vocabulary-learning system. These findings may not be generalizable to other methods of vocabulary teaching.
Implications for Practice
The findings of the study give preliminary indications that reading comprehension can be facilitated when students are encouraged to increase their familiarity with high frequency vocabulary. This offers an example of how a bottom-up text processing practice such as vocabulary building can support reading comprehension.
Key Words
Vocabulary
Bottom-up processing
Areas for Further Research
This study could be replicated controlling for student proficiency levels. It also could be replicated with a larger number of students at different levels of proficiency to determine what effects, if any, proficiency level has on the impact of high-frequency vocabulary learning on reading comprehension. Different methods of instruction of high-frequency vocabulary learning could be compared to establish which methods do positively influence reading comprehension.
Theoretical lit. review of
The possibility of learning vocabulary through reading in a second language. While proponents of the input hypothesis claim that the best way to learn second language vocabulary is through extensive reading, some research has indicated that this may not be true. This researcher sought to explain the research on extensive reading and how extensive reading might be best applied.
Theory
Proponents of incidental vocabulary learning claim that vocabulary is learned gradually with repeated exposure. They estimate that second language learners need about ten to twelve exposures to a word in a comprehensible context over time in order to learn it well. While some L2 vocabulary acquisition research indicates that this can happen through reading, most of these studies did not provide adequate controls and were conducted with intermediate to advanced level learners. Other studies have failed to show any benefits from extensive reading to vocabulary acquisition. These explain the foundations of the beginner’s paradox, which is Coady’s focus here.
Findings
The beginner’s paradox comes from two competing ideas in the L2 literacy acquisition literature. The input hypothesis states that a second language learner can learn vocabulary through reading. However, bottom-up processing research has indicated that there is a vocabulary threshold for reading. Learners cannot read in a second language at a level of comprehension sufficient to learn new words from context until they have gained a certain threshold of vocabulary in the second language. This threshold has been estimated to be in the range of 3,000 to 5,000 word families, or 5,000 to 8,000 lexical items. Before attaining this level, it will be impossible for readers to comprehend with accuracy. This is the paradox: beginning language learners need to read to gain vocabulary, but they need to gain vocabulary to read.
Coady suggests that special attention be given to vocabulary learning until learners have reached the vocabulary threshold. He also suggests that top-down processing will be more effective—and better able to overcome the effects of limited vocabulary—if the student reads texts that are personally interesting and familiar. He suggests that the bottom-up processing instruction in vocabulary and structures be complemented with an emphasis on reader interest and a match between the text and the reader’s background knowledge.
Comments on the Study
The article clearly explains the nature of the beginner’s paradox and the need to support beginning students through both vocabulary and reading instruction. It articulates rationale for attending to both bottom-up and top-down processing in literacy instruction. It also emphasizes the fact that different learner background knowledge may preclude the possibility of effective homogenized instruction at the beginning level. Beginning level readers especially need to read texts that match their background knowledge, as they will already have the structure needed to understand the reading, thus freeing resources for lower-level vocabulary processing. When learners have mixed backgrounds and interests, instruction will have to be individualized to allow for comprehension and vocabulary building.
Implications for Practice
The study suggests that teachers should incorporate vocabulary instruction in high-frequency English vocabulary for their learners. Also, teachers should match texts to student experiences, to facilitate the more exact transfer of schema when students may not have sufficient bottom-up processing capacity to activate appropriate schema on their own.
Key Words
Vocabulary
Extensive reading
Top-down processing
Bottom-up processing
Schema
Areas for Further Research
Different methods of teaching vocabulary, with emphasis on the more common words of English and on textual support of vocabulary instruction should be evaluated.
Practitioner research study of
The effect on reading comprehension and writing fluency of introducing adult ESL learners to pleasure reading in an intensive language course.
Learner Participants
The learners were adult low intermediate speakers from Asian, Latin American, and European countries. They had various educational backgrounds, ranging from sixth grade to high school education. All could read in their native languages; however, all felt apprehensive about reading in English. At the beginning of the class, the students indicated that they considered reading in English to be the end result of English study, not a means of learning English. They expected a reading class to include book reports and tests for vocabulary and spelling.
Teacher Participants
The practitioner researcher was the teacher of the course. She designed the course to have the students engage in pleasure reading. There were no tests or quizzes and no assigned writing.
Study Design
The first twenty minutes of each class were devoted to pleasure reading. They were not allowed to use their dictionaries. During this time, the students could read anything they brought with them or any of the books, magazines, and articles the teacher supplied. In addition, the students were assigned reading outside of class on topics and books they had previously selected as a class. The students could elect to keep reading journals in which they summarized and reacted to the readings. They were required to write questions and answers about the books they were reading. The teacher used these as a means of ascertaining their comprehension of the books. Class time was spent in discussing the assigned readings or in reading short articles the teacher had brought into class to supplement the books they were reading at home.
Findings
The teacher noticed changes in the students’ reading behavior during the course. When reading in class, they began to rely less and less on dictionaries, and made fewer queries about word meanings. They began to read in English for meaning, similar to what they did in their native languages. As the course progressed, more students elected to write reading journals about the issues the books brought up that related to their own lives, and they expressed more confidence in their writing abilities. Students became more confident in their speaking abilities and were more willing to participate in class. They also reported that they felt more comfortable speaking with friends and neighbors outside of class. They also indicated that they felt more comfortable reading in English and that they were reading books not required by the class.
Comments on the Study
The study suggests that behavioral and attitudinal changes may be associated with pleasure reading. Because the language development evidence is anecdotal, it is unclear whether there are language development benefits from reading extensively in English. Given that fact that the students also discussed the books and wrote about them, this may have also contributed to the the behavior and attitudinal changes observed by the teacher.
Implications for Practice
Students may experience and recognize reading proficiency development by engaging in pleasure reading. The benefits of pleasure reading may also extend to language development in oral communication as well.
Key Words
Pleasure reading
Extensive reading
Written-oral/reading relationship
Vocabulary
Reading skills transfer
Areas for Further Research
As with much practitioner research, this research could be replicated among a larger group of participants incorporating pre- and post-testing and control groups.
Descriptive study of
The strategies used by a second language reader in a program designed to promote reading strategy development.
Learner participants
The learner in this case study was Meiko, a Japanese learner of English at an intensive English program in New Zealand. She was a 21-year-old female who had no previous experience of study in an English-speaking country. While she had a good knowledge of English grammar, her oral English was not fluent. The videotapes of the class sessions showed she was very interested in the class discussions, although she contributed little verbally to these discussions.
Teacher participants
No information is given on the teacher. It seems likely, but is not stated, that the researcher was also the teacher of this course.
Study Design
The case study consists primarily of information gathered from Meiko’s contributions to the reading strategies class. Additionally, she was interviewed in English and was asked to complete a reading strategy inventory.
The reading strategies course employed the procedure of reciprocal teaching. This technique focuses reader’s attention on strategies that can be used in order to monitor and promote comprehension. When using this technique, the class examines a text together. For each paragraph of the text, the students and teacher together clarify areas of miscomprehension, identify the main idea, summarize the paragraph, and predict what will happen next. The technique is built on the features of metacognitive awareness (helping learners to understand their own strategy use), modeling of strategy use (helping students to understand how to actively apply strategies), scaffolded instruction (helping learners to collectively deal with texts that they would not be able to process alone), and overt monitoring of comprehension (helping learners to recognize communicative breakdown and identify the source of miscommunication).
Findings
The researcher found that Meiko tended to request clarification for discrete words using a formulaic request, and that she sought to find a single word synonym or Japanese gloss, paying little attention to context. When she attempted to clarify for other students, she also tended to supply single words. When seeking the main idea of the text, she tended to focus on macro discourse markers like “An important point . . .” or “the problem lies in the fact . . .” Her main idea statements tended to be closely modeled on the wording of the text. This text reliance was also demonstrated in her summarizing behavior. Here, she generally tended to restate the main idea previously identified and add a few details. When predicting, she normally indicated that the following paragraph would give more details about one of the ideas from the summary. In all of her responses, she tended to rely heavily on the text rather than background knowledge or experience.
Her answers to the reading strategy inventory (created by the researcher) indicated that she did not tend to integrate reading with her background knowledge, and that she focused mostly on word level phenomena in reading. In interviews with the researcher, Meiko indicated that she used summarizing as a way of dealing with miscomprehension, and that she felt that the instruction had helped her to find main ideas more easily. The researcher concluded from this that Meiko did not use the clarifying stage well, since that is the area intended for clearing up miscomprehension (rather than summarizing) and that Meiko failed to “appreciate the potential for applying the strategies in which she had received training to other contexts, or of the purpose of reading being to make sense of the ideas represented in text” (p. 625).
Comments on the Study
The study fails to separate the learner’s strategy profile from the effects of instruction. It is impossible to tell whether Meiko’s behaviors and perceptions are the result of her initial strategy use or of the strategy instruction. Some pre-instruction characterization would have been appropriate. There is also no evidence presented of the effectiveness of the instructional technique used, or that the strategies encouraged by the technique are actually effective strategies for L2 readers. Some (i.e., summarizing) seem to have little connection to reading comprehension, and the analysis of Meiko’s strategies in this section seem to relate more to her language proficiency and production than to her reading comprehension or use of reading strategies. Finally, the analysis of Meiko’s interview data is disappointingly brief and lacks detail. This is odd, considering that the participant was interviewed on four occasions. The conclusions (i.e., that the learner did not appreciate the potential for applying strategies) drawn from the interview seem to be based more on what the learner did not say than what she actually said. The overarching conclusion that Meiko, as a relatively low-proficiency reader, tended to use more text-based processing than top-down processing, is neither new nor particularly interesting. The researcher concludes that strategy development for Meiko would necessitate a change in attitude; however, it appears that no attempt was made to determine her current attitude towards reading strategy use.
Implications for Practice
Lower proficiency learners may tend to rely more on bottom-up processing than on top-down knowledge application. They should be encouraged to use top-down processing in their reading strategies.
Key Words
Bottom-up processing
Reading strategies
Areas for Further Research
An in-depth, richly reported case study of a learner’s use of reading strategies, attitudes toward reading strategies, or of a learner’s response to strategy training could be highly useful. Such a study should employ careful analysis of the qualitative data and draw only merited conclusions. The participants also should be assessed and interviewed both pre- and post-intervention to see what effect the intervention has had.
Descriptive study of
The reading behavior of two adult ESL learners who have different internalized models of the reading process. Previous work by this author has indicated that almost all learners have an internal model of what it means to read and that these models influence the way people read and the reading difficulties they are likely to experience. The focus of this study was examining this process in depth with two learners who expressed different orientations towards reading.
Learner Participants
The learners were recent immigrants to the United States who were studying at a community-based ESL program in the Midwest. These learners attended classes for three hours daily, five days a week, and were at the high beginning level of English proficiency when the study began. One participant, Stanislav, was a Polish male who held advanced degrees in chemistry in his native language. The other participant, Isabella, was a Spanish female who had no education beyond high school.
Study Design
In the previous study, twenty learners had been asked to describe the reading process. The learners’ responses fell into three different categories: sound-centered models, word-centered models, and meaning-centered models. The author argues that readers who have internal sound-centered models of reading focus on correctly matching sound-symbol correspondences. Learners who envision reading as a word-centered process focus on recognizing and understanding individual words. Having a meaning-centered modal of reading indicates that the learner focuses on understanding the meaning of the text as a whole. Miscue analysis of learners’ oral reading errors indicated that their internal models of reading significantly affected their oral reading proficiency. Sound-centered readers, for example, closely followed the print on the page, but did not recognize when they had pronounced non-sense words. Internalized models of reading also affected recall of the text. Meaning-centered learners demonstrated better recall of the texts than did sound- and word-centered learners.
For this study, two subjects from the previous study were chosen. Stanislav has a sound-centered model of reading, while Isabella has a meaning-centered model of reading. For the study, each read a passage out loud and then orally recalled what they had read. The researcher analyzed the number and types of miscues that each used and rated the recall for each learner.
The author hypothesized that learner’s internal models of reading might influence the reading process by determining which L1 reading skills can be transferred to the L2 or by allowing or restricting schema activation. Learners with a meaning-centered internal model of the reading process might be more able to transfer top-down skills from their L1 reading, making limited language proficiency less of a barrier to reading comprehension. They also might be more likely to activate appropriate schema, as they are more interested in constructing meaning and are more willing to move beyond the printed text. In all, this indicates that learners with meaning-centered models of reading might be advantaged in reading comprehension, explaining why learners with similar language proficiency can have very different experiences with reading.
Findings
Stanislav and Isabella’s divergent internal models of the reading process seem to correspond to elements of their reading performance. Stanislav’s oral reading contained very few miscues (his miscue per word rate was just over 3%), most of which were caused by spelling irregularities in English. However, a high percentage of his miscues were semantically impossible in the given context, and almost one fourth of the miscues were non-words, indicating that he was not monitoring for meaning while he read. Predictably, his recall was very poor, as he was not able to summarize the basic plot of the story.
On the other hand, Isabella’s oral reading contained almost four times more miscues than Stanislav’s (her miscue per word rate was around 13%). However, her miscues were more likely to be semantically possible in the given context, and she used almost no non-words, indicating that she did monitor for meaning more than form while reading. Her retelling of the story was very complete, including the plot line, the characters, and most of the major details, as well as inferences she drew from the story itself.
Comments on the Study
The study suggests that language proficiency is not the only factor in determining reading comprehension. However, without knowing the levels of component reading skills of each reader in English, we cannot be sure what the differences in their miscue patterns were due to.
Implications for Practice
Raising learner awareness of the different aspects of reading and of their own internal models of reading and how they may impact their reading ability could help sound-centered readers to focus more on meaning and comprehension.
Key Words
Models of reading
Reading skills transfer
Top-down processing
Areas for Further Research
The effects of different instructional methods on learners with different preferences of reading models could be investigated.
Theoretical discussion of
The possibility of applying psycholinguistic and processing models of reading (which have traditionally been based on native language reading) to second language reading.
Theory
Current models of the reading process focus on the interaction of top-down language and background knowledge with bottom-up text processing. These models indicate readers need to decode and interpret simultaneously. For ESL students, this indicates that if they have deficiencies in either component -- decoding skills or with language or background knowledge -- they will have difficulties reading in English.
Eskey points out that second language learners most often have deficiencies in both of these areas—that they are likely to lack both the schema and the appropriate decoding skills. He suggests that ESL teachers need to consider both of these issues in reading instruction. One of his suggestions was that teachers needed to take these issues into consideration in the selection of reading materials, judging both the language and the content of the reading.
Eskey also reminds teachers that reading is not only a psycholinguistic, but also a social process, as readers are inducted into the community of readers in a language. The uses for literature can vary from culture to culture, and students’ expectations for the use of literacy can differ from the reality of literacy use in English.
Comments on the Study
Eskey explains simply the applications for reading models in the ESL classroom. He also points out that psycholinguistic processing models will never cover the totality of literacy. While his observations are interesting, data on the success of the various techniques he advocates would be helpful.
Implications for Practice
Eskey advocates that teachers use varied pedagogical techniques to help students increase their use of both top-down and bottom-up processing strategies. Top-down strategies can include pre-reading activities to build knowledge schemas; bottom-up strategies include helping students to chunk text to process it more rapidly.
Key Words
Top-down processing
Bottom-up processing
Models of reading
Areas for Further Research
The various strategies that Eskey recommends could be investigated with ESL learners to determine their effectiveness. Also, texts for ESL learners could be evaluated and rated for difficulty level with respect to both students’ decoding skills and their language and background knowledge, to help teachers select appropriate reading material.