Moments and purposes of reading

Definition of Reading

Many theories abound, but current thinking in the field of reading research proposes this definition of reading as "an interactive process in which the reader's prior knowledge of the world interacts with the message conveyed directly or indirectly by the text" (Smith, 1995, p. 23). Let's "unpack" that definition: 

• Reading is a process. As such, it has various stages (before-, during-, and after-reading) at which different tasks need to be performed.
• Reading is interactive. The mind of the reader interacts, conducts a dialogue, actively engages with the text to decode, assign meaning, and interpret.
• The reader applies prior knowledge of the world to this act.
• There is a message to be conveyed or constructed.

Skilled readers understand the process and employ different strategies automatically at each stage. Content area teachers can enhance a student's ability to understand the process and employ effective reading skills through classroom activities referred to as "instructional scaffolding" (Vacca & Vacca, 1996).

Instructional Scaffolding

Instructional scaffolding of strategy instruction is a metaphor that refers to the idea of "initial, teacher-directed support, gradually withdrawn as the student gains facility with the skills." For each of the stages in the reading process that follow, the instructional scaffolding methodology can provide guidance to the student who needs support. 

Hallmarks of the instructional scaffolding methodology include (a) teacher modeling and explanation of the strategy, (b) guided practice, and (c) peer/collaborative learning opportunities.

Teacher modeling and explanation of the strategy involves the following steps:

1. Explain the strategy and why it is important.

2. Model (demonstrate) how to do it. The teacher uses a "think aloud" method to illustrate his/her thought process as he/she employs the strategy.

3. Explain when to use the strategy.

Guided practice involves the following:

• Teachers and students practice the skill together, with the instructor providing feedback and correction.

The following peer/collaborative learning opportunities can occur either prior to or after reading:

• Students work in peer groups to practice the target skills.
• Through "reciprocal teaching," the teacher may demonstrate the skill on one "chunk" of text and then turn the reins over to a student who demonstrates the skill on the next section.

*http://www.rit.edu/ntid/rate/sea/processes/comprehension/process/whatis

Reading purposes

Reading comprehension is directly related to the reasons why people read:

Reading for literary experience

Reading to acquire and use information

Each of these purposes for reading is often associated with certain types of texts, but is not strictly aligned with certain types of texts. It is in the interaction between reader and text where meanings are generated and purposes are achieved.

In literary reading, the reader uses the text to engage in events, environments, actions, effects, characters, settings, fictitious ideas and feelings, and to enjoy language itself.

When reading to acquire information, the reader is immersed in fantasy worlds, but in appearance of the real universe. Through informational texts, one can understand how the world is and how it has been, and why things work the way they do.

When reading for acquiring information, the reader is not immersed in fantasy worlds, but in appearance of the real universe. Through informational texts, one can understand how the world is and how it has been, and why things work the way they do.

*Mullis I, Kennedy A, Martin M and Sainsbury M. Marcos teóricos y especificaciones de evaluación de PIRLS 2006.

 

Identifying the writer's purpose and point of view

• provide or obtain information;

• share the excitement of an event;

• persuade or influence the reader or provoke debate;

• create or enter a personal world;

• stimulate the imagination;

• convey important cultural stories or myths;

• entertain or delight the reader.

It is important for readers to recognize that behind every text is a writer, and that the writer has a purpose or reason for writing and a particular point of view. For example, the purpose of the writer may be to:

By supporting students in identifying and reflecting on an author’s purpose and point of view, teachers can help their students to recognize that writers bring their own experiences and insights to their writing. Such activities contribute richly to students’ awareness of the functions of texts and of how authors position readers. They also help students to build the habit of responding thoughtfully to what they read. Students then carry their awareness and thoughtfulness into their writing and use it to help them plan and articulate their own purpose and point of view when writing a text.

*http://literacyonline.tki.org.nz/Literacy-Online/Teacher-needs/Reviewed-resources/Reading/Comprehension/ELP-years-5-8/Identifying-the-writer-s-purpose-and-point-of-view

Higher-order Thinking Skills

The development of higher-order thinking skills is essential. In the early stages of reading development, higher-order thinking can be developed at the oral level through teacher read-alouds and shared reading. In the reading-to-learn stage, classroom teachers need to ask questions that challenge them to move beyond what they recall of the text and on to what they understand through application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Students need to have opportunities to manipulate and criticize the concepts and understandings of what they have read. Students will formulate opinions and substantiate their thinking. They are no longer simply passive readers.

Bloom's taxonomy is a useful tool for helping teachers engage students in higher-order thinking when they read. Table shows that, as students apply higher-order thinking, they are able to draw more meaning from what they learn and apply the learning in more sophisticated ways. Although thinking skills alone do not make a child an effective reader, they are essential forreading. 

Table. Using Bloom's Taxonomy in Reading Instruction

Level	Definition	What the Student Will Do:
Evaluation	Judging the value of ideas, materials, or products	Give value. Make choices. Arrange ideas. Judge ideas. Present choices.
Synthesis	Putting together constituent parts or elements to form a new whole	Use prior knowledge to activate new knowledge. Change existing ideas. Create new ideas.
Analysis	Breaking down an idea into its constituent parts	Look at parts. See relationships. Organize parts.
Application	Using information in new situations or to solve a new problem. Uses knowledge.	Apply previously learned information to another situation.
Comprehension	Understanding the information being communicated but not relating it to other material or ideas	Organize previously learned material in order to rephrase it, describe it in own words, explain it, or predict implications or effects on the basis of the known facts.
Knowledge (memory)	Learning the information	Recall or recognize bits of information.

The teacher should provide students with planned activities for before, during, and after reading. For example:

• Before beginning to read, the teacher and students establish the purpose for reading. Together they consider what they already know about the topic or genre and use the title, headings, table of contents or index, and new, unfamiliar vocabulary to enhance their predictions.
• During reading, the students respond to the text by searching for meaning, identifying the main ideas, predicting and verifying predictions, and building a coherent interpretation of the text. Students bring their experiences of the world and literature into the reading activity. The teacher directs the attention of students to subtleties in the text, points out challenging words and ideas, and identifies problems and encourages the students to predict solutions.
• After reading, the students reflect on their learning as they apply the knowledge acquired during reading, or transfer that knowledge to other contexts (e.g., by retelling, summarizing, creating graphic organizers, or putting pictures in sequential order).

*https://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/reports/reading/effective.html

* http://www.learningunlimitedllc.com/2014/01/infographic-20-reading-strategies/

Before Reading: Tasks and Strategies

Strategies to Activate Prior Knowledge

The teacher can do much in the classroom to prepare students for their readings. Prior to class, the teacher can anticipate student needs by:

• Previewing the chapter and determining which concepts are essential.

• Reading over the material with an eye to student needs. How much foundation building will the students need to understand these concepts?

• Asking "Where are the trouble spots in this chapter?"

• Noting resources offered by the text, such as the glossary, list of objectives, margin notations, and end-of-chapter summaries and questions.

In-Class Strategies

In class the teacher can help to build a bridge between information which is "known" and information which is "new." To build a bridge between known and new, the teacher can:

• Review what has been learned to date.

• Ask "What do we already know?" For example, in a business text's chapter on global business, recall that the previous chapter dealt with "U.S. Business."

• Ask questions to draw on students' life experiences: "Do you know any companies that operate worldwide?" "What problems do you think an American company might have overseas?"

• Use the table of contents of the text to put the new topic in context.

• Link new material to concept maps or webs of material learned previously.

Reviewing known material brings to the surface the knowledge that the students already possess; it establishes a "platform" for the new information. Students get the sense that they bring something to the task.

A second in-class strategy that the teacher can encourage students to employ is to look ahead, to survey a chapter or other reading. Looking ahead is similar to looking at a road map before taking a trip; it prepares the mind. To look ahead…

• Skim through the chapter or section. Look at subheadings, pictures, and graphic representations to get an idea of what is coming.

• Anticipate. Encourage students to write down their predictions of the concepts they will be learning and, afterwards, to compare their predictions with what they actually encountered.

A third in-class strategy involves questioning:

• What do we want to know from this reading?

• Take the chapter title and subheadings and turn them into questions, to focus the mind and create a reading goal.

Forming questions or predictions about the upcoming reading helps to create a focus for the student during the reading, so the student doesn't just stare aimlessly at the words on a page. Questions make the reading more active and purposeful.

As a fourth strategy, students can benefit from the use of K-W-L Charts to log their interactions with a reading (Vacca & Vacca, 1996, pp. 211-217). A K-W-L Chart is a table on which students can record their prior knowledge and new learning from their reading experience. K-W-L stands for the following three questions:

K = What do I know already about this topic?
W = What do I want to know?
L = What did I learn from this reading?

The first two questions are completed in the before-reading stage. The third question is completed in the after-reading stage.

A fifth in-class strategy helps students to build vocabulary and new concepts:

Prior to a reading assignment, introduce new concepts and vocabulary that the students will encounter in the reading.

* http://www.rit.edu/ntid/rate/sea/processes/comprehension/process/before

During Reading: Tasks and Strategies

Tasks and Strategies of the During-Reading Stage

It is helpful if the teacher can model reading behavior by "thinking aloud" or reading and signing at the same time to make his or her thought process available to the students as the teacher interacts with the text material. The process involves the following steps on the part of the teacher:

• Read the text, saying or signing the idea you are getting.
• Ask questions or hypothesize along the way: "I think that means …" or "That's similar to …"
• Identify important concepts.
• Summarize at the end of a section what you understood.
• Designate pairs or groups of students in class to practice this strategy.

A second during-reading strategy involves annotating a text by writing margin notes. Margin notes are important for students because they … 

• Encourage the student to actively respond to the ideas in the text.

• Serve as a visible record of the student's thought process as he or she is reading.

• Provide a useful tool for review and test preparation.

What should the student note in the margin of a text? Some ideas for margin notes include (a) writing a synopsis of paragraph ideas, 

(b) using symbols to call attention to portions of the text, 

(c) writing down questions,

(d) recording observations.

A synopsis of paragraph ideas could include the following:

• "Causes of X"

• "Problems with Y"

• "Outcomes"

Symbols to use as margin notes could include the following:

* = important point, key concept

? = I don't understand that idea or sentence.

Def. = definition of a term

The student can write down questions in the margin to either look up later or to ask the instructor about.

The student can record observations about a text that might help in interpreting the texts or putting the information in context.

Importantly, students are better able to follow these strategies effectively on their own if they see them demonstrated in class and receive guided practice and feedback from the teacher.

* http://www.rit.edu/ntid/rate/sea/processes/comprehension/process/during

After Reading: Tasks and Strategies

Strategies for the After-Reading Stage

The most obvious and widely used strategy for the after-reading stage is to answer questions in writing--either comprehension questions at the end of a chapter or questions handed out by the teacher. Answering such questions is good because they directly relate to the concepts in the reading and require students to put their understanding into words.

Because the wording or structure of some textbook questions is very complex, it may be advisable to reword the question at a more user-friendly level that still taps into the students' comprehension of the concepts. 

Another after-reading strategy involves the use of learning logs. Learning logs are similar to journals that encourage students to put into words what they learned from the reading and to reflect upon their own learning experiences and learning needs. A teacher can prepare a learning log handout that includes the following components: 

• Questions about the content of the reading for students to answer in their own words.

• Questions about the difficulty level of the reading material and a statement about the time and effort expended by the student in doing the work.

• A comparison of the actual content of the reading with what the student had predicted in the before-reading stage.

• Items related to new vocabulary or terms learned in the reading.

• Goal-setting for future learning needs.

Summary writing is another way for students to put concepts from the reading into their own words. A good summary …

• Should reflect the major/key points of a reading.

• Should be a "capsule" of the reading in condensed form.

• Provides the instructor with a good mirror of the student's comprehension of the reading

Finally, K-W-L Charts, which were discussed in the section, "Before Reading: Tasks and Strategies," are another way for students to record what they learned from a reading. The "L" question is relevant to the after-reading stage:

K = What do I know already about this topic?

W = What do I want to know?

L = What did I learn from this reading?

Classroom Activities

There a variety of classroom activities that can be employed in the after-reading stage to help students in their comprehension of read materials. These include 

(a) concept maps, 

(b) role-play, 

(c) quiz making,

(d) research fairs.

Concept maps are visual representations of read material and allow for a variety of expressions, depending on the nature of the material. For many students, visual representations are valuable learning and study tools. It is hard to specify "directions" for the myriad types of webs, charts, pie diagrams, and matrices that can represent related ideas. Vacca and Vacca's (1996) text, Content Area Reading, offers a multitude of examples. 

Role-play activities allow students to act out concepts. For example, in a computer technology class, after students read about the functions of the various computer components, the teacher could select students to act out the roles of the CPU, the monitor, the modem, and the printer.

Quiz making is another student activity that can facilitate comprehension in the after-reading stage. Quiz making encourages students to think like the course instructor and, at the same time, to consider what concepts in the reading are key: "If you were the teacher and you wanted to test your students on this chapter, what would you ask?" This activity can be done as an individual assignment or in collaborative groups or pairs. Students can be encouraged to create a variety of question types.

At the end of a chapter or unit, students may want to learn more about the topic or to go more in depth in a particular area. When a course includes a research project component or the opportunity for extra credit, students can gather more information about an area of their interest. Having a research fair, in which students present to the class, can be a very motivating experience. Teachers can encourage students to make Power Point presentations, to use other visual displays, or to create hands-on experiential activities.

* http://www.rit.edu/ntid/rate/sea/processes/comprehension/process/after

Here I present to you an example developed for the subject morphology of the eye:

EXTRAOCULAR MUSCLES

The muscles of the globe can be divided into two groups: the involuntary intrinsic muscles and the voluntary extrinsic muscles. The intrinsic muscles—the ciliary muscle, the iris sphincter, and the iris dilator—are located within the eye; these muscles control the movement of internal ocular structures. The extrinsic muscles— the six extraocular muscles—attach to the sclera and control movement of the globe.

Striated muscle is surrounded by a connective tissue sheath known as the epimysium; continuous with this sheath is a connective tissue network, the perimysium, which infiltrates

the muscle and divides it into bundles. The individual muscle fiber within the bundle is surrounded by a delicate connective tissue enclosure, the endomysium.

STRUCTURE OF THE EXTRAOCULAR MUSCLES

The extraocular muscles have a denser blood supply, and their connective tissue sheaths are more delicate and richer in elastic fibers than is skeletal muscle. Fewer muscle fibers are included in a motor unit in extraocular muscle than are found in skeletal muscle elsewhere. Striated muscle of the leg can contain several hundred muscle fibers per motor unit; in the extraocular muscles, each axon innervates 3 to 10 fibers. This dense innervation provides for precise fine motor control of the extraocular muscles resulting in high velocity ocular movements, necessary in saccades, (up to 1000 degrees per second) and very accurate pursuits (velocities of 100 degrees per second) and fixations. Singly innervated fibers have the classic end plate (en plaque) seen in skeletal muscle; multiply innervated fibers have a neuromuscular junction resembling a bunch of grapes (en grappe).

The extraocular muscles have a range of fiber sizes, with the fibers closer to the surface generally having smaller diameters (5 to 15 μm) and those deeper within the muscle generally having larger diameters (10 to 40 μm). They can be divided into groups based on characteristics such as location, size, morphology, neuromuscular junction type, or various biochemical properties. The fibers range from typical twitch fibers at one end of the spectrum to typical slow fibers at the other end, with gradations in between.

It would seem that the fast-twitch fibers should produce quick saccadic movements and the slow fibers should produce slower pursuit movements and provide muscle tone. However, all fibers apparently are active at all times and share some level of involvement in all ocular movements. Extraocular muscles are among the fastest and most fatigue-resistant of striated muscle.

Muscle spindles and Golgi tendon organs of typical striated muscle have been identified in human extraocular muscle, although it is unclear whether these structures provide any useful proprioceptive information relative to the extraocular muscles. Afferent information regarding extraocular muscle proprioception is thought to be mediated by a receptor that is unique to extraocular muscle, the myotendinous cylinder (palisade ending).

* REMINGTON, Lee Ann. Clinical anatomy and physiology of the visual system. 3 ed. St. Louis: Elsevier, 2012.

Reading purposes:

This reading activity is to introduce you in the topic “Extraocular muscles”. Another purpose is to learn new vocabulary and identify specific information about the extraocular muscles.

Activities:

Pre reading.

1.      Work in pairs.

2.      Write in three lines you know about the extraocular muscles.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

While reading.

1.      Read the text quickly to get the main idea and write it.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Read again and:

2.      Write using the symbol “?” in the margin of the text the unknown words.

3.      Write using the symbol “*” in the margin of the text the important point or the key concept.

4.      Read aloud this unknown words, maybe your classmates knows the meaning. 

5.      Write down questions in the margin of the text to either look up later or to ask the instructor about.

Post reading.

6.      Make a chart showing the differences and similarities between extraocular muscles and the skeletal (striated) muscle.

Choose the right answer.

7.      What kind of muscle are the extraocular muscles?

a.       Cardiac

b.      Smooth

c.       Skeletal

d.      None of the above

8.      What kind of muscle are the ciliary muscle, the iris sphincter, and the iris dilator?

a.       Cardiac

b.      Smooth

c.       Skeletal

d.      None of the above

Decide whether the following statements are True or False, and say why.

9.      The dense innervation of the extraocular muscles provides for precise fine motor control of the extraocular muscles resulting in high velocity ocular movements, necessary in saccades and very accurate pursuits and fixations. (   )

Why? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________