The reading process is a complex, cognitive process of making meaning from texts. It involves decoding symbols and constructing meaning from background knowledge and information presented in text. It is a process that involves interaction between the text and the reader. Some essential components include phonemic awareness/phonics understanding, word identification, fluency (decoding), vocabulary (and word consciousness), and comprehension. According to Tompkins (42), “The goal is comprehension, understanding the text and being able to use it for the intended purpose.”
Reading Process Theories
Models of Gough, LaBerge & Samuels, and Adam focus on primacy of letter and word recognition such as information processing in a linear fashion (words held in working memory), automaticity concept (word recognition leads to fluency), and phonemic awareness (listening helps connect sounds to words). These models focus on phonics and letter-sound correspondence that may create “decoders” or “word callers” but readers are fluent without understanding; comprehension is not automatic. Theories of Goodman, Rosenblat, and Rummelhart suggest the reading process to involve primacy of comprehension. The sociophycholinguistic model involves a cyclical use of all cueing systems, the transactional theory focuses on the interaction between text and reader as well as immersion in functional print, interactive theory incorporates both schema theory and metacognitive awareness, sociolcultural theory focuses on the social setting as most influential, and the sociolinguistic theory describes reading as a relation between thought and language involving teacher scaffolding to the zone of proximal development. The primacy of comprehension stems from occurrences where readers understand text without complete understanding of the significance of written letters. All of these theories (both word recognition and comprehension) must be incorporated together to understand the reading process.
Cueing Systems (Sociopsycholinguistic Theory: Goodman’s Model)
All four cueing systems may be used during the reading process in effort to create meaning and build understanding of text and language. The phonological system depends on the relationship between sound and letters. Readers refer to the 44 speech sounds and 26 letters to build phonological awareness (knowledge of sound structure), phonemic awareness (ability to create words from sounds orally), and phonics (phoneme-grapheme correspondence). The syntactic cueing system stems from aspexts of the structure of the English language based on knowledge about how words are combined to create sentences. Readers use what they know about morphemes (smallest unit of language) and grammar to determine what “sounds like language”. The semantic cueing system involves deriving meaning from vocabulary words and is focused on the distinctions between words such as synonyms and homonyms. Meaning of individual words is useful in comprehension attainment. The pragmatic system is dependent on cultural and social understandings and norms. This system is used when the purpose (or function) and audience are important in understanding the text. The syntactic and semantic systems are more desirable for increased comprehension, but all systems must be used in an appropriate combination in order to create meaning from a variety of texts. All systems are constantly in play and the actions of the readers are labeled cognitive strategies.
In addition to the use of cueing systems, Goodman’s Model suggests that readers confirm or disconfirm predictions of what they expect to discover through reading (associated with interactive reading process). This interactive process between the text and the reader’s knowledge (schema) involves switching back and forth between word recognition and preconceived ideas and supports the idea that comprehension is dependent on both decoding abilities and schema activation.
Schema activation
Schema is a network of pictures or associations stored in the head and used to organize our understandings of ideas, objects, actions, behaviors, and events. Our schemata is modified and restructured in accordance with daily interactions and life experiences. Problems with reading comprehension may be directly related to schema inadequacies including schema availability (lack of previous experience or familiarity), schema selection (failure to recognize appropriate or relevant schema), and schema maintenance (failure to sustain or synthesize schemata throughout reading). Additionally, during the reading process, students must reading in an interactive fashion as they make predictions and assumptions that are modified and revised with further reading. Bottom-up and top-down processing, failure to access background information, and neglect to facts and details, respectively, results in poor comprehension of text.
Metacognitive Awareness
The reading process also involves metacognitive awareness to increase comprehension through knowledge and control of reading. Metacognition is critical for comprehension as the reader keeps track of the interactive process. Readers must know the task (read for understanding), the text (types and purposes), themselves as readers (where, how, what personal characteristics), and strategies (re-reading, context clues, comprehension and word-level). Additionally, metacognitive awareness involves control as readers monitor for comprehension and ask questions such as “do I understand or don’t I?” as they keep track of their reading. Metacognitively aware readers make text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world connections. They think about the cueing systems are using and the reasons they are working or not working. They recognize, recall, summarize, and anticipate events and characteristics of the text. They understand the purpose for reading and make assumptions about the audience. They also make predictions, inferences, justifications, and explanations. Overall, a metacognitively aware reader is asking questions (perhaps using strategic bookmarks) to themselves, to the author, to the text and determining the answers to those questions through further reading. All readers must know that reading is an effort to get meaning from text, which is accomplished through metacognitive thinking.
Key Features of the Reading Process
Before a book is even opened, the reading process begins as students get reading to read a selected text. Looking at the cover, deciding a purpose for reading, and planning for reading prepares students as they preview a text. Related vocabulary and background knowledge must be activated and students begin to make predictions about the information in the book that they will later determine to be correct or not. Flipping through the pages, looking over diagrams, illustrations, and section headings help the students determine the content of the book and think about how the book is organized (text structure). Teachers may also use anticipation guides and prereading plans to set their students up for an enjoyable and successful reading experience.
In the classroom, reading may be done independently, with a buddy, through guided reading, shared reading, and reading aloud (mainly done by the teacher to demonstrate metacognitive awareness, word-level and comprehension strategies, as well as various aspects of literature such as used in minilessons). Readers use a variety of reader strategies and skills and understand the reason for their use in various passages. The drawings, pictures, diagrams, maps, and other visual aides are more closely examined during reading to help students understand the information presented by the author. Many readers also take notes or re-read selections from the book to increase comprehension.
After reading (either a passage or the entire text), readers may respond in reading logs and classroom or small group discussions about their ideas, what they learned, and their predictions or inferences. Responding is a large component of reading workshop and can be categorized in three patterns: immersion responses, involvement responses, and literacy connections. It is the teacher’s responsibility to facilitate response discussions and teach students about the variety of ways in which they can respond to text.
The exploration component of the reading process is oftentimes teacher directed and creates an opportunity for further instruction and learning about literature. The goal of exploration is to examine the text more analytically, better understand the author’s point of view and writing style, and to dissect words and sentences from selections. This is especially important in increasing word consciousness and provides opportunity for teachers to present minilessons on confusing or important content. During exploration students may also identify memorable quotes or famous lines from literature/history.
The final stage of the reading process is application to extend comprehension of the text. Students are encouraged to reflect on their understanding and determine what values, ideas, or concepts they have learned from their reading. Projects such as open-mind portraits and readers theatre (see comprehension strategies) reinforce and extend student’s understanding. In addition to the construction of projects (many times self-selected), application also involves reading related books or other books by the same author, using the information learned in a topic-centered unit (or another class such as history or science), and evaluating the overall reading experience (in effort to promote future reading and a lifelong love of reading).
Reading Process in Reading Workshop
The reading process involves prereading, reading, responding, exploring, and applying. Students first select a book that is appropriate for their reading level that allows them to activate their background knowledge. They look at the cover and read a passage from the book or summary that sparks their interest as the think about the content/topic of the book. They read books independently at their own pace and apply both comprehension strategies while activating their schema to comprehend and word-level strategies to decode. Response occurs through writing and discussing the books they read (grand conversations) with other students, parents, the teacher, and through reading logs. The reading process also involves an exploration of text structure/factors, author studies, and comprehension strategies that are taught by instructors through minilessons in reading workshop. Minilessons provide information about strategies such as declarative knowledge (what it is), procedural knowledge (how to use it), and conditional knowledge (when to use it). Book talks, presentations, and other activities allow the students to share and apply what they have learned through reading.
