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APREMELGO- ASSOCIAÇÃO VIRTUAL DOS PROFESSORES DE LÍNGUAS DAS REDES ESTADUAL E MUNICIPAL DE GOIÁS |
Material desenvolvido por: |
Beverley L. Zakaluk, Ph. D. 1982/96
E-Mail: [email protected]
Helen Bochonko
E-Mail: [email protected]
University of Manitoba
Created on June 24, 1996
Last Updated on October 9, 1998
Semantic or background knowledge influences reading at both the word identification and the comprehension level. As in the previous discussion, each component will be addressed in turn.
First in regard to word identification, prior knowledge plays an important role (see earlier discussion on the "top-down" model). It is believed that as readers progress through the text and interact with the printed page they form tentative hypotheses about the identity of upcoming words based upon their previous experiences. These provisional guesses are subsequently accepted and confirmed when meaning is constructed. If meaning is not constructed, the prediction is rejected and the reader re-samples the print to begin the process anew. Semantic knowledge therefore partially assists and interacts with text-based information to facilitate the process of word identification.
Semantic knowledge plays a much larger role in terms of understanding or comprehending the author's message. As Paul Kolers points out in his introduction to Huey's Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading republished in 1968,
What the reader understands from what he has read is the
result of a
construction he makes and not the result of a simple transmission of the
graphic symbols to his mind.
Thus it is acknowledged that the reader plays an active role in the process of comprehension.
Empirical support for this view of reading comprehension is found in the classical research of Bartlett (1932). In his study, English subjects were asked to read and recall a story from an unfamiliar culture - The War of the Ghosts, a tale of Canada's Northwest Coast Indians. The major finding was that recall was inaccurate. Distortions found in the retellings made the story conform to the past experiences of the readers. Moreover, additions to and elaborations of the story line in the retellings caused redundancies to occur. These redundancies, in turn, facilitated the making of inferences. Thus recall consisted of not only what was stated directly in the story but included also what seemed to follow, based on the prior knowledge of the reader. What was remembered was not the exact text, but instead the story gist or stored paraphrases based on reader inferences.
Predicated upon this evidence, Bartlett described reading comprehension as an "effort after meaning." He theorized that one's background knowledge is organized and stored in hypothetical abstract cognitive structures called schema. The construct of schema helps to clarify how information is picked up from the environment. It is in these schema that previous experiences are recorded and it is these schema which in turn direct and determine what will be perceived in future events or activities. Moreover, information can only be picked up by an appropriately tuned schema. To put it another way "we can see only what we know how to look for" (Neissser, 1976). Conversely, all information that is picked up modifies and rebuilds existing cognitive structures or schema.
Applied to the construct of reading comprehension, the concept of schema functions as follows: previous semantic knowledge stored in the form of schemata creates a framework on the basis of which readers expect and anticipate certain events to occur in the text. Schemata already in the learner's mind thus direct the search for information. In turn, the knowledge gained from reading alters the reader's original script or schema. Viewed in this way, reading comprehension is a constructive process which is reciprocal and cyclical, new knowledge being interpreted in the light of existing knowledge and new information reconstituting existing knowledge. Fresh insights assimilated into the reader's schema then redirect and determine further information pickup.
In a review of research, Goetz and Armbruster (1980) report the following major findings which support the notion of schema; that: (1) connected discourse is much easier to learn and remember than collections of unrelated sentences; (2) text which is more congruent with what the reader already knows and expects is also better remembered; (3) the processing of text is selective - it is the most important element in a selection that will be stored and remembered; and (4) the reader interacts with the content of the text in such a way that individual interests and perspectives influence interpretation of the text.
In this connection a more recent study by Steffensen, Joag-Dev and Anderson (1979) supports Bartlett's research and has implications for instruction. Two friendly letters - one describing a typical American wedding, the other an East Indian wedding were assigned to two groups of subjects with different cultural heritages, East Indian and American. The investigators found that subjects not only read the passage related to their own culture more rapidly, but also recalled a larger amount of information from the passage native to them. Conversely, each group of subjects produced more culturally based distortions on the foreign passage. This would suggest that differences in background knowledge may be an important source of individual differences in reading comprehension and mismatches may occur between subcultures and the majority culture whose viewpoint predominates in the materials children are given to read.
As they construct meaning from text, readers make provisional hypothesis as they decode upcoming words. These guesses are accepted and confirmed as meaning is constructed. When the prediction fails to make sense, the guess is rejected and the reader who is seeking after meaning, is compelled to re-sample the print, at this time perhaps employing orthographic and/or syntactic cues to facilitate decoding. This occurs because comprehension is a constructive process in which the reader actively seeks meaning.
The theoretical explanation explaining the role of topic familiarity in the construction of meaning is that as experiences and attitudes are assimilated, they form cognitive structures. These cognitive structures are called "schema". Schema store previous experiences, direct information pickup, and in turn become modified as new knowledge is accommodated and assimilated. In terms of learning from text, what will be remembered is what is both presented in a meaningful context, and congruent with what the reader already knows or expects. Thus the match between the text and the interests and perspectives of individual readers predicts comprehension and memory.
In general, problems in both decoding and reading comprehension may be due to disharmony between the background knowledge necessary to comprehend a given text and the background knowledge actually possessed by the reader. Specifically, Pearson (1979) outlines a variety of possible discrepancies which might have an effect on reading comprehension. Readers may:
Therefore, the provision of essential background information in order to develop initial schema or having students engage in structured activities to call up existing schema is a fundamental instructional procedure if word identification and text comprehension are to be improved.
Very briefly some general strategies to implement prior to assigning reading to foster word identification and comprehension include:
The use of pictures - when they illustrate information central to the text, when they represent new content that is important to the overall message and when they depict structural relationships mentioned in the text (Schallert, 1980);
There are a number of important messages with implications for instructional procedures inherent in this overview of the reading process. In global terms the interactive model of reading implies an eclectic approach to teaching. That is neither a completely phonic nor a completely holistic approach is correct in teaching beginning reading. Instead direct instruction which emphasizes both meaning and mechanics is in order to integrate the application of all knowledge systems (orthographic, lexical, syntactic and semantic) to facilitate the development of fluent word recognition. This may call for some modifications in traditional approaches to reading instruction such as embedding letters in orthographic strings, demonstrating how words pattern, making analogies between new and previously-mastered words, ensuring a match between the children's language and the language of the text, and realizing the importance of prior knowledge. One point is evident. Children need to be automatic in word recognition skill if fluent, accomplished reading with understanding is to develop.
Within the parameters of the four knowledge sources there is an implicit need to institute a diagnostic approach to teaching, to constantly assess each child's progress in order to determine along which dimension inhibitors to reading success are operant. Thus it is necessary to question constantly whether orthographic, lexical, syntactic or semantic knowledge constraints are interfering with learning to read and to make the required teaching adjustments. Perhaps the best way to guarantee that the beginning reader is integrating all knowledge systems to facilitate word identification is to keep running records (Clay, 1993) and prompt children to "try that again" when their reading does not make sense. In guiding the reading of
beginning readers, our goal is to raise their level of consciousness about which cues or knowledge sources - orthographic, lexical, syntactic or meaning they are employing to predict and confirm word identity.
The overall goal of reading, however, is comprehension. We must ensure, therefore, that we activate pror knowledge or build topic familiarity before we actually assign reading. Developing a schemata for the text not only facilitates word recognition but also comprehension and recall.
One last observation is important. Grade-wise the traditional focus in the primary school has been typically on word identification at the expense of comprehension. At the other end of the continuum, in the high school, the focus has been on teaching content area subjects with less emphasis on the reading process. With increased understanding of the factors which influence reading performance including knowledge of textual constraints and the effect of the reader's previous experiences on inferencing behaviours, it is evident that as teachers we need to adjust instructional strategies and opportunities so that students' efforts to read to learn are facilitated at all levels.