Strategies for Teaching and Testing Reading

TLDR: In this paper, the authors describe a method of intensive guided reading based on their own experience and experimentation, which implements some of the observations on the reading process set forth initially by Kenneth Goodman and elaborated by others.

Abstract: Most beginning foreign language textbooks offer little or no guidance in developing the reading skill, yet reading proficiency is crucial to success in thirdand fourth-semester courses. The method of intensive guided reading described here, while based primarily upon our own experience and experimentation, implements some of the observations on the reading process set forth initially by Kenneth Goodman and elaborated by others.' According to Goodman, reading is a very complex psycholinguistic process which in the early stages involves recoding, not decoding, into aural input, and eventual decoding for meaning. With experience, the recoding and decoding occur simultaneously, but in the early reading stages oral and silent reading are very similar, and are described as follows by Goodman: "The recoded graphic input must be supplemented, principally with the intonational aspects of speech. Sequences of phonemes or morphemes must be perceived as fitting together into sequences of phrases and syntactical patterns. Relative stress must be assumed, junctures inserted, pitch modulated, so that when the recoding is complete it must sound like familiar language."2 Guided oral reading provides the training and establishes the discipline necessary for the development of appropriate pronunciation, stress and intonation patterns and recognition of syntactic units. While it may be true that "the phoneme-grapheme relationship is learned very early" (Walz 139), in our experience constant attention to this aspect is necessary to the development of fluent reading. Indeed, lack of control of the phonological components can seriously impede progress in reading and encourage rather than discourage a word-level, translation approach. We recognize the fact that there is considerable disagreement with respect to two aspects of the reading process, subvocalization and oral reading. Some investigators see subvocalization as an impediment to reading for meaning while at least one researcher thinks more rapid subvocalization may be effective.3 Some feel that oral reading is at worst an obstacle to comprehension and at best a harmless activity that seems to occur frequently in classrooms (Walz 139). We suggest that if it is done as we describe below, oral reading is not simply a word-level activity but one that in fact leads to better phrasing, fluency and comprehension. The method we propose responds to Sheila Been's suggestion that classroom activities include both "reading for language" and "reading for meaning" (238). It differs from other methods primarily in the emphasis upon "guided" and "intensive." Our plan coincides with the twelve-step reading strategy described by Joel Walz in some respects but, unlike Walz, we do not assume that "college-level classes prepare the reading outside of class and are ready to work with it when class begins" (137). It is precisely in the initial confrontation with the text that students need guidance the most. When instructed to prepare a reading assignment on their own, most students approach the task by looking up all words they do not know and writing their English equivalents, often in the text itself. Even though the instructor explains that the method to be followed is a careful reading followed by rereadings before consulting a glossary or dictionary, most students do not work in that way. When questioned, they say that they first look up words.4 They do not, in fact, read phrases or sentences. They do work at frustration level and fail more than they succeed in the development of the reading skill. Motivated by a desire to reduce frustration and insure success and mindful of recent research and experimentation relevant to the development of the reading skill, we devised the method hereinafter set forth. We have used it at all four levels of the basic university sequence, first through fourth semester classes. It can be used with any narrative reading selection that the course textbook provides: grammar presentational, cultural,