Strategy instruction to enhance reading

STRATEGY INSTRUCTION TO ENHANCE READING Literatur e Review

This review covers reading as a subject generally and also in L 2 environment . It further considers the various models of reading propounded by researchers and authors . It also takes a look at differences between a reading strategy and a reading skill . It then outlines and classifies the various learning strategies in use Specifically , it reviews strategies for reading , pre-reading , while reading and post-reading . It also delves into the strategies good readers use to get by . It further reviews available literature on

strategic reading and teaching of reading strategies . The last segment of the review is devoted to difficulties encountered in teaching reading strategies

1 .0 Reading

Reading as a subject has been defined in several ways by different people and organizations . WorldNet (2007 ) has defined reading in seven distinct ways . Two of the definitions relevant to our subject matter are given below :-

Reading is the cognitive process of understanding a written linguistic message

Reading is a mental representation of the meaning or significance of something

According to the Encyclopaedia , an adult reader can read and understand between 200 -1000 words per minute . Catherine Walter (2003 , on the other hand , has given 300 words per minute as the optimal rate for processing prose . She added that for fluent adult readers , this rate is constant , regardless of whether the text was difficult or not Generally for young readers , the ability of one to read often depends on the rate of fixation of one 's eye on the words being read and also the difficulty of the material being . Reading is a core subject given greater emphasis in most schools throughout the world

Models of Reading

Two kinds (models ) of processing are distinguishable in reading . These are the bottom-up processes and the Top-down processes . The former involves those that take in stimuli from the outside world in the form of letters and words for reading . Adherents of this theory (bottom up processing ) focus on how readers extract information from the printed page . Whereas the latter , the uptake of information is guided by an individual 's prior knowledge and expectations . Proponents of this theory posits that readers form hypothesis about which words they would encounter and take in only enough visual information to test their hypothesis . Acceptance or rejection of a given text is based primarily on what their formed hypothesis is all about . If the formed hypothesis is consistent with what has been read the material is readily accepted On the other hand , if the read material is not in congruent , the material may be rejected . In practice , she added that , both processes (bottom-up and top-down ) are tapped into to facilitate accurate and rapid processing of information

Reading in second language (L2

Studies undertaken by Schoonen , Hulstijn and Bosser (1998 ) on Dutch learners of the English language revealed that as proficiency grew meta-cognitive knowledge contributed to a greater extent to reading comprehension skill acquisition . They further added that knowledge of textual...