Open to the flaw: Comparing the different skills required for reading English and isiZulu

Abstract

We know that competent readers of text in all languages move through text with speed and ease, confident that they can tell what the writer has written. We also know that incompetent readers in all languages move hesitantly through text, rereading words and lines, stalling at particular points, and, often with good reason, are not confident that they can discover what the writer says. What is not clear from this apparent similarity of reading patterns across languages is whether the minute processes that cohere to produce the activity of reading are similar across languages and orthographies, or whether this similarity is superficial, and elements of established patterns of reading performance differ with different orthographies. These minute processes and their implications for learning to read and for teaching reading skills, and for ways to measure competence in reading, are the subject of unresolved debate. While studies have been done of differences in observable physical reading patterns between European and some Asian languages, and between different orthographies, there is conspicuously very little information about reading in African languages. This article focuses on a quest to find out whether there are differences between measurable processes of reading English text and reading isiZulu text, and particularly on problems thrown up in the course of the study.