Strategies for Teaching and Testing Reading

Abstract

Most beginning foreign textbooks offer little or no guidance in developing skill, yet proficiency is crucial to success in thirdand fourth-semester courses. method of intensive described here, while based primarily upon our own experience and experimentation, implements some of observations on process set forth initially by Kenneth Goodman and elaborated by others.' According to Goodman, is a very complex psycholinguistic process which in stages involves recoding, not decoding, into aural input, and eventual decoding for meaning. With experience, recoding and decoding occur simultaneously, but in stages oral and silent are very similar, and are described as follows by Goodman: The recoded graphic input must be supplemented, principally with 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 recoding is complete it must sound like familiar language.2 Guided oral provides training and establishes discipline necessary for 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 development of fluent reading. Indeed, lack of control of phonological components can seriously impede progress in and encourage rather than discourage a word-level, translation approach. We recognize fact that there is considerable disagreement with respect to two aspects of process, subvocalization and oral reading. Some investigators see subvocalization as an impediment to for while at least one researcher thinks more rapid subvocalization may be effective.3 Some feel that oral 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 is not simply a word-level activity but one that in fact leads to better phrasing, fluency and comprehension. 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 emphasis upon guided and intensive. Our plan coincides with twelve-step strategy described by Joel Walz in some respects but, unlike Walz, we do not assume that college-level classes prepare outside of class and are ready to work with it when class begins (137). It is precisely in initial confrontation with text that students need guidance most. When instructed to prepare a assignment on their own, most students approach task by looking up all words they do not know and writing their English equivalents, often in text itself. Even though instructor explains that method to be followed is a careful 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 development of skill. Motivated by a desire to reduce frustration and insure success and mindful of recent research and experimentation relevant to development of skill, we devised method hereinafter set forth. We have used it at all four levels of basic university sequence, first through fourth semester classes. It can be used with any narrative selection that course textbook provides: grammar presentational, cultural,