Reading to Learn
Reading is an essential part of language instruction
at every level because it supports learning in multiple ways.- Reading to
learn the language: Reading material is language input. By giving students
a variety of materials to read, instructors provide multiple opportunities
for students to absorb vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, and
discourse structure as they occur in authentic contexts. Students thus
gain a more complete picture of the ways in which the elements of the
language work together to convey meaning.
- Reading
for content information: Students' purpose for reading in their native
language is often to obtain information about a subject they are studying,
and this purpose can be useful in the language learning classroom as well.
Reading for content information in the language classroom gives students
both authentic reading material and an authentic purpose for reading.
- Reading
for cultural knowledge and awareness: Reading everyday materials that are
designed for native speakers can give students insight into the lifestyles
and worldviews of the people whose language they are studying. When
students have access to newspapers, magazines, and Web sites, they are
exposed to culture in all its variety, and monolithic cultural stereotypes
begin to break down.
When reading to learn, students need to follow four
basic steps:
- Figure out
the purpose for reading. Activate background knowledge of the topic in
order to predict or anticipate content and identify appropriate reading
strategies.
- Attend to
the parts of the text that are relevant to the identified purpose and
ignore the rest. This selectivity enables students to focus on specific
items in the input and reduces the amount of information they have to hold
in short-term memory.
- Select
strategies that are appropriate to the reading task and use them flexibly
and interactively. Students' comprehension improves and their confidence
increases when they use top-down and bottom-up skills simultaneously to
construct meaning.
- Check
comprehension while reading and when the reading task is completed.
Monitoring comprehension helps students detect inconsistencies and
comprehension failures, helping them learn to use alternate strategies.
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