WHAT ARE THE SKILLS AND ABILITIES THAT ARE LINKED TO LATER OUTCOMES IN READING?

What are the skills and abilities that are linked to later outcomes in reading?

Abstract

Reading is described as a "psycholinguistic process by which the reader reconstructs as best as he can a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display". It is essentially consisting of a successful interaction among three factors: higher-level conceptual abilities, background knowledge, and process strategies. The result of the interaction is comprehension. Conceptual abilities are important in reading acquisition. Process strategies are considered subcomponents of reading ability although they are also mental processes. For example, knowledge of the phonology of a language implies the ability to identify phonemes and use this knowledge for practical purposes such as listening.

What are the skills and abilities that are linked to later outcomes in reading?

Reading is central to the learning process, and as Ghosn points out, ”... carefully chosen children's literature allows children to develop their receptive language in entertaining, meaningful contexts and naturally invites them to repeat many of the predictable words and phrases, which children gradually take ownership of and add to their receptive and productive language.” (1997). In the case of reading, an individual is required to perform at least two interdependent tasks; the reader must determine what words constitute the text while simultaneously constructing meaning. Unfortunately, the combined attention demands of decoding and comprehension are greater than the reader's attention resources. Therefore, beginning readers focus their attention on the decoding task and then move to comprehension to understand what they have decoded. Although the beginning reader is able to comprehend by switching attention back and forth in this way, the process is slow and difficult. With practice, students are able to recognize words automatically. Then, because so little attention is required for decoding, they have enough left over for comprehension. Then, they are able to focus attention simultaneously on decoding and comprehension and the transition from learning to read to reading to learn proceeds smoothly (Howell & Lorson-Howell, 1990).

Inefficient readers continue to expend a disproportionately large percentage of their attention on decoding, which significantly reduces their overall reading rate. In addition, cognitive resources that could have been used for comprehension must be reallocated to word recognition. As a result comprehension suffers. Improving their level of word recognition will enable struggling readers to focus on the real goal of reading (Pinnell et al., 1995).

Very slow reading can result in a cycle of interacting negative consequences. Unrewarding reading experiences lead to less involvement in reading related activities. Students avoid reading when they do not feel successful, which eliminates the one thing that will improve their practice. For the teacher of the struggling reader, the dilemma is how to provide more practice in a task that the student avoids and probably dislikes (Allington, 1977)

One of the ways of reading is 'Precision reading'. It is a short, daily reading activity designed to improve sight word recognition and the reading fluency and comprehension of students ...