Listening, speaking, reading and wrtiting (III)

READING

Characteristic of written language

Permanence	The time can access the information in the written form as many times as needed. Oral language, on the contrary, vanishes after being uttered.
Processing time	The processing time needed to decode the information is greater and readers can read at their own rate.
Distance	The context is which the text is written is different from that in which is read. Consequently, readers interpret the written material using their back ground knowledge and trying in minimizing the effects of the passing of time and sociocultural conventions. Besides, the reader cannot confront the author and question him/her about the text.
Orthography	Written language is materialized   through graphemes. These are accompanied by punctuation marks, pictures or charts. Thus, it may be more difficult to interpret written language than oral language since this is enriched with suprasegmental features and non verbal language
Complexity	Written language tends to have longer clauses and more complex sentences than spoken language.
Vocabulary	Written language usually presents a more varied and more formal lexical register. The writer makes use of more precise lexical items since he/she has more processing time and lower-frequency words often appear.
Formality	Written language makes use of conventionalize forms which enable the reader to recognize the type of text. In addition to this, a written text presents some rhetorical devices which the reader should know in advance in order to make sense of it. As Brown (2011) said : conventions like paragraph topics: :… a logical order for, say, comparing and contrasting something:… openings and closing: and  a preference for non-redundancy and subordination clauses, etc”.

Approaches to reading in a foreign/second language

Bottom-up process is based upon the assumption that the reader starts from decoding the most specific levels of the language before grasping the mos specific levels of the language before grasping the most general ones.  The reader first recognises individual letters, forms words, these in turn make up phrases, then clauses, sentences, texts... Later on, they make use of their linguistic  mechanisms to make some sort of sense of the data. 

Numerous activities to develop the learner's bottom up strategies and subsequently allow him/her to process the text in this way. 

1. Identofying words by letter comninations
2. Difficult sound clusters
3. Re-ordering scrambled words and matching
4. Discriminating minimal pair sounds
5. Reading and stress.

Top-down process starts from the higher levels of proessing and proceeds to use the lower levels selectively. Background knowledge plays a key role since the reader combines what they already know with the new information from the text to achieve a personal interpretation. 

1. Deducing from context.
2. Relating written text to general world knowledge.
3. Drawing inferences.

Interactive process (evlectic approach) the reader, depending on their purpose, the type of text, etc, activates different strategies which shift from bottom-up to top-down  and viceversa. This has come to be known as interactive reading.

The common European framework of reference for languages points the level of English for the reading skills:

• C2.- The reader can read without difficulty almost all forms of texts, including abstract, structurally or linguistically complex texts such as manuals, specialised articles and literary works.
• C1.- The reader can understand long and complex factual and literary texts, appreciating distinctions of style. The reader can understand specialised articles and long technical instructions, even when they are not related to his field.
• B2.- The reader can read articles and reports connected with contemporary problems in which the weriters adop particular attitudes or viewpoints. The reader can understand contemporary literary prose (short stories and popular novels).
• B1.- The reader can undestand texts that consist mainlu of high frecuency everyday or job-related language. The reader can understand the description of events, feelings and wishes.
• A2.- The reader can read very short, simple texts, specific, predictable information in simple veryday material such as advertisements, prospectuses, menus and timetables. The reader can understand short simple personal letters.
• A1.- The reader can understand familiar names, words and very simple senteces, for example on notices and posters or in catalogues. 

Styles of reading applicable to the reading class

Reading alour or reading silently:

• Silent reading:
• The most common and natural type of reading. Different goals can be pursued dependind on the predetermined purpose of  reading.
• Scanning: search of especific information within a text: relevant dates, numbers in a directory, times on a timetable or key concepts in an academic text.
• Skimming: very common in everyday life; used to ger a global impression of the content of a text. It requires a definite reading competence because it implies and over-view of the text. Develops students' self-confidence since they obtain a lot of information without needing much reading. 
• Intensive: focuses on lingusitic and content accurancy. It is very important in some educational contexts because it is used to exemplify different aspects of the lexical, sytactic and discourse systems. Full understanding of the literal meaning presented in the written passage. 
• Extensive: oriented towards grasping a general inderstanding og the text for the purpose of enjoyment or learning. Text are usually long such as books or articles and reading them takes extended periods of time. Extensive reading is not usually perfomed during class time it is known that this activity helps students to improve their reading abilities. 

• Reading aloud:
• In the first years of Primary education, storytelling plays an important role in the process of learning.
• More effective if the story is told aloud due to the fact that learners become more involved and consequently more motivated. 
• Students can show that they recognises written and spoken forms and the relationship between form and meaning. 
• At early and intermediate levels, it can be used to check bottom-up processing skills or simply pronunciation. 
• It is not a ver authentic activity.
• It is a boring activity because while one student is reading, the others can easily lose attention. 
• It is not an interactive activity because students only have to recite. 

An extensive reading programme for children.

Goals for an extensive reading programme.

Take into account institutional goals and expectations for learning (students' goals, language abilities, L1 and L2 reading experiences, students' motivations and attitudes toward reading in general and particular goals of the curriculum). 

Plan reading curricula in relation to specific goals (hours of intruction per wek, aailable resources, etc.), topics, texts and tasks. 

Select appropriate text materials and supporting resources according to levels of difficulty. Diversify students' erading experiences (reading in different places: classroom, library, or home).

Work with texts within a pre-, during- and pos-reading framework.  Recognise the complex nature of reading through meaningful instructions (vocabulary development careful reading of the texts, awareness of text structure and discourse organisation, the use of graphic organisers to support comprehension, strategic reading, sudent motivation and integrated-skills tasks). 

Types of texts.

• Authentic texts refer to readings which have not been adapted or modified in any way for teaching purposes. 
• Pedagogic texts are reading that have been especially written for the language classroom. 
• Adapted texts or Graded readers aim to facilitate the language and content of the text in order to make more accessible to the language learner. 
• Chart for keeping track of student's readings

Task to develop reading skills

Task before reading to introduce the topic of reading and to activate schemata, that is, previous world knowledge. The teacher may also decide to introduce structural items. Five main goals of pre-reading instruction:

1. It enables the reader to access background knowledge.
2. It simulates student's interest.
3. Ir provides specific information needed for successgul comprehension.
4. Ir sets up student's expectations.
5. It models strategies that students can use later their own. 

Task after reading. Post-reading instruction extends ideas and information contained in the text. It also docuses on ensuring that the main ideas have been perfectly grasped and understood.