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Many of the people concerned with language teaching/learning ignore the values of reading and its impact on other skills. In fact, reading is a key to success in school, a key to the development out of the school, a key to the enjoyment of leisure time. Indeed, reading is so interrelated with the total educational process that educational success requires successful reading. But why do we need another research on reading and on the teaching of reading comprehension? The simplest answer to this question is that, despite the effort spent on the improvement of reading skill, there are unfortunately many of those pupils who face great difficulties, and have less abilities to cope with reading comprehension tasks. Thus, our study is meant to investigate and to spot the important issues that underlie the reading process in order to help in the analysis of the data collected from pupils and teachers. For this, Chapter two examines those important issues in reading: What is reading? What is the role of word recognition and comprehension? What are the surface and deep structure in reading? To what extent is reading a thinking process? Is reading only a psycholinguistic guessing game or is it something more? What are the roles of the semantic and syntactic contexts? What model, the bottom-up, the top-down, or the interactive, best explains what happens in reading? And so on.
A DEFINITION OF READING
Definitions of reading are generally divided into two major types: (a) those that equate reading with interpretation of experience generally, and (b) those that restrict the definition to the interpretation of graphic symbols. The first is a broader category and encompasses the second; most reading definitions are related to one or both. Let us consider more closely some of the definitions which make up these categories.
READING AS INTERPRETATION OF EXPERIENCE
With the first type of reading definition, in which reading is equated with the interpretation of experience generally, we might speak of reading pictures, reading faces, or reading the weather. Dechant said:
“We read a squeaking door, a clap of thunder, a barking dog, or another’s facial expressions. The detective reads clues, the geologist reads rocks, the astronomer reads stars, the doctor reads the symptoms of illness, and the reading teacher reads the symptoms of reading disability”.
READING AS INTERPRETATION OF GRAPHIC SYMBOLS
Turn now to the second type of definition of reading which equates reading with the interpretation of graphic symbols. Most definitions of reading given in professional textbooks are of this second type. Writers have furnished us with multiple descriptions of reading. They have described reading as involving the comprehension and interpretation of the symbols on the page (Harris -Sipay, 1975, 1985); as a complex interaction of cognitive and linguistic processes with which readers construct a meaningful representation of the writer’s message ( Barnitz, 1986); or as giving significance intended by the writer to the graphic symbols by relating them to what the reader already knows ( Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkerson, 1985; Dechant, 1964, 1970, 1982; Duffy & Roehler, 1986).
Reading is also described as the reconstruction of the message encoded graphically by the writer; as constructing meaning from print ( Gillett & Temple, 1986); as making sense of written language ( Gillett & Temple, 1986); and as a process of information search or information processing. It is described as an interactive process involving both the reader’s previous fund of knowledge and the words in the text; it is a process of putting the reader in contact and in communication with the ideas of the writer which are cued by the written or printed symbols; it is a process of building a representation or a mental model of text ( Perfetti, 1985). Reading means building a representation of text by relating what is on the page to one’s own fund of experience. When the reader’s representation of text essentially approximates that of the writer, genuine reading occurs (Dechant, 1991).
Abstract
List of tables
List of figures
Introduction
A- Statement of the problem
B- Hypotheses
C- Background and significance of the study.
D- Objectives of the study
PART ONE: THEORETICAL WORK
CHAPTER ONE: THE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY DESIGN
Introduction
I.1- Aims of the research methodology
I.2- The research method
I.3- Participants
I.3.1- The population
I.3.2- The sample
I.4- The instruments
I.4.1- Pupils’ questionnaire
I.4.2- Teachers’ questionnaire
I.4.3- Reliability of instruments
I.4.3.1- Questionnaires
I.4.3.2- Questionnaires’ design
I.4.3.3- Piloting
I.5- Scope and limitations
Conclusion
CHAPTER TWO: THE READING PROCESS
Introduction
II.1- A definition of reading
II.1.1- Reading as interpretation of experience
II.1.2- Reading as interpretation of graphic symbols
II.2- The word identification process (encoding)
II.3- The comprehension process (decoding)
II.3.1- Smith’s views of comprehension
II.3.2- Levels of understanding
II.3.3- The surface and deep structure of language
II.4- The semantic and syntactic context in reading
II.4.1- Semantic processing
II.4.2- Syntactic processing
II.5- Models of reading
II.5.1- Bottom-up
II.5.2- Top-down
II.5.3- Interactive
Conclusion
CHAPTER THREE: VARIABLES THAT AFFECT READING COMPREHENSION
Introduction
III.1- first language reading, foreign language reading
III.1.2- variables that affect reading comprehension
III.1.2.1- interest
III.1.2.2- exploitability
III.1.2.3- readability
III.1.2.3.1- lexical knowledge
III.1.2.3.2- background knowledge
III.1.2.3.3- linguistic competence
III.1.2.3.4- organization
III.1.2.3.5- discourse phenomena
III.1.2.3.6- length of passage
III.1.2.4- topic
III.1.2.5- political appropriateness
III.1.2.6- cultural suitability …
III.1.2.7- appearance
Conclusion
PART TWO: FIELD WORK
CHAPTER FOUR: PUPILS’ QUESTIONNAIRE
Introduction
IV.1- Participants and procedures
IV.2- Questionnaire administering
IV.3- Questionnaire analysis and presentation
Section I:
Item 1
Item 2
Item 3
Item 4
Section II:
Item 1
Item 2
Item 3
Item 4
Item 5
Item 6
Section III:
Item 1
Item 2
Item 3
Item 4
Section IV:
Item 1
Item 2
Item 3
Item 4
Item 5
Item 6
IV.4- Discussion of the findings
Conclusion
CHAPTER FIVE: TEACHERS’ QUESTIONNAIRE
Introduction
V.1- Participants and procedures
V.2- Questionnaire administering
V.3- Questionnaire analysis and presentation
Section I:
Item 1
Item 2
Item 3
Section II:
Item 1
Item 2
Item 3
Item 4
Item 5
Section III:
Item 1
Item 2
Item 3
Item 4
Item 5
Section IV:
Item 1
Item 2
Item 3
V.4- Discussion of the findings
Conclusion
Recommendations
Conclusion
Bibliography
Appendices
Appendix 1 : Pupils’ questionnaire
Appendix 2 : Teachers’ questionnaire
