Reading: Learning a Second Language

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1.0 Introduction Reading is one of the most important skills in acquiring a second language. In recent years there has been an increasing interest in the development of the process of reading. Reading was seen as a receptive language process where learners do not need to produce any form of language. This means that a reader is given a passive role whereby they only receive input such as opinions, new information or sense of enjoyment and try to understand it. no form of interaction with the text occurs. in addition to receiving input, readers would also go through a process of decoding certain types of information such as understanding new words to making sense of bigger chunks of clauses and phrases and then finally understanding complete sentences. this reading process is called the bottom-up approach to reading. by the end of this process, readers would then be able to comprehend what the writer is trying to express. However, it was only till recently that a lot of researchers disagreed with this and state that reading is also an active process where the reader is constantly engaged in the text (Carrell,2000). This suggests that readers try to construct meaning through previous experiences or previous knowledge on related topics. This process is called the top-down approach. This is supported by Duffy and Roehler (1987) who states that readers are actively engaged with a text when they are using the skill of identifying blockages when reading and thinking of a way to overcome those blockages by using prior knowledge brought into the text. Goodman (1967) also supports this by stating that a reader who is constantly rearranging structures to understand messages clearly shows signs of an active reader. During this process, Go... ... middle of paper ... ...text. Works Cited Carrell, P. L., Devine, J. & Eskey, D. E. (1988). Interactive approaches to second language reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Duffy, G. G. & Roehler, L. R. (1987). Teaching reading skills as strategies. The reading teacher, 40 (4), pp. 414--418. Goodman, K. S. (1967). Reading: a psycholinguistic guessing game. Literacy research and instruction, 6 (4), pp. 126--135. Grabe, W. (1991). Current developments in second language reading research. Tesol quarterly, 25 (3), pp. 375--406. Nagao, H. (2002). Using top-down skills to increase reading comprehension. Eric. Stanovich, K. E. (1980). Toward an interactive-compensatory model of individual differences in the development of reading fluency. Reading research quarterly, pp. 32--71. Williams, R. (1986). Top ten'principles for teaching reading. Elt journal, 40 (1), pp. 42--45.

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