Reading Research and Its Curricular Implications

American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

Reading Research and Its Curricular ImplicationsAuthor(s): Irene ThompsonSource: The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Winter, 1988), pp. 617-642Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European LanguagesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/308773 .

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READING RESEARCH AND ITS CURRICULAR IMPLICATIONS

Irene Thompson, The George Washington University

1. Introduction. It is hardly necessary to stress the importance of reading in a foreign language program since the ability to read the written language with reasonable comprehension and speed may be as important as the ability to speak it. Yet as a result of an emphasis on speaking, the teaching of reading comprehension has received relatively little attention in recent years. To complicate matters, there are few published materials for the teaching of foreign language reading comprehension. This may be partly due to the fact that comprehension processes are still not fully understood and partly because there is an expectation that learners will develop reading skills as an automatic consequence of improvement in speaking ability.

In most traditional programs, third- or fourth-year students are expected to be able to read authentic literary and expository texts. Yet it is often the case that they lack the sophisticated comprehension skills such texts require because during the first two years, reading instruction is often delayed until students have achieved a certain level of overall language proficiency. This delay is based on the assumption that until a certain number of vocabulary items and grammatical structures have been learned, students will not be able to understand authentic texts in the target language. Thus students have little time to bridge the gap between simplified and/or specially written texts normally encountered in most first- and second-year textbooks and the sophisticated literary or informational literature they are expected to able to read in the third or fourth year.

Since "time on task" is a primary determinant of language proficiency, reading instruction should be an integral part of the language curriculum from the very start in order to allow sufficient time to prepare students to deal with authentic reading material either for advanced study or for the real world. To be maximally effective, reading instruction must be informed by evidence accumulated in several decades of first- (Li) and second- language (L2) reading research. This paper reviews this research in the light of its implications for foreign language reading pedagogy. SEEJ, Vol. 32, No. 4 (1988) 617



618 Slavic and East European Journal

2. Models of Reading Comprehension. Most would agree that the goal of reading is the extraction of meaning from a text. What we less agree upon is the nature of the processes by which readers extract that meaning. In order to identify them, L2 educators, particularly in English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL), have turned to Li research which has studied reading from many diverse perspectives and which offers a great deal of interdisci- plinary data. As a result of this research several models of reading comprehension have been developed. These can be roughly classified as follows:

1. Bottom-up, or text-based model (described in detail by LaBerge and Samuels) makes a distinction between decoding and comprehension. In the beginning stages of reading, decoding takes up most of the reader's attention. At this stage, the reader focuses primarily on the text, analyzing it in small units and building these up into larger and larger processing units with additional learning and practice. Little time remains for comprehension. As decoding becomes automated through practice, more attention can be given to comprehension.

2. Top down, or reader-based model was developed by Goodman in a series of papers starting in 1965. Its most important characteristic is that it allows readers to rely on existing knowledge so that dependence on print and phonics is minimized. According to this model, readers initiate the reading process by making guesses about the meaning of a text and decode only enough text to confirm or reject their initial guesses. The cyclical process of sampling, predicting, confirming, and correcting forms the basis of efficient reading:

Reading is a psycholinguistic guessing game. It involves interaction between thought and language. Efficent reading does not result from precise perception and identification of all elements, but from skill in selecting the fewest, most productive clues necessary to produce guesses which are right the first time. (Goodman, 260)

3. Interactive, or balanced model, according to which readers do both text-based and reader-based processing simultaneously. One example is Rumelhart's model, which includes both bottom-up and top-down elements and is based on the assumption that processing is nonlinear with various stages interacting with each other. This model gives little importance to word recognition in isolation and considers context to be all important. Once of the distinctive characteristics of the model is the notion of schema- an organized structure of knowledge about the world. According to schema theory, comprehending words, sentences, and paragraphs requires the ability to relate textual material to one's own experience and knowledge. An important aspect of the interactive model is that both top-down and bottom-up processing should be occurring at all levels simultaneously.



Reading Research 619

Bottom-up processing provides data to activate a schema; top-down processing ensures that readers fit textual information into existing cognitive structures. This enables them to make sense of novel information and to resolve ambiguities by selecting from competing interpretations the one most consistent with the schema. This model, which has been most popular in the last decade, will serve as a basis for a detailed examination of bottom-up and top-down processes which follows.

3. The Role of Linguistic Knowledge in Reading Comprehension.

3.1. The role of phonology. There are theoretically two alternative routes for deriving meaning from script. One allows retrieval of a word's meaning directly from orthography. The other utilizes symbol-sound correspondences to assemble the pronunciation of a word without addressing its meaning at that point. This assembled pronunciation is then used to access the mental lexicon to determine meaning. The latter route, however, cannot explain how homophonous words such as po6 and pom can be assigned different meanings. The fact that these words can be assigned appropriate meanings even in the absence of context creates difficulties for theories which require phonological recoding of words in order to gain access to meaning. This point is emphasized by Coltheart, who points out that in logographic languages such as Chinese, the enormous number of homophones precludes the employment of phonological recoding in a large number of instances. Thus, rather than being an obligatory step in the reading process, phonological recoding is just one of the strategies available to readers for getting meaning from print.

The foregoing is relevant to the discussion of the role of oral vs. silent reading in the foreign language classroom. Most L2 methodologists dis- courage the use of oral reading as a comprehension device. Their main argument is that reading aloud requires that each word be processed not only visually but also phonologically. For instance, Been argues that once the mechanics of reading are achieved, reading aloud should be discouraged, because it treats reading as a linear activity (93). Smith cites research which shows that a fluent reader's eye fixations are placed where they are likely to yield optimum information, which means that the eyes must move back and forth, up and down, across the text (204). In order to access the deep structure of sentences, readers must be able to find relationships between noncontiguous surface elements in the surface structure. This nonlinear processing is incompatible with the linear nature of oral reading.

When children begin to read in their first language, they learn to recognize graphic representations of words they already know how to pronounce. According to Phillips, the situation is quite different when it comes to reading in L2. Whereas children have mastered the phonological system of




L1 before they begin reading instruction, L2 learners are still in the process of acquiring the new sound system. When asked to read aloud, they are forced to devote most of their attention to sound-letter correspondences, articulation, punctuation, location of stress, etc., and they pay little attention to the meaning of what they are reading.

There is some evidence that oral reading interferes with comprehension. After examining oral reading miscues, Allen concluded, for example, that students comprehend material read orally at a lower rate than that read silently. Bernhardt ("Three Approaches"), who had students read both orally and silently two German passages of average difficulty, found that comprehension of passages read silently was significantly higher than that of passages read orally. In addition, students almost unanimously rated the text which was read orally to be more difficult than the text read silently. At the same time, Cziko found that students with advanced competence made fewer mistakes in oral reading than less advanced students because more advanced students used an interactive strategy of drawing on both graphic and contextual information when reading aloud, while less proficient students failed to utilize contextual cues to the same extent, and instead relied primarily on graphic information. This suggests that accuracy in oral reading may be a function of overall language proficiency.

Pedagogical implications:

1. Whereas oral reading may be a useful exercise in establishing symbol- sound correspondences in the initial stages of language instruction, it may constitute an artificial roadblock to comprehension at later stages by encouraging L2 readers to process texts linearly and to focus on form rather than on meaning.

2. Experimental data indicate that silent reading results in better comprehension than oral reading.

3.2. The role of vocabulary. Without doubt, vocabulary recognition is one of the most important factors in reading comprehension. However, reading cannot be equated with the lexical access of single words, but should be viewed, instead, as a complex activity which involves scanning and stor- age, short-term retention, syntactic processing, and semantic integration over the entire discourse.

While word familiarity undoubtedly contributes to reading comprehension, the statistical probability of a word does not per se determine its familiarity or difficulty for a given reader: a low-frequency, unfamiliar word is easy to understand if it appears in a familiar context, whereas a high- frequency, familiar word may not be comprehended if it appears in a new or unexpected context. Without context it is practically an impossible task to decide a priori what constitutes a "difficult" word and what does not.




Frequency counts cannot by themselves determine the relative difficulty of texts. Let us take Russian dramatic prose as an example. In a recent study of Russian lexical frequency, Yokoyama observed that Russian drama has a smaller vocabulary than journalism, since 77% of dramatic texts are included in the 1,000 most frequent Russian words, as opposed to only 62% for journalism. Yokoyama concluded that the 3,000 most frequent words should be "reasonably sufficient for the appreciation of dramatic genres" and that "learning the 3,000 highest frequency words would enable the student to command approximately 89% of the vocabulary of dramatic texts, and knowledge of the highest 5,000 would cover about 94% of such texts" (163).

These lexical statistics are helpful but they reveal only part of the total picture, since a multiplicity of factors contribute to text difficulty. Among them, in addition to word frequency, are prior knowledge of the content area of the text (including cultural knowledge), degree of similarity/differ- ence between the rhetorical organization of texts in L1 and L2, familiarity with the pragmatic force of utterances in the target language, concept density, syntactic complexity, figurative use of language, complexity of cohesive devices, and the demands made by the text upon the inferencing capacities of the reader. No single factor determines text difficulty. Readability is a result of all of them interacting with each other in various combinations. Thus, while Russian dramatic texts may be characterized by a smaller inventory of lexical items than journalism, experience shows that drama, in general, is at the top of the difficulty scale while newspaper pieces tend to cluster in the middle of this scale. We will return to a discussion of levels of text difficulty later.

Even though the presence of unknown words may at first be frightening to learners attempting to read authentic L2 texts, they must develop strategies to deal with these words if they hope to acquire effective reading skills. Although it may be a comfort to students, extensive bilingual glossing may prevent them from developing self-reliance in guessing unfamiliar lexical items in context: learners who come to depend heavily on glosses may have preconceived ideas about the meaning of polyvalent words and may fail to develop flexible strategies for contextual guessing. Guessing strategies are the keystone of fluent reading since lexical information is supplemented and integrated with sentence-level and discourse-level contextual information in word recognition.

For example, Hudson found that presenting students with a list of unfamiliar vocabulary items to be encountered in a text with definitions appropriate to their use in the text was the least effective of three types of pre-reading activities (vocabulary presentation, generating questions about the probable content of the text from picture cues, and rereading the text) for low- and intermediate-level ESL students. Even more revealing is John- son, who found that three different types of vocabulary instruction prior to




or simultaneous with passage reading were not significantly more effective than the absence of any vocabulary presentation whatsoever.

Yokoyama estimates that 15,000 words are necessary for reading Russian prose fiction (164). The sheer size of such a vocabulary makes knowing every word a student may encounter in such texts not only unnecessary, but impossible. Thus, there is a need to distinguish between productive control over words and the ability to recognize them in reading. While the former involves a detailed understanding of their morphology and interrelationships with other words, such detailed knowledge is not necessary for a general understanding of most reading passages. Therefore, a reading program must provide activities for developing contextual guessing strategies.

Finally, regarding new-word density: if text has so many new words that L2 readers cannot read it by skipping over the unfamiliar words or by guessing their approximate meaning from context, then a dictionary may be more of a hindrance than a help. In the first place, excessive dictionary look-up slows down the reading process to the point where it becomes laborious and frustrating. In the second place, readers cannot choose the appropriate meaning of a polyvalent word unless they have already understood the context in which the word is found. In the third place, frequent and prolonged dictionary searches interfere with retention of information from prior portions of the text. Such texts should not be attempted until the learner has achieved an appropriate level of proficiency.


1. Statistical frequency of words is just one aspect of readability. 2. Presenting vocabulary in advance of reading may not be helpful. 3. Extensive bilingual glossing may inhibit the development of contex-

tual guessing of unfamiliar vocabulary. 4. Emphasis should be placed on activities designed to develop strategies

for contextual guessing of unfamiliar lexical items. 5. New word density in texts should be such that L2 readers can read

the text by skipping over the unfamiliar words or by guessing their meaning from context.

3.3. The role of syntax. There is little doubt that grammatical information conveys meaning and that knowledge of syntax is essential for reading comprehension because it helps readers to divide up the sentence and understand how it was put together, which in turn helps them predict what it might mean. Not surprisingly, Bernhardt ("Testing") observed that students of German with good grammatical ability had higher comprehension than those with poor knowledge of German grammar. In addition, Barnett found that vocabulary, syntax, and the interaction between the two had a statisti- cally significant effect on reading comprehension.




On the other hand, just how much syntactic analysis is necessary for understanding is an open question, and psycholinguists are now beginning to compare the effects of authentic vs. syntactically simplified texts on reading comprehension. Until quite recently, it was taken for granted that syntactically simplified materials were easier to comprehend than their more grammatically complex originals. When Pearson tested this assumption on children reading in L1, the data, contrary to expectations, showed that children were better able to understand sentences which were syntactically complex but causally explicit (Because the chain broke, the machine stopped.) than two juxtaposed simple sentences (The chain broke. The machine stopped.). Pearson thought that complex sentences were easier because they were more explicit propositionally. Working with adult L1 readers, Bransford and Franks showed that during recall their subjects synthesized simple propositions into larger units rather than the other way around.

In studying the effects of traditional simplification techniques on text comprehensibility, Honeyfield concluded that many of these techniques may actually reduce the comprehensibility of the text. For instance, elimination of all low frequency items implies that each word is entitled to the same amount of attention; reduction of syntax results in material lacking cohe- sion; removal of redundancies results in obscuring the communicative structure of the text. Empirical support for this is provided by Strother and Ulijn, who found that syntactic adaptation of an English science text did not help native and nonnative readers to comprehend it better or to read it faster. The authors interpret these results as indicating that both native and nonnative readers adopt a conceptual strategy aimed at content words and do not engage in detailed syntactic analysis. Strother and Ulijn suggest that readability of professional texts would be improved more by lexical than by syntactical rewriting. In addition, they feel that reading instruction should focus more on information gathering strategies and on vocabulary development than on syntactic analysis.

While continuous instruction in syntax should be an ongoing component of any foreign language course, a distinction needs to be made, however, between production and recognition grammars. In Russian, which is characterized by complex surface morphology and theme-rheme governed word order, the former is usually taught for productive mastery over long periods with little time left for the latter. Yet for the purposes of reading comprehension, word order, subordination, coordination, and embedding may play a more significant role than inflectional morphology.

Yokoyama makes an important point that different grammatical skills may be needed for different kinds of prose. For instance, she suggests that concentration on discourse grammar is necessary for reading dramatic prose, learners need to concentrate on phrase structure and on sentence subordination, coordination, and participial constructions (164).




Finally, a word of caution. Before we become convinced that teaching more grammar and vocabulary will automatically improve students' ability to read, let us look at some recent research that challenges this belief. Devine, for instance, found a positive correlation between reading performance and holistic measures of language competence (aural comprehension, cloze, composition), but no correlation between reading scores and those on grammar and vocabulary tests. This is quite interesting because it goes against the general belief that gains in discrete vocabulary and grammar points will enhance reading proficiency. In turn, this suggests that if language instruction is to have a positive influence on reading performance, that instruction must be integrative rather than discrete-point.


1. A simplified text may not necessarily be simple to read. 2. Syntax interacts with lexicon/semantics to affect readability, hence

syntax is best presented and practiced in a natural context. 3. Recognition grammar should be taught differently from production

grammar. 4. Different grammatical skills may be needed for different kinds of prose. 5. Performance on discrete-point grammar and vocabulary tests may be

a poor predictor of reading proficiency.

4. The role of background knowledge in reading comprehension. A central theme in many analyses of reading comprehension is the powerful role of prior knowledge of the content area relative to which the text is to be understood. The role of background knowledge in language comprehension, formalized in the schema-theory, holds that no text has meaning by itself. The meaning, instead, results from an interaction between what the reader already knows and what is in the text. According to Carrell, "Meaning does not just reside in the text, rather meaning is constructed out of the interaction between a reader's activated background knowledge and what's in the text. If a reader is not actively using his or her background knowledge, a significant part of the reading process isn't taking place, and the construc- tion of meaning suffers" ("Three Components," 200).

To prove the point that readers make sense of a text in the light of their background knowledge about its contents, Anderson et al. presented an ambiguous passage to physical education majors and music majors. The former decided that the passage dealt with a wrestling match, while the latter had other explanations. The authors concluded that text comprehension was not based so much upon text-based features as on the information which the readers possessed prior to reading the text.




A considerable body of research shows that the cultural backgrounding of a text is a significant factor in both L1 and L2 reading. For instance, adults recall a greater amount of information and do it more accurately if the reading passage is based on a native theme. In a well-known study by Steffensen et al., subjects from India and the United States who read letters describing an Indian and an American wedding were both able to recall more information and did it more accurately from the letter which described their own culture than from the one which described the other.

L2 readers also depend on topic familiarity to make sense of written passages. At least two studies speak to this point. Lee tested the extent to which English-speaking students of Spanish utilized three components of background knowledge. There were: (1) prior knowledge about the content area of the text, (2) prior knowledge that the text is about a certain topic, (3) presence of lexical items which revealed the content area of the text. Lee found that all three components played some role in comprehension and recall and that all three interacted with each other in various ways. For instance, recall of a familiar topic was enhanced when readers were given a title and picture page.

Bernhardt ("Information Processing") compared the comprehension of an easy, short German literary passage by a student who had returned from one year of study in Germany and a less experienced student who had completed two years of German. The first student made sense of the passage and was able to define unfamiliar words by placing the passage in the appropriate historical context. The second student, on the other hand, was not able to resolve the situation described in the passage, and, therefore, considered it to be illogical, a joke. In the same study, a simple Spanish literary passage was understood by a third-year Spanish high school student as a description of Spanish tourists visiting France, not Spanish peasants fleeing to France in search of work as the author intended. Being unable to relate the information in the pasage to social and economic conditions in certain areas of Spain, the student comprehended the passage at the factual level of a description of a train ride, and did not understand its deeper meaning. As a result, Bernhardt suggested that authentic texts be supplemented with ancillary materials to provide background information, and that L2 teachers assess the extent of their students' background knowledge to determine suitability of reading passages and supply relevant background information if their students do not possess it.

Several studies show that providing relevant background knowledge can, indeed, improve L2 reading comprehension. Johnson reported that ESL readers understood and recalled a passage about Halloween better when they were provided with some basic information about this holiday before they read the passage. Adams found that telling students in advance what




the passages were about significantly increased their ability to derive the meaning for unfamiliar words from context.

The fact that for adequate comprehension there must be some match between what the learner already knows and the content of the text has implications for reading instruction. For instance, it suggests that reading selections, especially in the early stages, should include topics with which students have partial familiarity rather than those based on a substantial amount of knowledge about the target language's country and culture. When such knowledge is missing, it is essential that students be provided with appropriate background information prior to reading the text in order to reduce their cognitive overload.

Carrell ("Schema Theory") describes an activity, called the key-word/key- concept association, which she particularly recommends for lower-proficiency readers whose comprehension often breaks down at the word level. During this activity, prior to reading a text, students volunteer various kinds of associations to a key word from the text (e.g., superordinates, subordi- nates, contraries, definitions, synonyms, similar-sounding words, personal experiences). The teacher writes them on the board, and organizes them into a "semantic map," or expands them to create links between what the students already know and what they will need to know in order to understand the text. These associations serve as a basis for group discussion which helps to prepare students for reading the text. Alternatively, the teacher graphically connects the concepts and key words related to a particular topic on the blackboard, helping students to see the relationships among the ideas contained in the text.

In connection with building up background knowledge to facilitate reading, Krashen's notion of "narrow reading" ("Case") also deserves mention. We all know that the more one reads about a specific topic and the more one learns about it, the easier it becomes to comprehend texts in that area. Krashen argues that providing short and varied selections from diverse areas does not allow students to become sufficiently familiar with a single topic or the specialized vocabulary associated with it. Narrow reading, on the other hand, provides for a natural recycling of material and a built-in review, allowing for appropriate background knowledge to develop.

It can be argued that one cannot read about one subject for a whole semester. Accordingly, one might create a number of thematic units, per- haps one per week, each containing not one, but several passages on the same topic. Thus, instead of dwelling on one passage on a given topic, one would spend the same amount of time reading about the same topic in a number of passages.





1. Teachers must be particularly sensitive to reading problems that result from lack of relevant background and cultural knowledge.

2. Reading can be facilitated by providing specific background information against which the text is to be understood.

3. Reading a number of texts on the same topic may be more helpful than closely scrutinizing one passage, or reading varied selections from diverse areas.

5. The role of rhetorical structure. There is a fair amount of experimental evidence showing that the rhetorical organization of both narrative and expository texts interacts with the reader's background knowledge of textual organization to affect reading comprehension.

Traditional stories are built in a conventional manner with actions falling into certain predictable categories, e.g., exposition, complication, and reso- lution, which can be expanded in various ways. It is an axiom in memory research that meaningful organization aids retention. Hence knowledge about the conventional organization of narratives, or story grammars, provides additional organization for a text, making it easier for readers to comprehend it. There is considerable evidence that child and adult native readers are sensitive to story grammars and use them for comprehension and recall.

Story grammars are culture specific. Kintsch and Green reported, for instance, that when American college students were asked to read in English and summarize a Grimm fairy tale, which corresponded closely to their expectations about narratives, and an Apache story, which completely vio- lated them, the students wrote good summaries for the Grimm fairy tale, but wrote poor ones for the Apache story. The results are easy to explain. The familiar narrative schema, which was temporally and causally coherent, favored the Grimm fairy tale over the Apache story, which lacked such temporal and causal coherence.

Singer and Donlan demonstrated that L1 readers can improve their comprehension of narrative prose by being taught the schema for simple stories as well as a strategy for posing general and story-specific questions to guide their interaction with the text. In their study, students who were taught to interact with the text in this manner comprehended it significantly better than those who were taught to comprehend short stories through the traditional method of teacher-posed questions. There are no comparable studies for L2.

Like stories, expository texts are not just a series of sentences or paragraphs, but contain, instead, a variety of conventional patterns. Meyer has




identified five basic types of expository prose organization in English: collections (a grouping or listing of concepts or ideas by association, e.g., a chronological sequence), description (all elements are subordinate to one), cause/effect, problem/solution, and comparison. Meyer and Freedle showed that these different types of content organization have differential effects on L1 comprehension as measured by recall: collections and descriptions are remembered worse than other types of texts, presumably because they are less tightly organized.

Training in recognition and use of top-level organization helps native readers to improve their reading comprehension. When Bartlett taught American ninth graders to identify the above text types while reading prose passages and to use the appropriate top-level structure in recall, the trained group remembered nearly twice as much information as the control group both one day after instruction and three weeks later.

Nonnative readers react to these rhetorical patterns in a similar manner. When Carrell ("Effects") asked ESL readers of different native-language backgrounds to read and recall a short English paragraph rewritten in four different ways (collection of descriptions, cause/effect, problem/solution, comparison), they were able to recall the problem/solution, cause/effect, and comparison versions better than the collection of descriptions. There were, however, some differences among the native language groups as to which type of organization was most helpful.

In another study, Carrell ("Facilitating") taught a group of ESL students how to identify and use different types of text organization in reading and recalling English text passages. She found that this type of training facilitated recall of both major ideas and details even three weeks after training. In addition, students' reactions to the training were extremely positive because they thought that they had learned a helpful technique they could use on their own.

Because text organization can differ from language to language, L2 readers may not be able to comprehend a text even though they understand all the individual sentences or even parts of the text. Kaplan, who described significant differences in the way English, Arabic, Korean, French, and Russian paragraphs were put together, suggested that L2 readers need to be made aware of the fact that texts in L2 may reflect different patterns of rhetorical organization. Hinds showed, for instance, that English readers find contemporary Japanese prose written in a traditional pattern difficult to read because this pattern has no counterpart in English.

Russian textual rhetoric appears to be distinct from English in several important respects, but studies of such differences and their effect on reading comprehension are lacking. For instance, in English journalistic prose, the opening paragraph usually orients the reader towards the content of the passage by stating the author's purpose and by outlining the main ideas of what is to follow. In Russian, on the other hand, it is not uncommon for




writers to begin with a lengthy descriptive or historical preamble before introducing the main ideas.

Another interesting feature of Russian journalistic prose which does not seem to have a counterpart in English is found in nonlinear digressions from the main story line. For instance, the account of a murder may be interleaved with lengthy descriptions of the Soviet penal system. Such digressions are confusing to English readers, who need specific guidance on how to handle this unfamiliar rhetorical pattern.


1. Specific instruction in identifying and utilizing text structure can improve comprehension.

2. Some types of rhetorical organization are easier to process than others.

3. Learners should be instructed about the language-specific differences in the way narrative and expository texts are organized in L2.

6. The Building blocks of a Proficiency-based Reading Program

6.1 Authentic texts. Recent developments in language teaching stress the use of authentic materials in all proficiency-oriented reading programs. An authentic text is one written by a native writer for native reader with a real-life communicative purpose (such as to inform, to persuade, or to con- gratulate), unlike materials written to teach the language.

Grellet extends the principle of authenticity to include the physical characteristics of the text as well:

Authenticity means that nothing of the original text is changed and also that its presentation and layout are retained. A newspaper article, for instance, should be presented as it first appeared in the paper: with the same typeface, the same space devoted to the headlines, the same accompanying picture. By standardizing the presentation of texts in a textbook, one not only reduces interest and motivation, but one actually increases the difficulty for the students. The picture, the size of the headline, the use of bold-face type, all contribute to conveying the message to the reader (8)

Swaffar lists a number of persuasive reasons for using authentic texts in foreign language reading programs. Among them are:

1. They encourage readers to attend to the message, while edited texts often require reading word-for-word rather than for meaning.

2. They exist in a wide variety in the real world and can be selected to suit the level, interest, and background of any learner.

3. They introduce context-rich information about the target culture often absent in the sterilized reading materials typically included in textbooks.




4. They provide readers with practice in handling a wide variety of written passages with different patterns of rhetorical organization and writing styles.

5. They facilitate the development of coping strategies by not providing learners with a protective cocoon against the real world of reading which is full of unfamiliar words and structures.

Pedagogical implication: If the goal of a language program is the development of reading proficiency, then authentic texts should be utilized from the very beginning of instruction.

6.2. Levels of difficulty. Since authentic texts represent a wide range of difficulty levels, care must be taken to ascertain the difficulty of a text before it is introduced. An experientially-derived typology used by the U. S. Government Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) divides all texts into five levels. This typology, developed by Child, takes into account both the propositional and linguistic complexity of texts. It underlies the reading level descriptions in both the ILR and the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines. While a great deal of work needs to be done in this area, the system provides a convenient framework for making decisions about text difficulty. It is presented below in capsule form.

Novice Level Texts present information which is bound to a physical setting, e.g., signs which are usually posted at locations which help clarify their meaning. Such texts consist primarily of discrete words and routinized expressions and require practically no knowledge of grammar to be understood. Examples include signs, forms, menus, tickets, and schedules.

Intermediate Level Texts are more complex since they present information which may be removed from the physical setting. They consist of a loose collection of simple sentences and require some knowledge of basic syntax to be understood. Texts at this level include simple notes, directions, uncomplicated items in newspapers (simple weather forecasts, sports reports, announcements of community and cultural events, political announcements).

Advanced Level Texts describe and narrate facts without the analysis or personal involvement of the writer. They deal with real-world events, facts, and situations in major time/aspect frames. Texts at this level include factual news reports in newspapers, textbooks, encyclopedias, and the like.

Superior Level Texts (e.g., newspaper editorials), according to Child, present value judgments regarding material which is more abstract than the facts, events, and situations typical of Advanced level texts. Superior level texts are propositionally and linguistically complex and require readers to respond intellectually to their content. Such texts feature hypotheses, argumentation, and supported opinions, and include grammatical patterns and vocabulary ordinarily encountered in academic/professional reading. Examples include some literary works, general essays, political commentar- ies, technical descriptions, and various official documents.




Distinguished Level Texts, rarely encountered in daily life (Child), are usually written by persons with artistic talent, who-in addition to conveying information to their readers-also want to impress them with their literary flair. The language of such texts, often innovative and idiosyncratic, places considerable demands on readers and requires extensive knowledge of the target-language culture. Texts at this level include sophisticated editorials, "think pieces,"' articles in specialized journals, literary criticism, as well as novels, plays, and poems.

In a competency-based reading curriculum, students should be exposed to authentic texts from the very beginning of instruction with an orderly progression of reading material from one difficulty level to another. According to Krashen ("Theoretical and Practical"), learners benefit most when the input to which they are exposed is "comprehensible," i.e., is at their current level of proficiency or slightly higher. Such "optimal" input, or i + 1, as Krashen calls it, should be challenging but not out of the learner's reach. When applied to reading, this principle means that readers should not be faced with texts which exceed their current reading competence by more than one level.

Thus beginning students should be exposed from the start to authentic Novice texts, which can be thematically integrated with units in the basic text. For instance, a unit on entertainment can include reading activities involving tickets, newspaper listings of cultural and sports events, television schedules, and notices about lectures or exhibits. There should be several texts at the same level on each topic, i.e., not one TV schedule, but several.

Once students have learned to understand a variety of Novice texts, they can begin reading Intermediate texts. Topics which were used at the Novice level can be "recycled"-used again, but with material at the next higher level. For instance, paragraph-long newspaper announcements about cultural events will be appropriate at this level, with several similar texts in each topical area, in order to build up vocabulary and background knowledge.

After students have learned to comprehend a variety of passages at the Intermediate level, they should be ready for Advanced texts. In the beginning, these can be skimmed for general content or scanned for basic information as to the who, when, where, and how. As students become more proficient, more detailed comprehension may be required. Since there is a very large number of texts at this level, decisions will need to be made as to what topical areas may be relevant and interesting for a particular group of students. For example, for students with an interest in Soviet politics, a unit on official visits, talks, and negotiations may be appropriate. It may take learners quite a long time before they will be ready for the next level, although they can learn to read more complex material in their own special fields. It is interesting to note that during the nationwide norming of the Educational Testing Service Russian Proficiency Test, only 13% of students with 3 years and 27% of those with 4 years of college Russian demonstrated reading comprehension at the Advanced level.




Once students have become comfortable with a variety of Advanced texts, they can be gradually introduced to Superior passages, at first in their own areas of specialization. It must be remembered that at the Superior level, readers are expected to be able to read for information or for pleasure, with almost complete comprehension and at normal speed, expository prose on practically any subject and a variety of literary texts. Such comprehension can be developed only if a great deal of time is spent on reading outside of class. It is instructive that only 3% of students with 3 years of college Rus- sian who participated in the nationwide norming of the ETS Russian proficiency test demonstrated reading comprehension at the Superior level. In contrast 23% of students with 4 years and 48% of those with 5 or more years of college Russian were reading at the Superior level.


1. The difficulty level of authentic texts can be determined by using a relatively simple text typology which takes both linguistic and propositional content into account.

2. A proficiency-based curriculum assumes a gradual improvement in reading skills through exposure to texts of increasing difficulty without skipping levels.

6.3. Realistic reading tasks. The difficulty of a reading exercise is not a function of the intrinsic difficulty of the text alone but is also dependent on the task the reader is required to perform with the text, and the degree of comprehension required. Consequently, in addition to the text, the difficulty level of the reading activities and the accuracy and completeness of required comprehension must also be taken into account.

By manipulating either the difficulty level of the text or of the task the reader is required to perform, we can create an i + 1 reading environment advocated by Krashen. Lowe recommends "the one in three rule," according to which only one component of reading proficiency (text, task, accuracy) should be changed at a time. If a passage is above the student's current reading level, the level of the reading task and the accuracy of comprehension required are kept at the student's current level. For instance, Interme- diate readers can "stretch" towards the Advanced level by scanning Ad- vanced texts for certain pieces of information without being required to fully understand all details. If, however, the passage is at the student's current reading level, either the difficulty of the reading task or the extent of comprehension required may be upgraded to a level above the student's current level. For instance, an Advanced reader may be asked to make a comparison of all details contained in two Advanced texts on the same topic.




With regard to reading activities, Grellet observes that "Few reading activities are intrinsically good or bad. They only become so when used in relation to a given text. Reading comprehension activities should be suited to the texts and to one's reasons for reading them" (9). Thus, a good reading activity is one that matches the real-world purpose of the text, one that can be accomplished by a reader at that level in a reasonable amount of time with little or no dictionary lookup, and one which requires a degree of comprehension commensurate with the student's current level of reading proficiency.

There are many ways in which we read in the real world, and all are suited to the purposes for which we read. One reads a menu with a different purpose and different strategies than a poem or a think piece. Phillips iden- tifies the following nonmutually exclusive ways of reading: (1) skimming, or quickly running one's eyes over the text to get the gist of it; (2) scanning, or quickly searching for some particular item of information; (3) intensive reading, or reading for detailed understanding. These modes combine with each other in real-life reading. For instance, one can first skim through a passage to see what it is about and to decide whether it is worth reading, then scan it f6r particular pieces of information, or read it intensively for details. Thus, a sports page can be skimmed first to settle on a piece of particular interest. The selected piece can then be scanned to find out who, when, and what. A sports fan might also read the article intensively, savoring every detail of the account.

In designing reading activities for a particular text, we should take into account both the way in which it might be read in the real world and the difficulty level of the activity. For instance, weather forecasts are usually scanned, whereas the front page of a newspaper is normally skimmed first. Scanning a sports report for a few facts is easier than determining the author's tone or comparing one account of a game with another.

The foregoing does not mean that reading instruction should consist exclusively of techniques for developing global comprehension (i.e., extensive reading alone). Techniques for intensive reading (i.e., for detailed analysis of vocabulary, structure, or discourse markers) can be used once the text is read extensively. Extensive reading gives learners practice in tackling authentic materials, and confidence in their ability to make sense of passages parts of which they do not understand. It helps most learners to get over the shock of large numbers of unfamiliar words and constructions. It helps learners realize that they need not understand every element of each text they read, but rather that the degree of comprehension should be commensurate with the reading task at hand.





1. To the extent possible, reading assignments should be realistic and reflective of the real-world purpose for which the text was written.

2. Reading activities should be varied and flexible. 3. The difficulty level of the task and the degree of understanding

necessary for its completion should be taken into account when reading activities are being designed.

4. Learners should be given opportunities to practice different kinds of reading modes.

6.4. Reading strategies. L2 learners must learn to develop strategies to deal with unfamiliar words and structures if they ever hope to make realistic use of their reading skills. Word-by-word decoding and translation are neither efficient, nor effective strategies for learners who have to learn to read complex literary and expository texts for academic, professional, or personat purposes in a relatively short period of time.

Hosenfeld and her colleagues observed that good L2 readers (1) concentrate on meaning rather than on word identification, (2) read the text as though they expect it to make sense, (3) use their knowledge of the world, (4) take chances making inferences but evaluate their guesses, (5) use titles and illustrations to make inferences, (6) use preceding and following context, (7) continue if unsuccessful, (8) utilize different types of context clues, (9) skip unknown words and make contextual guesses, (10) identify grammatical category of words, (11) recognize cognates, (12) analyze unknown words and use glossary as a last resort, and (13) skip unnecessary words. Additional "good reader" strategies identified by Van Perreren and Schouten- Van Parreren include (1) recognizing text type, (2) recognizing different types of text structure, and (3) making inferences with respect to information that was not expliclty mentioned in the text.

The important question is whether these "good reader" strategies can be taught. Clarke argued that the reading skills of good L1 readers do not transfer to their reading in L2, most probably due to their linguistic limitations. He compared second language reading behavior of adult good and poor native-language readers and found that linguistic limitations prevented good L1 readers from transferring their effective reading behaviors to the target language, causing them to "short-circuit," i.e., to revert to poor reader strategies. Clarke suggested that certain reading behaviors which seem most productive 'could be taught. Among "good reading behaviors," he lists (1) concentrating on passage-level semantic cues, (2) formulating hypotheses about a text before reading it in order to confirm, expand, or disconfirm those guesses, (3) developing tolerance for temporary lack of precision in understanding, and (4) decreased reliance on low level linguistic cues. A




subsequent study by Hudson, described earlier, examined Clarke's "short- circuit" theory and went on to show that teaching relevant background knowledge to L2 readers allowed them to override their linguistic limitations.

In studying the reading strategies of successful and nonsuccessful ESL readers of varying language backgrounds, Block observed that strategy use is a stable phenomenon which is not related to language background- native speakers of Chinese used the same strategies as native speakers of Spanish. Nor was the use of cognitive strategies dependent on the English- language proficiency of the readers. Because there was considerable individual variation among the nonproficient readers, Block suggests that teachers should look closely at their students before deciding what strategies to teach them. She thinks that the nonproficient readers in her study had developed some useful strategies but were not able to apply them consis- tently and systematically. The answer, according to Block, might be to make poor readers aware of their dormant strategic resources so that they may apply them more systematically. She suggests learner-centered practices, such as pairing readers so that they talk to one another about what they do and do not understand as they read and share problems, knowledge, and use of strategies.

To help our students to become independent readers, we need to make them aware of the strategic resources available to them, to help them exper- iment with various strategies in order to find out which ones work best for them, and to encourage them to continue using strategies found to be helpful. Learners should be given many opportunities to practice different strategies in a context-rich environment within a framework of realistic reading tasks. Ultimately, a reading passage is only as good as the activities and tasks that learners are required to perform with it. Grellet and others suggest many reading activities for developing "good reader" strategies:

1. Ability to anticipate (predict) what the text is going to be about.

Suggested activities:

Relate information in the text to prior knowledge about the topic through discussion, or answering questions. (For many excellent anticipation activities, see Schulz.)

Write definitions of key concepts and discuss associations among them.

Generate questions about the text prior to reading it.

Use titles, visual clues, key words, first line, or first paragraph to predict the content of the text.

Use one paragraph to predict content of the next one.




Restore missing words, sentences, or paragraphs. Choose sentence or paragraph from among several options as the one which is most likely to follow.

2. Ability to get the gist of a text without getting bogged down in details (to skim).


Identify genre.

Place passage in an appropriate category, e.g., weather report, sports summary, political announcement.

Identify the main function of a passage, e.g., warning, explanation, description.

Select the most appropriate resume of the main idea of a passage.

Choose the most appropriate title for a passage.

Match titles or illustrations with passages, or subtitles with paragraphs.

Complete unfinished paragraphs or create ending or concluding paragraph to an unfinished passage.

3. Ability to locate specific information in the text (to scan).


Answer factual questions such as who, when, what, how.

Fill in charts, diagrams, tables, or forms with facts, figures, or other information in the text.

Use facts from a text to do something else, e.g., to locate something on a map or chart.

4. Ability to distinguish between levels of importance of information in a text and to recognize its organization.


Discover the top level structure of the text and use it to organize information contained in it.

Outline chain of events in the text.

Distinguish between main idea(s) and supporting details.




Find topic sentence or paragraph and its relation to the rest of the text.

Restore chronological sequence or order events according to some scheme.

Restore order of scrambled paragraphs.

Recognize logical organization symbols, e.g., O~HaHKO, Bo-nepBbix, c ApyroHi CTOpOHbI, KcTaTH, TeM He MeHee.

Find instances of rhetorical devices (illustration, comparison, restate- ment).

Outline the text.

5. Ability to use lexical/semantic cues to deduce the meaning of unfamiliar words.


Find lexical equivalents (synonyms, hyponyms, paraphrases), restate- ments, summaries.

Recognize words with familiar roots and affixes.

Recognize cognates.

Cloze. (For many excellent suggestions on the use of cloze exercises, see Meyer and Tetrault.)

6. Ability to use syntactic cues to deduce the meaning of words, phrases, or sentences.


Recognize the main elements (subject, verb, object) and/or expansion elements in a sentence (modifiers, spatial, and temporal clauses).

Recognize different patterns of coordination, subordination, and embedding.

Cloze. (See Meyer and Tetrault.)

7. Ability to recognize cohesive devices in a text to establish coherence of the message.


Match instances of anaphora, cataphora, pronominal and lexical coreference with the appropriate referents.




Recognize function of link elements in the text.

Identify given and new information as it relates to word order.

6.5. Designing a reading curriculum.

Setting reading goals. The first step in developing a successful reading program is to set realistic and reasonable goals for each stage of the curricular sequence in terms of actual reading ability. What is realistic and reasonable will vary from program to program depending on such factors as age, interests, and abilities of students, major thrust of the program (emphasis on productive vs. receptive skills), number of class hours and levels of instruction, class size, availability of trained L2 reading teachers, and materials. For instance, ACTFL Intermediate-Mid might be a reasonable goal for a two-year college sequence in some programs. An Inter- mediate-Mid reader is defined in the 1986 A CTFL Proficiency Guidelines as

Able to read. . .simple connected texts dealing with a variety of basic and social needs. Such texts are.. .linguistically noncomplex and have a clear underlying internal structure. They impart basic information about which the reader has to make minimal suppositions and to which the reader brings personal interest and/or knowledge. Examples may include short, straightforward descriptions of persons, places, and things written for a wide audience.

In Russian, this means being able to get the main facts and some details from simple personal correspondence, straightforward written directions, and uncomplicated political items in newspapers (e.g., those dealing with arrival/departure of foreign delegations, exchange of telegrams between heads of state), simple descriptions of services and places (such as in travel brochures), and announcements of public events, weather, and sports reports.

A reasonable reading proficiency goal for a four-year curricular sequence in some programs might be stated in terms of the ACTFL Advanced level, although a higher level might be expected of language majors. The 1986 A CTFL Proficiency Guidelines define an Advanced reader as

Able to read somewhat longer prose of several paragraphs in length, particularly if presented with a clear underlying structure. The prose is predominantly in familiar sentence patterns. Reader gets the main ideas and facts and misses some details. Comprehension derives not only from situational and subject matter knowledge but from increasing control of the language. Texts at this level include descriptions and narrations such as simple short stories, news items, bibliographical information, social notices, personal correspondence, routinized business letters, and simple technical material written for the general reader.

In Russian, this means being able to read with almost complete understanding simple, short newspaper items on diverse topics, Soviet high school textbook material in different areas, instructions outlining official proce- dures, and most encyclopedia entries, such as biographies and descriptions of geography and events.




Developing a reading syllabus. The next component of a reading program is the development of a syllabus that will enable students to achieve the desired level of reading proficiency. This means selecting appropriate materials and methodologies. Based on what is currently known about the reading process, the following criteria for text selection might be taken into account:

1. authenticity, 2. level of difficulty (current level or slightly beyond the student's pres-

ent reading level), 3. interest and relevance to the students, 4. degree of student's background knowledge about the topic.

Once a text is selected, a package of reading activities will need to be developed with emphasis on the development of effective reading strategies which can be applied to other texts. Such activities should include

1. prereading activities to develop anticipation and sense of reading with a purpose;

2. reading activities to develop ability to read a text in its entirety even if not completely understood, to locate specific information in it, and to verify hypotheses generated during the prereading stage;

3. decoding activities to use the text to learn the language with emphasis on vocabulary, discourse features, and relevant syntax.

Developing assessment instruments. The last component of a proficiency- based reading curriculum is the development of appropriate reading tests to evaluate progress towards stated goals. To date, the only standardized test of reading proficiency is the ETS Russian Listening/Reading Test for levels Intermediate-High (ILR R-1+) through Superior (ILR R-3), which reports both raw scores and proficiency levels. There is no standardized reading test for the lower proficiency levels at the present time, which places the burden of developing reading tests on individual programs.

7. Summary. This paper has presented a survey of recent research on reading in L1 and L2 and its applications to selection of materials, design of activities, and the teaching of efficient reading stratgies. Arguments were presented in favor of viewing the development of L2 reading skills as a process with emphasis on the use of authentic materials and problem-solving activities which concentrate on meaning rather than form.

If we accept the premise that reading is a psycholinguistic process, then reading instruction should deal with both "psycho-" and "linguistic." The dilemma for language teachers is to reconcile and harmoniously blend these two elements, to emphasize the need for taking chances and accepting the tentative nature of understanding (top-down processes) while at the same




time helping students to acquire the basic language skills (bottom-up processes).

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Reading Research and Its Curricular Implications

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