Reading (14/12-20/12)

Introduction:

• Reading is one of the four basic skills needed to gain competence in mastering a language.
• It is a written receptive skill. 
• To achieve full comprehension, it is necessary interaction between the information given and the reader’s expectations. 

Reasons for reading and text selection

• The ability to read effectively is fundamental for survival in our western society. 
• Whenever we read, we have a specific purpose in mind
• Sometimes, we read simply to get the gist of the text or to locate a concrete piece of information.  

Reasons for reading	Text selection
To get information or search for information	Travel brochures Train timetable Bus schedules Public signs Weather forecasts Menus Internet: web sites
To satisfy to curiosity about a topic	Magazine articles Newspaper editorials Advertisements Internet
To follow instructions	To know how to use a game Recipes Maps
To keep in touch	Postcards Letters Notes Messages Invitations Emails
To find out when and where	Announcements Programmes

Tips to text selection:

• Texts should be adapted to the learner’s cognitive development.
• Texts should cover a wide variety of topics in order to reflect the diversity of interests present in the classroom.
• Texts should enhance motivation and promote self-esteem. 
• Texts should reflect situations where the learner can activate his/her schemata and enrich the interpretation.
• Text should introduce some of the most important cultural references of the target language.
• The selected texts should be the result of a needs analysis.
• By means of a needs analysis, the teacher can gather a great deal of valuable information which will result in a more accurate selection of the reading material.

Types of knowledge	Examples
Syntactic knowledge	Position of articles Position of auxiliary verbs Position of adjectives and adverbs
Morphological knowledge	Word formation (affixation, compounding…) Cohesive devices
General world knowledge	Background knowledge
Sociocultural knowledge	Cultural references
Topic knowledge	Previous ideas related to the content
Genre knowledge	Science fantasy novel Tale Poems

Characterisctics of written languae

Differences in comparison to spoken language.

Permanence	The reader can access the information in the written forms as many times as needed. Oal 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 in which the text is written is different from that in which it is read. Consequently, readers interpret the written material using their background knowledge and trying to minimise the effect 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 materialised through graphemes. These are accompanied by punctuation marks, pictures, charts. Thus, it may be more difficult to interpret written language than oral language since this is enriched with suprasegmental features (stress, rhythm, juncture, intonation, pauses, volume, voice quality settings) and non-verbal language (gestures)
Complexity	Written language tends to have longer clauses and more complex sentences than spoken language.
vocabulary	Written language usually presents a more varied and a 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 conventionalised forms which enable the reader to recognise 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. In Brown’s words (2001:306): “…conventions like paragraph topics,… a logical order for, say, comparing and contrasting something:… openings and closings; a preference for non-redundancy and subordination clauses, etc.”.