Reading

1
Reading
2
How do you think we read?

3
How do you think we read?

• -memorizing words on the page-extracting just
  the meanings of the words-playing a mental movie
  in our heads of what the text describes-some
  combination of these???

4
An answer?

• Evidence suggests that we can use all of these
  codes or levels of representation. However,
  some are more important that others.

5
In the Beginning Reading Development

• Stage 0 (prior to 1st grade)
• Discriminate letters (i.e., Pepsi vs. Coke)
• Stage 1 (first year formal instruction)
  Phonological recoding skills are learned
• Stage 2 (2nd 3rd grades)
• Children are reading fluently but it is effortful
  and they dont comprehend much
• Stage 3 (grades 4-8)
• Reading as a tool to gather knowledge, switch to
  reading individual words rather than sounding
  everything out.

6
How could we study Reading

• Four levels of analysis
• Phonology Study of production and perception of
  language sounds.
• Syntax The study of the structure of sentences,
  and of rules determining the order of words and
  phrases in those sentences.
• Semantics The study of the meaning of words
• Pragmatics Context and social interaction
  coupled with semantics

7
PHONOLOGY

• Morpheme The smallest language unit that carries
  meaning. Morphemes are conveyed by sounds called
  phonemes. English has 46 different phonemes.
  There are only 200 across all languages.
  Languages vary they may have as few as 20 or more
  than 80.

8
Hooked on Phonics, DIBELS, Reading First

• Sound-letter correspondence is critical to
  decoding words and retrieving their meaning.
• Direct instruction targets teaching children how
  to sound out words.
• There are diagnostic tools used to test student
  progress (i.e., DIBELS)

9
Levels of Representation

• Surface level Memory for veridical wording,
  typeface, color.
• Textbase Memory for the meaning of words used in
  the text and their explicit relations
• Macrostructure/Situation level Memory for the
  gist can include information that wasnt even
  in the text.

10
Word Identification

• Direct access Use visual representation to
  identify. See word go directly to meaning
  dictionary lexicon.
• E.g., DOG- access without sounding it out

11
Word Identification

• Direct access Use visual representation to
  identify. See word go directly to meaning
  dictionary lexicon.
• E.g., DOG- access without sounding it out
• Problem with this view SLOM can not be accessed
  because this letter string is not in our lexicon.

12
Word Identification

• Indirect access use a words sound to identify
  it.
• See word and sound it out using
  grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence (GPC) rules.
• Slom can be said using this method.
• Dual access We use both direct and indirect
  methods.
• Familiar words use direct access.
• Unknown/uncommon words (Slom) use indirect
  access.
• Horse race model (Rayner and Pollatsek, 1989) we
  use both at the same time. One gets there faster.

13
Beyond the Word (Discourse)

• Propositional representations A collection of
  conceptual nodes labeled by pathways, where the
  entire structure represents the meaning of the
  sentence.
• Strength of this type of representation Reflects
  the meanings of sentences but is not sensitive to
  changes in surface features (e.g., paraphrases).
• Evidence Kintsch (1974)
• The crowded passengers squirmed uncomfortably.
  (2 propositions)
• The horse stumbled and broke a leg. (3
  propositions)

14
Discourse Structures

• Kintsch and van dijks Model Posits a
  distinction between Microstructure and
  Macrostructure.
• Microstructure The level of discourse in which
  propositions (smallest unit of meaning that can
  have a truth-value) are linked together.
• Propositions have two elements
• Argument (concept) usually a noun or some object
• Predicate (focus) usually a verb or some
  relational term

15
Discourse Structures

• Macrostructure The gist of the text (what we
  walk away from the text remembering).
• Primary goal of this model is to explain the
  coherence of a text (i.e., how well a text makes
  sense). Coherence is achieved by an overlap of
  arguments in propositions.
• This model also accounts for the bottle neck of
  STM. We process in cycles where the most recent
  and most important propositions are kept active.

16
Kintschs CI Theory

• Construction Integration Model
• Readers break down text into propositions
• Understanding the text is the process of linking
  propositions together into a coherence graph
  (this is the microstructure)
• The macrostructure is then built, which consists
  of prior real-world knowledge (schema) and an
  edited version of the microstructure.

17
(No Transcript)
18
(No Transcript)
19
Kintschs CI Theory continued

• Problems w/ the model
• Too many details of the processes (forming
  propositions) are not well worked out
• Understanding a text (coherence) is more than
  simply linking a series of propositions.

20
An Alternative View to Propositions Perceptual
Symbols (Barsalou, Glenberg, Zwaan)

• The amodal argument
• Readers understand the text as if they are in the
  story world (embodiment). Propositional theories
  dont capture this.
• In this case understanding text is the process
  (re)activating parts of the brain associated with
  experiences.