Free Essays,College Free Essays,Free College Essays at Anti Essays

The topic of reading is of great importance to me as a second language (2L) teacher because it pertains to the issues of literacy and intelligence. Reading is closely related to many other cognitive processes including: attention, concept formation, imagery, language, memory and perception. Educators need to have an understanding of the theories behind reading comprehension as well some strategies that can be used in the classroom to increase reading comprehension. Since presently there are so many reading based theories, I will briefly discuss the most commonly mentioned ones. I will focus on theories such as; the Schema Theory, Mental Models, The Propositional theory and The Functional Context Theory (T. Sticht).
Although I will not discuss other theories, it is important that educators recognize and evaluate some of them and perhaps even use them as future reference. The well known constructivist theory of Jean Piaget states that learning is the modification of the student’s schemata. This theory mentions the importance of organizing information by attaching it to prior knowledge. The interactive theories, on the other hand, focus on what a person does while reading. According to this theory word identification skills and comprehension strategies take place simultaneously. Theories which focus on the cultural dimension that affect reading are the sociolinguistic theories. Vygotsky stated that language helps to organize thought, and children use language to communicate and share experiences as well as to learn. Like these theories there are more, it is the teacher’s responsibility to research, get informed and apply the knowledge gained from the different theories. Let’s get an overview of the previously mentioned theories.
Gunning (1996) identifies three main theories of reading comprehension. The first of the three is the Schema Theory. He defines it as the organized knowledge that one already has about people, places,...