reading development of nonnative speakers of english: research

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AUTHOR Barnitz, John G.TITLE Reading Development of Nonnative Speakers of English:

Research and Instruction. Language in Education:Theory and Practice, No. 63.

INSTITUTION Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, D.C.;ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and inguistics,Washington, D.C.

SPONS AGENCY National Inst. of Education (ED), Washington,. DC.REPORT NO ISBN-0-15-599315-1PUB DATE 85CONTRACT 400-82-0009NOTE 122p.AVAILABLE FROM Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., Orlando, FL

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Products (071) -- Guides - Classroom Use - Guides(For Teachers) (052)

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MF01/PC05 Plus Postage.Applied Linguistics; Bilingualism; ClassroomTechniques; *Cognitive Processes; ComparativeAnalysis; *English (Second Language); LanguageAcquisition; *Literacy; Orthographic Symbols;*Reading Instruction; *Reading Research; *SecondLanguages; Teachwe Education; VocabularyDevelopment

ABSTRACTA state of the art report on the development of

native and second language reading skills in nonnative Englishspeakers begins with a review of the reacting process and therelationship of language to the reading process. The second chapterreviews various levels of language and relates them to reading andlearning to read a first and second language. Two questions areaddressed: (1) to what extent do language proficiency o languagedifferences affect reading and learning to read a seconc language?and (2) what principles and methods are useful in facilitating thenonnative speaker's acquisition of English literacy? First and secondlanguage reading research is examined and compared, and teachingstrategies and techniques are reviewed. Finally, some related issuesin applied linguistics and second language literacy are discussed!,including (1) the relationship of orthographies, bilingualism, andreading; (2) initial literacy in the native.vs. the second language;(3) similarities and differences in learning to read in differentlanguages; and (4) needs in 'teacher education programs conceringlanguage differences and reading. Suggestions for further reading, alist of organizational resources, and a bibliography are included.(MSE)

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READING DEVELOPMENT OF NONNATIVE SPLAKERS OF ENGLISH;

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION

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RESEARCH AND INSTRUCTION

by John G. Barnitz

A publication of

Center for Applied Linguistics

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Clearinghouse on Languages and LinguisticsERIC

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LANGUAGE IN EDUCATION: Theory and Practice NO. (o

This publication was prepared with fundingfrom the Motional Institute of Education.U.S. Department of Llucation under contractno. 400-82-0009. The opinions expressed inthis report do not necessarily reflect thepositions or policies of NIT or ED.

CDCopyright 1985 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.All rights reserved. No part of this publicationmay be reproduced or transmitted in any form orby any means, electronic or mechanical, includingphotocopy, recording, or any information storageand retrieval system, without permission inwriting from he publishers.Requests for permission to make copies of any

°part of the work should be mailed co:PermissionsHarcourt Brace Jovanovich PublishersOrlando, Florida 32887

Printed in the United States

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(ACKNOWLEDGMENTS)

A summary of some of the%theoretical ,content of thismonograph was originally presented at the Colloquiumon "Language and Development: An International Per-spective," held in conjunction with the 5th SouthAsian Language Round Table, University of Illinoisat Urbana-Champaign, May 1983. The author is grate-ful to Professor Braj Kachru for the invitation toparticipate in that conference (held in honor ofHenry and Renee Kahane), the published, program ofwhich led to the invitation by the ERIC Clearing-house on Languages and Linguistics to write thismonograph.

The author is grateful to man individuals whocontributed to the development of this monograph:to Sophia Behrens, former editor of the ERICClearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics, for theinvitation to write this monograph and for helpfulguidance throughout its development; to Gina Doggettand the editorial staff of the Clearinghouse forediting and preparing the.finished document; to thethree anonymous reviewers for detailed critical'com-ments on the first draft; to Doris Smith, RuthRosenberg, and Janet Clarke Richards for assistancein formatting the bibliography, editing or proof-reading, respectively, a draft of the manuscript;and to Kay Kelly and Ruth Rogiero for typing the twodrafts.

The author is also grateful to Wilma Long-street, former dean, and Theresa Smith, acting deanof the College of Education, and Paul Beinherz,Chairman, Department of Curriculum and Instruction,University of New Orleans, for providing the author

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released time from one course in order to completethis project.

The author also acknowledges the authors and°publishers who granted permission to reprintmaterial from previous publications. Individualacknowledgments of permissions are included with thereproductions.

Finally, the author is grateful for the bless-ings of a loving family (my wife, Christine, andthree children, Rachel, Peter, and Joseph) and sup-portive colleagues and friends, whose encouragementcontributed to the completion of this project.

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[TABLE OF CONTENTS]

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Overview

Redding as a Psycholinguistic Process

CHAPTER 2: LEVELS OF LANGUAGE IN FIRSTAND SECOND LANGUAGE READING

Background Knowledge and ReadingComprehension

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Prior Knowledge, Language, and Reading 19Instruction

Lexical Differences and Reading Comprehension 25

Semantically Based Vocabulary Instruction 29

Discourse Differences and Reading 34

Strategies for Teaching DiscourL 41Comprehension'

Syntax and Reading Development 46

Developing Syntactic Aspects of Reading 48

Morphological Differences and Reading 51Development

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Phonological Differences, Orthographies,and Reading

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Developing Awareness of Orthography 60

Teaching Phonological-Orthographical 62Aspects of Reading

General Summary64

CHAPTER 3: ISSUES IN RESEARCH AND TEACHING 65

Orthographies, Bilingualism, and Reading 65

Mother Tongue or Second Language 67

Reading in Different Languages 69

On the Linguistic Training of Teachers 72

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION77

FOR FURTHER READING79

ORGANIZATIONAL RESOURCES 85

REFERENCES87

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(CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION)

As an introduction to understanding the field ofreading, you are invited to recall the last time youand your friends assembled a layge jigsaw puzzle,especially the variety that involves thousands ofpieces. To make the activity more interesting,imagine further that some of the pieces were missingas well as the picture on the box. Also,' pretendthat you were joined in the activity by friends andcolleagues in a variety of academic fields, such aseducation, psychology, and theoretical and appliedlinguistics, and each person within each field andsubfield has many of the pieces. Such is the casein piecing together an understanding of first andsecond language reading acquisition. The purpose ofthis monograph is to put together part of the jigsawpuzzle on the topic of reading English as a secondlanguage. Much of the research on language, lan-guage differences, end reading development is scat-tered across several disciplines.

This synthesis will be useful in crystallizingthe state of the art on reading development ofnonnative speakers. Intended for an audience ofeducators and applied linguists, this discussion iswritten from the point of view ,of an applied lin-guist who is professionally involved in trainingteachers to respect and understand linguistic diver-sity and the role of language in reading and learn-ing to read. As reading is a similar process acrosslanguage (K. Goodman & Y. Goodman, 19781 Hudelson,1981), many of the teaching strategies outlined willbe useful'in both first and second language literacyteaching.

OVERVIEW

This monograph consists of three major chap-ters. First is a brief review of the reading pro-cess and the relationship of language to the readingprocess. That reading is a complex psycholinguisticprocess involving the reader, text; and context willbe assumed.

The second chapter reviews various levels oflanguage and relates then to reading and learning toread a first and second language. To what extent dolanguage proficiency or language differences affectreading and learning to read a second language?What principles and methods are useful in facili-tating the nonnative speaker's acquisition ofliteracy-in English, the second language? In.manycases, second language reading research will becontrasted' with first language reading research tobe interpreted for a teacher audience. Manyteaching strategies and techniques will be reviewed.However, as nonnative speakers do not all share thesame characteristics, instructors need to becautious in adapting all methods of teaching to theparticular background of the students.

Chapter 3 presents a broad overview of someissues in applied linguistics and second languageliteracy. As many of these issues are complexenough to be discussed in separate papers, it isimportant to include at least a brief discussion ofeach, because they are major aspects of the state ofthe art on research and development in appliedlinguistics and reading education. At least fourquestionS can be discussed with recommendations forfurther reading. Each question can result invarious degrees of discussion:

1. What is the role of orthographies inbilingualism and literacy?

2. Should initial literacy be taught in themother tongue or the second language?

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3. Is learning to read the same or differentin various languages?

4. What is needed in teacher educationprograms regarding language differences and reading?

Following the discussion of these issues will be asummary, conclusion, and lengthy bibliography forfuture research and teaching.

The discussions will function as a useful guideto understanding the state of the art. on linguisticdifferences and teaching English reading to secondlanguage learners. Readers are encouraged to readadditional resources for more in-depth discussions.

READING AS A PSYCHOLIUGUISTIC PROCESS

In order to understand reading of Engliqh as asecond language, it is important to review firstlanguage (L1) reading as a psycholinguistic process.In the last few decades, there has been a steadilygrowing interest among researchers on the relation-ship of language and reading. This interest hasparalleled at least two scholarly moments: (a)the evolution of the fields of psycholinguistics andsociolinguistics; and (b) the movement in linguis-tics\away from decontextualized analyses of syntaxand onology to more recent developments in therole f language as a semantic and pragmatic tool.These cholarly movements are rapidly inflaencingeducati nal research in reading, but are wore slowlyinfluencing classroom practices. Nevertheless,linguists and educators are "rediscovering languagein education" (Shuy, 1982b).

Reading is a complex communication process inwhich the mind of the reader interacts with the textin a particular setting or context. During thereading process, readers construct a meaningful rep-resentation of text through an interaction of thfirconceptual and linguistic knowledge with the cuesthat are in the text. According to K. Goodman

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(1976), reading is a "psycholinguistic guessinggame":

Reading is a selective process. It in-volves partial use of available minimallanguage cues selected from perceptualinput on the basis of the reader's expec-tation. As this partial information isprocessed, tentative decisions are madeto be confirmed, rejected, or refined asreading progresses. (p. 260)

The reader uses minimal language cues within majorcomponents of language. These cues (graphophonic,syntactic, and semantic cues) assist readers insampling, confirming, correcting, and rejecting thepredictions they make about the message.

Other researchers also view reading as apsycholinguistic process. Smith (1973) states thatreading involves a "trade-off' between visual andnonvisual information The more that is alreadyknown 'behind the eyeball,' the less visual infor-mation is required to identify a letter, a word, ormeaning' from the text" (p. 7). In other words, if areader concentrates more on the visual structure ofthe wordi in printed text, less meaning will be pro-cessed. I. Taylor and M.M. Taylor (1983) presentreading in terms of a "bilateral cooperative model"(p. 233). According to this view, reading consistsof two "tracks" of interacting processes. The lefttrack involves functional relationships, sequen-tially ordered material, phonetic coding, syntax,'and other linguistic functions. The right trackinvolves global functions, such as patterns, seekingout similarities between input patterns and pre-viously seen patterns, evoking associations, andrelating the meanings of words and phrases withreal-world conditions. The two tracks "cooperate"in constructing meaning from text. The right trackmakes predictions; the left track corrects predic-tions and links the results into phrases, clauses,sentences, and larger text.

According to the research reported in Spiro,Bruce, and Brewer (1980), there are at least three

essential elements of an adequate model of reading.First, reading is multileveled in that native read-ers use various levels of language simultaneously toaccess meaning (see Shuy, 1977). Readers use theirknowledge of the world and their pragmatic, dis-course, syntactic, morphological, and phonologicalknowledge in constructing and reconstructingmeaning. Secondly, reading is interactive in thatthe reader's comprehension is "driven" by the knowl-edge structures or "schemata" of the reader and thespecific content and linguistic structures in thetext (see Rumelhart, 1980). All the levels of back-ground knowledge (social, linguistic, conceptual,etc.) interact simultaneously as readers construct ameaning for the text. Thirdly, reading involves thegeneration of hypotheeeeas readers make predictionsabout the meaning of a text. These predictions willbe confirmed or rejected as reading proceeds (K.Goodman, 1976). Moreover, reading can be viewed asa transactional process (Rosenblatt, 1978; Woodward,Harste, & Burke, 1984) in which both the text andthe reader are changed in the process; the readeracquires new knowledge while reconstructing thetext. Reading involves a relationship between au-thor and reader, a pragmatic contract, which facili-tates communication (Tierney & LaZansky, 1980). Asliteracy events occur in contexts of situation]reading and writing are a sociopsycholinguistic pro-cess (Harts et al., 1984).

These views have challenged traditional ,iPwsthat still influence maay teachers' instruction.Some of these misconceptions include:

Steps in learning co read involve first theaccurate pronunciation of individual letters,followed by the identification of wards, then sen-tences, then paragraphs,

Learning to read precedes learning to write. ,

: Reading involves learning literal comprehen-sion before learning inferential comprehension.

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Reading is a set of subskills to be masteredone by one in a sequential order.

Meaning is in the text. Therefore, readersshould unlock the meaning in the text.

One must be totally proficient in a secondlanguage before learning to read it.

Psycholinguistic research on reading instead impliesthat reading instruction should provide opportuni-ties for students to discover the process of'the,

Vtotal orchestration of language' and conceptualSkills with an emphasis not Only on the meaningintended by the author and reader, but also on theOrategies for constructing meaning for a text (seeY. Goodman & Burke, 1980). Students need to becomeless text-driven and more strategy-oriented as theylearn to sample, predict, confirm, and reject hy-potheses they make while reading. These strategiesare claimed to be universal to the reading process,independent of the particular language of the readerand the-textisee K. Goodman & Y. Goodman, 1978;Hudelson, 1981).

Before proceeding to the major section of thismonograph, which deals with the role of languagedifferences in learning to read, it is important tounderstand how language, in general, relates to theprocess of reading and learning to read.

One of the best illustrations of the role oflanguage '"accesses" to reading is presented by Shuy(1977) (see Fig. 1.1). This diagram, though notintended as a description based on research, illus-trates the role of various levels of language at theonset of learning to read and at the level of thefluent reader. For the young child learning toread, there is a stronger tendency to be concernedwith letter-sound correspondences, syllables,morphemes, and words than with larger units. Fluentreaders depend on higher-level cues involving thelinguistic and pragmatic context. Ideally, a fluentreader uses all these language systems in order toconstruct meaning for a text; and ideally, the childlearning to read should learn basic lower-level

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skills in the context of the total reading-languageprocess and the context 0 the situation. In pro-ducing written language, young children decide whatis the right text for the right context (Karate etal., 1984).

LetterSound 100%

Correspondences ISy llabha

i

Morphemes

Words IE

Sentences

Linguistic Content

Pragmatic Context 0%Onset ofReading

Well DevelopedReading

Figure 1.1. A schematic diagram of the role oflanguage accesses in beginning reading and well -developed reading.

Note. From Linguistic Theory: What Can It Say AboutReading (p. viii), edited by R. Shuy, 1977, Newark,DE: International Reading Association. Copyright e1977 by the International Reading Association. Re-printed with permission of the author and the Inter-national Reading Association.

For students learning to read English as asecond language, the lower-level structural aspectsof the text will probably occupy their attention asthey struggle with the language, thus preventingthem from accessing much information from the moremeaning-driven accesses to reading. Therefore, ESLreading teachers need to facilitate students'acquisition of all the language clues related toreading a second language.' However, this advicedoes not imply that ESL readers must be totally

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fluent in English beforelearning to read it. A

growing body of evidence illustrates that languagedifferences, although they influence reading, do notnecessarily interfere with reading (Flores, 1982).Nonnative speakers of English can learn to readEnglish while they are learning the language; non-native speakers can, also learn the language as theylearn to read it. In short, language and readinginstruction can support each other (K. Goodman, Y.Goodman, G Flores, 1979; Hudelson, 1984; Robson,1981).

Before addressing the specific roles of lan-guage differences in learning to read English, oneassumption must be established. Reading and lan-guage teachers must remember that reading, likelistening, speaking, and writing, are part of thecommuniCative covetence of language users. Awriter uses language for specific purposes; and areader uses language for specific purposes. Thus,literacy development must take place in a pragmatic,communicative competence framework; as noted by Shuy(1982a, p. 810) in Figure 1.2.

A communleslivecompetence model for literacy

Cornmunqative competence

Language formamasses

phonologymorphologyvocsbulsrysyntax

1111.1.mt

Language function'Cones

/Mb

diecourst functionsU Hen in relationto:

topicSettingparticipant

Figure 1.2. A communicative competence model forlitIracy.

Note. From 'What Should the Language Strand in aReading Program Contain" by R. Shuy, 1982a, TheReading Teacher, 36,p. 810. Copyright 0 1982 bythe International Reading Association. Reprintedwith permission of the author and the InternationalReading Association.

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This diagram illustrates that functional literacydevelopment is not limited to language forms, butmust also include the acquisition of language func-tions. In other words, basic to literacy and lan-guage communication is the ability to use languageto accomplish actual goals (Harste et al., 1984).

The field of pragmatics, which analyzes non-literal aspects of communication (e.g., inference,speech acts, indirect speech acts, conversationalimplicature), describes how language is used toaccomplish tasks in the real world (Morgan & Green,1980). For example, will second language learnersof reading understand the intended meaning of thesentence

I have a cold today

as a refusal to an invitation to attend a swimmingparty? Or will second language readers understandthe sentence spoken at the dinner table,

The corn needs butter

as a request for butter? Thus, there is a potentialinteraction of context and sociocultural meaning inthe comprehension of oral and written language.(For more information on pragmatics and reading, seeMorgan & Green, 1980; and Griffin, 1977).

. Figures 1.1 and 1.2 emphasize how reading isrelated to proficiency in a second language. Read-ing a second language can be facilitated or "short-circuited" (Clarke, 1979) by the extent of languageproficiency. Yet, reading a second language canfacilitate growth in second language proficiency.Similarly, as reading and language are intimatelyrelated, much language and literacy proficiency inone language can transfer to proficiency in anotherlanguage (see Cummins, 1981, for a discussion of the"common underlying proficiency" model of languagelearning). Given the functional interactive natureof the reading process, language differences do notnecessarily interfere with learning to read a secondlanguage (Flores, 1982), especially as there aremany accesses to meaning within language. Yet, spe-

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cific children or adult learners will benefit frominstruction onspecific language accesses to read-ing. In the following chapter, various levels oflanguage will be reviewed in terms of their role inreading and learning to teed a first and secondlanguage.. It is in this area that many pieces ofthe jigsaw puzzle are available'. Yet, much researchis needed on language function accesses to literacy.

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(CHAPTER 2 LEVELS OF LANGUAGE IN FIRST AND SECONDLANGUAGE READING)

Mudh research and experience hive 'documented thatlinguistically different children and adults can.learn to read English while they are learning the.language. Research by K. Goodman ald Y. Goodman(1978) indicated that, although no' one can speak anunknown language proficiently, second language andsecond dialect learners demonstrated their increas-ing abilities to use the graphophonic, syntactic,

semantic systems of reading, as well as the uni-versal-reading strategies of text sampling, pre-dicting, confitming_vand rejecting. Students learnlanguage and learn to read-a-language by using andreading it. Furthermore, in refuting deficit viewsof language interference, Flores (1982) implied that -.

differences between Spanish and English do not causereading failure. 'There are differences between afirst and second language that do not hinder theconstruction of a meaningful interpretation of asecond language text. In fact, some recent researchfindings reviewed by Hudelson (1984) conclude that"ESL learners are able to read English before theyhave complete oral control of the language" (p. 224)and that "even children who speak no or very littleEnglish are reading some of the print in theirenvironment and are using. that reading to increasetheir English" (p. 222). Thus, there is a closeinterrelationship between reading and language; thetwo support each other.

Yet, to what extent does language proficiencyplace any limit on reading performance in a secondlanguage? While reading may be considered universal(Hudelson, 1981; K. Goodman & Y. Goodman, 1978), and

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while there may be similarities in the way thatfirst and second language learners construct meaningin reading (Perkins, 1983) and in writing (Harste etal., 1984), research suggests that there may be alimit placed on second language reading ability, alimit related to language proficiency. According toClarke (1979), limited language ability "short-circuits" the psycholinguistic processes in reading,thus placing a ceiling on the meaning constructed bythe reader (Perkins, 1983), unless the reader'sprior knowledge overrides problems with languageproficiency (Hudson, 1982). Likewise, Cziko (1980)found that, although native French-speaking andFrench-as-a-second-language atudents in junior highschool used both contextual and graphic clues inreading French, the students who were less competentin French tended to rely more heavily on lower-leveltextual clues than higher-level contextual clues.Thus, while reading of various languages and readingof English as a second language may consist of simi-lar universal strategies (K. Goodman & Y. Goodman,1978: Hudelson, 1981), various levels of the lan-guage systems may,influence the reading of a secondlanguage.

It is important to realize that many languagelevels (phonological, syntactic, semantic, etc.)operate simultaneously incomprehension; thus, ifone area is weak in the second language reader'ssystem, other areas may compensate. For example, a-reader's knowledge of content can override a poten-tial problem with ailiiih-phoneme-grapheme_corre-spondence or syntactic pattern. Thus, varioussystems of language and cognition interact in thereading process (Rumelhart, 1980; I. Taylor &1M.M.Taylor, 1983).

Some additional principles are also importahtto remember. First, speaking, listening, writing,and reading development are inseparable in the com-munication process and in the comprehension process.For instance, reading and writing a second languagesupport each other in first and second languagelearning (see Hudelson, 1984; and Edelsky, 1982).Reading and writing involve related processes (seeHarste et al., 1984; Staton, 1981; and Tierney &

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Pearson, 1983). Secondly, reading and writing expo-sure and instruction need not be delayed until thestudent has total proficiency in the second lan-guage, for literacy exposure can enhance languagedevelopment (Chomsky, 1972; Hudelson, 1984). Third-ly, teaching any piece of the language/readingprocess cannot be isolated from teaching the totallanguage/reading process. Reading, as part of -

communicative competence, must be viewed and taughtholistically, rather than as an isolated sequence ofskills (see Shuy, 1981a).

This chapter outlines several levels of lan-guage and cognition that are related to reading:prior knowledge, lexicon, discourse, syntax, mor-phology, phonology, and orthography. The discussionis presented from theoretical and practical perspec-tives. Included are research studies and teachingtechniques for second language reading development,many of which are borrowed from first languagereading, especially since many first and secondlanguage reading strategies are universal. Whilemost methods are adaptable to specific populations(e.g., adults or children, literate in first lan-,guage or illiterate in first language), some mentionwill be made of the most appropriate populations forcertain techniques. However, many techniques areadaptable, though with?aution, to a variety ofsituations.

Although each component ofnguage is dis-cussed separately in this section, instruction inany language component must be placed in the contextof natural texts and the total reading process. Noinstructional sequence is implied in this'monograph,

_____AlsmanyLlanquagefactors_intexact simultaneously in

the reading process. To be reviewed first is thereading process involving readers' background knowl-edge, with some approaches that develop the totalreading process*

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BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE AND READINGCOMPREHENSION

In the reading process, participants bringtheir knowledge of the world and their knowledge oflanguage to the text as they construct a meaningfulrepresentation for the text (Spiro, Bruce, & Brewer,1980). A major factor in reading comprehension,which has been documented in recent years, is thebackround knowledge or "schemata" of the reader(R.C. Anderson, 19771 Rumelhart, 1980). Priorknowledge can influence an interpretation of a textby providing an overall context for the informationbeing encoded, comprehended, and recalled. Back-ground knowledge consists of several componentsincluding conceptual knowledge, social knowledge,and story knowledge (Adams & Bruce, 1982). The lessfamiliar readers are with the concepts or content ofthe text, the more they will struggle to construct a

'meaning. Thus, specific content area material canbe especially difficult for ESL readers, if theyhave to struggle with the content in addition to thelanguage. If the readers are ignorant of socialrelationships and how language functions in varioussocial settings, comprehension can be affected.Likewise, readers who are unfamiliar with conven-tions in the world of stories and how they aresignaled will stumble in their, reading. The moreWorld knowledge readers gain, the better access they'will have to information in text, for the comprehen-sibility of the text is related to "the goodness ofthe match between the knowledge the author has pre-sumed of the reader and that actually possessed by

-the-reader01 Adaffid-K-BillbeTT8-82, p. 3).Much research in schema theory documents the

importance of readers' background in reading compre-hension. A discussion of several studies will helpclarify the role of cross-cultural schemata inreading comprehension of nonnative speakers.

As reading is a constructive process, thereader brings to the text a conceptual framework forconstructing information (Spiro, 1980). Research byR.C. Anderson, Reynolds, Schallert, and Goetz (1976)

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found that ambiguous passages were interpreted dif-ferently by two groups of first-language universitystudents--physical education majors and music educa-tion majors. One passage could be interpreted aseither the rehearsal of a chamber orchestra or anevening of playing cards. For example, the passagecontained references to: Karen's recorder fillingthe room with music; Mike noticing Pat's hand andthe many diamonds; Mike's requesting to "hear thescore," and so on. Another passage was interpret-able as being about either a prison break or awrestling match.

Similarly, reseatch by Pichert and R.C.Anderson (1976), R.C. Anderson and Pichert (1977),R.C. Anderson, Pichert, and Shirey (1979), andGoetz, Reynolds, Schallert, and Radin (1982) docu-ments that a reader's prior perspective has aneffect on the information recalled from a text.These researchers used passages about two boysplaying hookey at one of the boy's homes, althoughmuch of the stc.ry focused on the features of thehouse or valuable possessions inside the house.Participants in the studies were asked-to become"burglars" or "home buyers," before reading thestory. These researchers found that the burglarstended to recall idea units about the possessions inthe house, while the home buyers tended to recallinformation relevant to their own perspective.Thus, teachers need to become aware of the crucialrole that background knowledge play's in reading.

In recent years, many studies have illustratedhow prior knowledge, based on cross-cultural exper-iences, has an-effect on reading. These studies aremost relevant to teachers of students in ESL orbilingual communities. TO illustrate how culturaldifferences affect reading, consider the followingpassage and answer the inferential questions basedon it. 1

"From "Creativity as a Mediating Variable in Infer-ential Reading Comprehension" by B.V. Andersson andJ.P. Gipe, 1983, Reading Psychology, 4, p. 316.Copyright 0 1983 by Hemisphere Publishing.

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The kitchen was buzzing with activity asa large and fancy dinner was being prepared.Flowers were everywhere. Thls day was moreimportant than George's biL:thday. Each yearhis family held an open house in his honor.Guests brought wine and. baked goodies. Georgewas greeted with hugs and kisses. This was aday for celebrating. George was so happy. Hecould not miss the chance to join in and showhis skill. He rushed to the front of theline, pulled out. his handkerchief and placed aglass on his head. Everyone was watchingGeorge as he showed his talents and turned tothe beat. The same words were repeated every-where in the house. The guests admired andclapped as the man of the day smiled withhappiness.

QUESTIONS:

.1. What day is described?

2. Which words are repeated over and over?

3. What kind of a line is George joining?

4. Why is George pulling out his hand-kerchief?

5. Why is George putting a glass on his head?

MelJiall=

Corporation. Adapted by permission of the authorand Hemisphere Publishing Corporation.

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If you are familiar with Greek name day fes.tiv-ities, this passage should be fairly easy to compre-hend both literally and inferentially. However, ifthe content of the passage is outside the realm ofyour actual or vicarious experiences, then thepassage would be more difficult to comprehend.Andersson (1981) presented 24 passages like this oneto sixth-grade children from two populations: aparochial school in the'New Orleans metropolitanarea and a Greek Orthodox school in New York City.Of the 24 passages, six were based on New Orleansculture, six on Greek culture, six on everydayexperiences familiar to everyone, and six not fami-liar to anyone. Andersson found that sixth-gradestudents performed better on the passages thatmatched their own cultural background (see alsoAndersson & Gipe, 1983, for a discussion of thisstudy).

Other studies also confirm the influence ofcross-cultural schemata. Steffensen, Joag-Dev andR.C. Anderson (1979) presented separate lettersabout American and Indian weddings to universitystudents whose native culture was either American orIndian. Since wedding customs differ in America andIndia, the readers recalled information that wasmost relevant to their own culture. In addition,when recalling information about a culturally un-familiar text, readers naturally distorted informa-tion and inserted ideas from their own culture.Readers were also found to elaborate the passagesrelated to their own cultural experiences, and toread them faster.

A similar study by Reynolds, Taylor, Steffen-sen, Shirey, and R.C. Anderson (1981) documented therole of cross-cultural schemata in the reading ofeighth-grade students from two populations: urban,working-class black students and white students froman agricultural community. Both groups read aletter describing an event in the cafeteria, whichincluded verbal insults such, as "you so ugly thatwhen the doctor delivered you, he slapyed you in theface." While the black students interereted theepisode to include verbal insults commonly found inthe black community, the white agrarian students

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inferred that there was physical aggression. Thus,two cultural groups tended to incerpret the samepassage differently. (For more information onfirst-language cross-cultural schemata, seeAndersson & Parni, 1984; Joag-Dev & Steffensen,1980; Lipson, 1983;\$teffensen & Colker, 1982.)

Several ESL studies have examined the role ofschemata in the reading\\comprehension of nonnativereaders. P. Johnson (1982) found that universitystudents representing 23 nationalities in advanced-level ESL reading classes who read a story about anAmerican custom, Halloween, recalled fewer proposi-tions from unfamiliar portionsiof text than fromfamiliar portions of text. P. Johnson also foundthat exposure to target word meanings prior toreading the story had no significant effect.Rather, prior cultural experiences were more impqp-tant. In a related experiment, P. Johnson (1981)found that the cultural origin of a' text (e.g.,Iranian or American folklore) made more of a dif-ference in student reading comprehension than thetext's semantic and syntactic complexity. Theresults of these studies are consistent with theview that reading is a constructive process.

Carrell (1983b) examined specific effects onreading comprehension of three different componentsof backgrouni4 knowledge: prior knowledge of thecontent of the text (familiar versus novel); priorknowledge that the text is about a given contentarea (context versus no context); and the degree towhicS the vocabulary reveals the content area(transparent versus opaque). Carrell found thatadvanced and high-intermediate ESL readers appearnot to use contextual and schematic clues well.Thus, they will naturally have difficulty in mak3ngpredictions based on context. It was also foundthat advanced ESL students were aided by the noveltyof a text. (For related studies, see Carrell &Wallace, 1983; and Carrell, 1981).

If prior knowledge is an important area ofreading, and if ESL readers do not always have priorknowledge in theiw English discourse processing,then can background knowledge be induced?. Accordingto Hudson (1982), induced schemata caq facilitate

18

comprehension for university students at lowerlevels of ESL proficiency, even more than at higherlevels of proficiency. Therefore, Hudson arguedthat induced schemata can override language profi-ciency as a major factor in comprehension. If so,then how can teachers manipulate the backgroundknowledge of native and nonnative readers to facili-tate the comprehension of text material?

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE, LANGUAGE, ANDREADING ±NSTRUCTION

This section presents a variety of methods fordeveloping the total reading-language process.These methods require consideration of the stedente'background knowledge and emphasize meaningful com-prehension of written language. Additional methodsfor developing very specific aspects of languagerelated to reading will be discussed in subsequentsections., As it is important not to,reduce readingto a set of isolated skills, several methods arerecommended for developing the total reading pro-cess. Reading for meaning is a goal. While thereare many approaches and methods for facilitating,reading comprehension (see Y. Goodman & Burke,1980; Tierney, Readence, & Dishner, 1980; Pearson &D.D. Johnson, 1978; McNeil, 1984), a few will bediscussed briefly: The Language Experience Approach(LEA); lbctending Concepts Through Language Activi-ties (EMU); Directed Reading-Thinking Activity(DR-TA), the Experience Text Relationship (ETR)Method, and the PreReading Plan (PRe0), as well assome traditional ESL approaches. The teacher mayneed to adapt these methods to particular age levelsand Language proficiency levels.

Language Experience Approach (LEA)

A most useful approach for both native speakersand linguiattcally different children and adults,

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26

the LEA is best suited.for beginning readers and re-medial readers, rather than university ESL students.This approach begins with the student's languageproficiency, and background knowledge. Based on acommon experience, the student(s) dictate a story t%;the teacher, who records the story as it evolves.The "text" that is produced matches the language andcontent knowledge of the students. Therefore, the"text" becomes a useful beginning point for teachingbasic reading and language skills. Through activequestioning, the teacher can help the soudents rec-ognize words, sentence patterns, and vocabularyitems. In addition, the teacher can encourage thestudents to expand on sentence structure, descrip-tive words, or more elaborate story structure.

For nonnative speakers of English, the LEA isinvaluable to the reading teacher as the studentsdiscover the relationship of their experiences toEnglish; it unifies their experiences in reading, .

writing, speaking, and listening. (For furtherinformation on the approach, see Allen, 1974; Hall,1981; Hudelson, 1984; and Stauffer, 1980.)

Extending Concepts Through LanguageActivities (ECOLA)

An extension of the LEA,'the ECOLA approach isuseful in facilitating language and reading compre-hension of content material for first languagereaders (Smith-Burke, 1982). The approach comprisesfive major steps. Step 1 involves setting a com-munication purpose for reading. In this step thereaders are led to discover why they should read agiven selection. In Step 2, the students readsilently for a given purpose and a given. criteriontask. In both of these steps, the teacher asksquestions that f:dcilitate purposeful, functionalreading. The crucial third step is the crystalliza-tion of comprehension through writing. Becausewriting and reading are stsongly related (Tierney &Pearson, 1983), having students write their thoughtson the text, based on the purpose and criteriontask, encourages them to take risks and construct an

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fir

interpretation. In Step 4, the students and teachershare their interpretations. Finally, the studeueither individually or in-small groups, write asecond interpretation and compare it with theirearlier interpretation. In this'way, studentsdiscover the constructive and changing nature of thecomprehension process. The ECOLA approach is adap-table to a variety of populations; however, basicliteracy if. the'target language is a prerequisite,unless the students discuss and write responses intheir native language. (See Smith-Burke, 1982, formore discussion.)

With nonnative speakers, the teacher will haveto be sure that the students have the necessarylanguage skills to master the reading selection.Thus, the teacher can embed language instruction inthe context of this and other approaches..

Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DR-TA)

The DR-TA is group activity that can be con-ducted with a variety of textual material. Its mainpurpose is to develop reading skill by guiding 8V:-dents to think about what they are reading. Accord-ing to Stauffer (1980), the instructional, proceduresenhance students' and teachers' active involvementwith the text: Students predict (set purposes, makehypotheses), read (process ideas), and prove (con-firm their purposes and hypotheses). Teachers leadstudents by asking questions that foster activethoughts (What do you think?), agitate thought (Whydo you think so?), and require evidence (Prove its).Thus, the students are encouraged to sample, pre-dict, and confirm the information they construct fora text. A drawback of this approach is that itrequires that students already have mastery of suf-ficient decoding skills and knowledge of the secondlanguag., alt'iwih they may use their first languagein discussilms.

21

0,

23

Experience-Text-Relfitionship (ETR) Method

An approach that has been found especially use-ful with minority students is the ETR Method (Au,1979). Very useful for developing prior know:edgeand dealing with cross-cultural schemata, the methodhas three simple steps: experience, text, and rela-tionship. In the experience step, the teacher leadsthe students to share their own experiences or priorknowledge related in any way to the story beingread. This is important because the students areusing expressive language related to the story andbecause the discussion provides context and motiva-tion for reading the story. In the text step, theteacher, directs the students to read segments of thetctt, being guided by specific pomprehensionquestions. In this step, the teacher may also needto correct any misunderstandings the students have.In the relationship step, the teacher leads studentsto relate the content in the story to their priorknowledge or outside experience. Hence, the stu-dents relate what they read to what they know.Main, this approach facilitates the role of priorknowledge in the reading process. It can be usedwith children and adults as a basic approach forteaching reading comprehension to minority students.

Pre-Reading Plan (PReP)

The PreP approach is another first languagereading paradigm that provides context for readingcontent as a means of tapping the prior knowledge ofthe reader (Langer, 1982).' Its three phases are (a)initial association with the-concept; (b) reflec-tions on initial associations:; and (c) reformulationof knowledge. Thus, students are required to con-struct much meaning before reading the text, thusbringing more schemata to the reading process. Thisapproach can be used for university-level ESL read-ing courses as well as for children already literatein English.

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23

Some Traditional ESL Reading Approaches

. Before proceeding to a discussion of languagedifferences and reading development, it would beuseful to mention some additional approaches com-monly discussed in the ESL literature.

Audio-lingual method. For decades the audio-lingual method has dominated the teaching of ESL.Heavily influenced by structural linguistics, thisapproach places primary emphasis on oral communica-tion (speaking and listening), with secondary empha-sis on written communication (writing and reading).But good audio-lingual programs must recognizereading as more than a reinforcement of oral lan-guage instruction, because reading is more complex;it is more than a mere extension of oral language,or talk written down (Saville-Troike, 1979). Asdiscussed earlier, reading, like listening, is acomplex psycholinguistic process in which readersuse their prior knowledge of the world and of lan-guage to uncover and construct meaning for a text.Furthermore, recent research suggests that totaloral proficiency is not required before beginningreading (K. Goodman & Y. Goodman, 1978), and thatreading can be used to increase English proficiency(Hudelson, 1984). Thus, a mere pattern practiceapproach to oral and written forms, especially outof context of the reading process, may limit thepotential for developing students' reading compre-hension. While this approach can be useful forreinforcing Specific language patterns, it does notteach meaningful functions of language and literacy.

Intensive reading and extensive reading. It iscommon practice in ESL reading classes to make adistinction between intensive and extensive readingactivities (Gaskill, 1979). Intensive readingrefers to the use of short reading selections thatare examined in depth during a given class period.Short selections are used for the direct teaching ofspecific reading skills (e.g., sequencing, getting

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the main idea, cause-and-effect) or language skills(e.g., syntax, vocabulary, phonology).

Extensive reading, on the other hand, involveslonger selections, which are usually read by thestudents on their own time after having been pre-pared by the teacher for reading the selection. Itis crucial for the teacher to provide. the appropri-ate context for comprehension in the initial stagesof comprehension instruction. While university stu-dents were found to improve their reading usingintensive and extensive reading or a combination,Laufer-Dvorkin (1981) found that, the intensivemethod produced more positive results. However,long-range effects of this and other teaching strat-egies need to be researched.

While many individual techniques for developingspecific aspects of reading will be discussed, thereading teacher will find that reading instructioninvolves a combination of techniques. Nevertheless,students must read for specific functional purposes.

While all of the paradigms and approaches sofar.discussed are useful for students of a varietyof'language proficiencies and reading abilities,teachers should be aware that other "common-sense"ideas are useful. Sometimes merely providing a con-text through a film, picture, or other experientialactivity will facilitate the comprehension of mater-ial. Nonetheless, both native and nonnative speak-ers alike would benefit from many of the techniquesthat facilitat41 language and conceptual growth inreading. For further reading on broad aspects ofESL reading curriculum and instruction, see Carrelland Eisterhold (1983), Carrell (1983a), Hudelson(1984), Crawford (1982), and Mackay, Berkman, andJordan (1979), as well as the many other sourceslisted in this volume's reference list.(pp. 87-113).

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LEXICAL DIFFERENCES AND READINGCOMPREHENSION

The purpose of this section is to explain howmeaning is'reflected in the lexicon of variouslanguages and how these. differences affect learningEnglish vocabulary. Before examining some cross-cultural aspects of vocabulary, it. is useful tounderstand the interrelationship of'schemata, con-text, and vocabulary knowledge (R.C. Anderson &Shifrin, 1980; R.C. Anderson & Freebody, 1979).Unlike traditional views of vocabulary, 'currentthinking converges on the fact that a given worddoes not always have a fixed meaning, rather avariety of meanings that interact with the contextand background knowledge of the reader, as in thefollowing sentences (R.C. Anderson & Shifrin, 1980):

The punter kicked the tall.The baby kicked the ball.The golfer kicked the ball. (p. 331)

A reader will construct different images for thewords ball and kink, because of world knowledge andthe presence of the subject noun phrase influencingthe interpretation of these words. What kind ofball do you visualize in each sentence? How iskicking the ball different in each of the sentences?Why? If readers do not have the backgroundexperiences associated with types of kicking andthings that can be kicked, then the comprehension ofthe lexical items and the sentences as a whole willbe impaired. Thus, knowledge of individual wordmeanings is strongly associated with conceptualknowledge (R.C. Anderson & Freebody, 1979).

Regarding cross-cultural vocabulary, it can beassumed'that the cross-cultural lexicon, like thecross-cultural schemata discussed in the last sec-tion, can influence reading comprehension. Severalexamples of how meaning is structured differently inthe lexicon of several languages will illustratethis. Slobin (1971) presents Gleason's (1961) com-parison of the color spectrum as reflected in the

25

3 `)

lexicon of English, Shona (spoken 'Rhodesia), andBassa (spoken in Liberia):

INGLMH

SHONA

IASSA

caps" uka therm cicena caps` Like

Figure 2.1. A visual comparison of the color-spectrum words in three. different languages.

Note. From An Introduction to Descriptive Linguis-tics (p. 4) by B.A. Gleason, 1961, New York: Holt,Rinehart and Winston. Copyright © 1955, 1961 byHolt, Rinehart and Winston. Reprinted by permissionof Holt, Rinehart and Winston, CBS CollegePublishing.

Speakers of the three languages classify thebasic colors in different ways. The Shona wordcipswuka corresponds to English purple, orange, andred; oitema corresponds roughly to blue andblue-green; cicena corresponds roughly to green andyellow. Bassa has two words, hui and aixa. Hui iscomparable to purple, blue, and green; sista, toyellow, orange, and red. Thus, Shona and Bessespeakers will need to resegment the semantic domainof color in learning the English lexicon, althoughthey can perceive the variations in the colorspectrum. Similarly, a French speaker will need todistinguish between the meanings of English cut andcarve, which are represented in French by couper(Macnamara, 1972). Cutting and carving involve dif-ferent manners of action and different objects. Onecannot carve hair, or fingers, or even a steak on a

26

plate; nor can one out a turkey, unless it is a toymade of wood. The phenomenon occurs in both direc-tions. English speakers, who have the word love intheir lexicon, will need to differentiate the dif-ferent kinds of love when learning Greek: eros,philia, and agape (erns = romantic, physical,sexual love; philia = friendship, companionship,brotherly/sisterly love; agape = long-lasting, eter-nal, spiritual love).

Another aspect of cross-cultiral vocabulary isthat words do not always have direct meaning equiva-lents in another language. Such is the case withthe English word dormitory, which is different inmeaning from the word dormitorio in Italian andSpanish (DiPietro, 1976). These differences areillustrated in Figure 2.2.

7NGUSH (large buildingwith many bedrooms)

DORMITORY - ---- ITALIAN (large roomwith many beds)

DORMITORIOSPANISH (bedroom).

Figure 2.2. The words dormitory and dormitorio havedifferent meanings in English, Italian, and Spanish.

This phenomenon may influence comprehension of asecond language if a reader and teacher are notaware of them.

The interrelationship of lexical knowledge,context, and cul oral knowledge also is stronglyuseful in comprehending figurative language (Ortony,1980). For example, the sentence:

The Indians are on the warpath

can be understood literally in the context ofdescribing a historical event on the Great Plains;but this sentence can also be interpreted figura-tively, when heard for example in the context of a

27

roomful of undisciplined children with a new baby-sitter or with a substitute teacher. Thus, contextfacilitates the comprehension of metaphors (Ortony,1980). This point is'important to understanding thesecond language reader's problems with culturallyspecific expressions in text. Saville-Troike (1979)provide,; some more interesting examples: "To shrugsomething off may puzzle a Chinese who has neverseen this gesture or to receive a nod may confuse aTurk for whom this is usually a sign of negation"(p. 28).

Cross-cultural differences in vocabulary arecertainly related to differences in culturalexperiences. While the Wborf-Sapir hypothesis can-not be discussed at any length here (see Slobin,1971; and Fishman, 1982), it is generally true thatstudents who come from a culture different from the,one represented in the content of the text may havea different vocabulary/experience inventory. Forexample, a Middle Eastern language such as Arabicwould naturally have a greater inventory of words todescribe a horse, a lion, a sword and, of course,different kinds of sand (Abdul-Karim, personal com-munication, March, 1983). Thus, these differencescan influence the comprehension of content in asecond language.

Another major aspect of cultural differences invocabulary knowledge lies in affective meaning.Words such as famous, ashamed, effeminate, sky, andsentimental have value judgments associated withthem. Thus, a speaker would say Churchill was afamous man but not Hitler was a famous man (Rich-ards, 1980). Similarly, second language readersneed to know when various synonyms can be used thatdiffer in connotation: He is old, You are middle-aged, I am mature (Saville-Troike, 1979). Muchresearch has been done on the semantic values thatvarious cultures give to lexical items (see Osgood,Suci, & Tannenbaum, 1957; Osgood, 1976; and Osgood,May, & Miron, 1975). In developing a cross-culturalatlas of affective meaning, Osgood and his asso-ciates were able to document how many differentcultures have similarities and differences in seman-tic values for lexical items. For example, Osgood

28

(1976) noted that the word adolescent in English andJapanese, although referring to the same period oflife, evokes different cultural values associatedwith the concept in the two languages.. Researczisneeded to investigate how differences in affectiOemeaning affect vocabulary development and readinginstruction in a second language.

To summarize, vocabulary does not exist in iso-lation, but in a dynamic relationship with thecultural experiences, background knowledge, and thecontext in which it occurs. Thus, reading teachersneed to internalize this assumption in planningvocabulary instruction for second language learners.(For more information on aspects of vocabularyknowledge as related to second language learning,see Richaris, 1980. Note: A brief discussion ofmorphological aspects of vocabulary will be includedin the section on morphology, pp. 51 -54.)

SEMANTICALLY BASED VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION

Vocabulary instruction in a first and secondlanguage has developed recently from a semanticperspective. Various methods of vocabulary develop-ment in a first language have been researched. byGipe (1979) to determine which methods best facili-tate the learning of word meanings by English-speaking elementary school children. Gipe comparedthe effectiveness of four methods: the associationmethod, which relates the unknown word with a fami-liar synonym or brief phrase definition; the cave-gory \method, which requires the learners to add to alist of words a word fitting a general category; thecontext method, using the target words in a shortparagraph Of meaningful sentences; and the tradi-tional dictioary method, in Which the students lookup the target vocabulary items in the dictionary,write the definitions and a sentence in which thenew word is used. Gipe found that children ingrades three and five, whether they were good orpoor readers, learned new lexical meanings best

29

using the context method, followed by the associa-tion method, while the least effective method wasthe dictionary method, except for good readers infifth grade. That the context method wet found tobe superior is not surprising, given the researchdiscussed earlier. There is a natural close linkbetween vocabulary knowledge, conceptual knowledge,and context. For it is in natural meaningful con!-texts that children first learn langauge. Grubaugh(1981) further found that an experignoe-baeed vocao-ulard method, which requires that students use self-selected words in personal anecdotes or stories andthen share them with peers, was found also to be astrong approach for developing vocabulary for middleschool English-speaking students. Grubaugh (1983)also recommends this strategy for adult educationclasses. To summarize, vocabulary learning can bestbe facilitated when words occur in context and whenstudents use the word in interaction with a realaudience. These methods would also be useful forESL students, who need to gain practice in using avariety of English context clues to word meanings inreading text. ESL students, however, will also needto add isolated words to their language repertoire.

In other recent research, the "keyword method"has been found to be useful (Atkinson, 1975; Press-ley, Levin, & Delaney; 1982: Levin, McCormick,Miller, Berry, & Pressley; 1982). With this method,the learner creates a "keyword" that sounds similarto an important part of the unknown word in thetarget language, and then links it to the foreignword's meaning through a visual or syntactic con-text. For example, in learning the Spanish word°arta, a postal letter, the student thinks of theEnglish word cart and visualizes a shopping cartwith a letter in it (Levin et al., 1982).

Several more recent meaningful vocabularymethods are found in the reading education litera-ture that are useful to first and second languageteaching. These include Semantic Associations,Semantic Mapping, and Semantic Feature Analysis(D.D. Johnson, 1983; D.D. Johnson & Pearson, 1984).Semantic Associations is a technique in which words,ideally related to.a story context or content area

30

lesson, are selected for students to brainstorm allthe words related to them. Using D.D. Johnson's(1983) examples, the words meat and chew can beselected from a reading selection on the digestionof food: Half the class brainstorms words relatedto meat (e.g., cook, taste, savor, bake, broil,hunt, tenderise, braise, slice); while the otherhalf brainstorms words related to chew (e.g., gum,pencils, caramels, "the fat," tread, apples). Theteacher then leads a crucial discussion of thevarious words, especially those that are new to anyof the class members. Words can then be classifiedin an organized way as concepts become related inindividual students' schemata. Thus, the teacher isnot only developing content knowledge, but is alsosystematically developing meaningful vocabulary incontext of a total network or schema of wordsrelated to a story. Thus, new knowledge is relatedto old knowledge and new words are-related toalready known words (see also the word associationtechnique of Marcus, 1977).

Semantic Mapping is another technique for de-veloping word meanings (D.D. Johnson, 1983; D.D.Johnson & Pearson, 1984). In this methodi theteacher selects a concept that is crucial to astory, such as Mardi gras. The students are againled to brainstorm all the words associated with thegiven word. After the related words/concepts areshared and categorized, the teacher and the studentscan draw a visual representation of the concept.This "map" can be a visual study aid for developingword knowledge as well as a framework for compre-hending a story. A simplified example of semanticmapping for concepts related to a story about Mardigras is presented in Figure 2.3.

This strategy can be successful if class dis-cussion is included. The technique can develop anetwork of word meanings. It can be used in boththe first and second language, so that the readerscan see the same conceptual relationships repre-sented in the lexicons of both languages.

/ The Semantic Feature Analysis relates thestudents' known information with new information andstresses the interrelationships of concepts and

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38

Significance Activities Krewes

Fat Tuesday Watch parades Bacchus

Ash Wednesday. Wear costumes Rex

Lent Drink beer Endymion

Salvation Attend balls

Eat King Cake,

MARDIGRAS

1

Argus

Diana

"Throws" Sounds Colors

Beads Music Purple

Cups Jazz Green

Doubloons Sirens Gold

Coconuts "Throw me

something, Mister"'Toys

Figure 2.3. A semantic map of Mardi gras in NewOrleans.

VI

their similarities and differences. Using a binarysystem, the teacher leads the students to discoverdistinctions between closely related words. Forexample, different' types of tools can be subdividedas in Figure 2.4 (D.D. Johnson, 1983).

32 ,

I,P

.39

11111111111-al.F

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

41111111111.1.11 IINTopic: Tools

.EL11631

Words Pounds Oita Grips Wood Cloth Dirt Handlehammersawscissors -pliers 4

hoe 0

Figure 2.4. Semantic feature analysis

Note. From Three Sound Strategies forDevelopment (p. 6) by D.D. Johnson, No.Occasional Papers, 1983, Lexington, MA:Company. Copyright 1983 by Ginn and(Xerox Corp.). Used with permission.

of tools.

Vocabulary3 of GinnGinn and

Company

Several steps are involved. A main category relatedto the story is chosen (e.g., tools) . Some of thewords within the category (hammer, saw, scissors,etc.) are listed in a column, while words repre-senting features are listed in a row (pounds, cuts,grips, etc.). Pluses or minuses a,:e then placed inthe matrix by the teacher and students to difitin-guish the words. In the discussion, additiorillwords and features can be added.to expand thematrix. 'The most crucial steps involve the dis-covery and discussion of the uniqueness of eachword meaning. The discussion can be one of theactivities used to prepare the students to read aselection.

Semantic feature analysis can be especiallyuseful to second language vocabulary learning inthat the meanings that are not contrasted in a firstlanguage canobe distinguished (e.g., agape, phili4&,epos; or out versus Carve). Further, regional con-cepts and vocabulary can be illustrated. Forexample, Grubaugh (1983) uses this method to illus-trate the difference between cajun and creole.Semantic feature analysis can also be useful in

33

4

helping language learners understand that some wordsare more distinct than others: Try brainstormingthe differences among types of thoroughfares (road,street, avenue, boulevcrd, interstate, freeway, tollroad, toll way, turnpike, expressway., etc.). Or tryto differentiate bodies of water (ocean, stream,trautard, bayou, swamp, marsh, canal, sea, lake,river, stc.). The discussion can become lively andcan be more stimulating and effective than justlearning words through looking up derinitions in adictionary or glossary. Thus, these semantic tech-niques presented by D.D. Johnson (1983) and D.D.Johnson and Pearson (1984)-are useful inAnterre-lating word knowledge with world knowledge in eithera first or second language.

As vocabulary development involves learning alarge set of linguistic and cultural knowledge(Richards, 1980), much more is involved in the areaof vocabulary teaching: Much vocabulary learningcan also be done in the context of other comprehen-sion methods discussed earlier (LEA, DR-TA, etc.).Through the interaction of the teacher, learners,and the context of a reading selection, word mean-ings can be acquired naturally. For more discussionon vocabulary teaching, see D.D. Johnson andPearson, 1984, and most ESL methods books. Vocabu-lary will be treated again later in the discussionof morphology.

DISCOURSE DIFFERENCES AND READING

While the previous sections examined factorswithin readers' minds (schemata, vocabulary knowl-edge), thn present section examines role of textstructure and discourse differencee .1 readingcomprehension, as well as sometpv.iacilles and prac-tices for facilitating the second ?.rant, ,age learner'scomprehension of text.. Discourse imalsis hasbecome a major part of the reading To:catcher'stools during the past decade, especially as thefields of linguistics and psycholinguistics have

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41.

4

moved away from sentence-level analyses to a morerealistic unit of analysis, the entire discourse.While research exists on.differences between oraland 'written discourse (see Tannen, 1982) and incross-cultural oral discourse strategies (seeMcClure, 1977; Chafe, 1980), the present focus is onaspects of written discourbe that affect readingcomprehension. However, similarities and differen-ces between oral and written language can influencereading (Schallert, Kleiman, & Rubin, 1977; Rubin,1980).

It is important for reading teachers to becomefamiliar with procedures and properties of textanalysis,for several reasons, according to Tierneyand'Mosenthal (1982, pp. 99-101):

1. TO examine and appreciate thedifferential responses of readers to text,features.

2. To examine and appreciate thetext demands placed upon readers

3. To examine and appreciate therelevance and plausibility of a reader'stext-based inferences.

4. Tu afford teachers and readersa metacognitive awareness of,text-demands.

5. To suggest instructional andtesting procedures ovellsistent with textdemands.

(See Tierney & Mosenthal4 1982, for a discussion ofeach of these principles and a survey of severalmethods of 'text analysis.) That text structure isrelated to.reading comprehension is an importantpoint to remember because "text represents a higherlevel of psychological structure or organizationthan le4g integrated verbal materials such ascollections of sentences or lists of words" '(Goetz &Armbruster, 1980202).

To what exten do cultural differences indiscourse affect learning to read a second language?This area of the reading jigsaw puzzle needs to bedeveloped in future research studies. Except for

35

studies on cross-cultural schemata (e.g., Steffen-sen, Joag-Dev, & R.C. Anderson, 1979), and on com-munication strategies and patterns in variouscultures (Chafe, 1980; Kachru, 1982; Kaplan, 1983;McClure, 1977), very little research has examinedthe effects of cultural variations in text structureon reading compreheneon.

To illustrate briefly the nature of cross-cul-tural influences on written language, it is usefulto examine the concept of contrastive rhetoric(Kaplan, 1966, 1976). A basic assumption of con-trastive rhetoric is that the thought patterns of agiven culture are interrelated with the rhetoricthat is used in written discourse. Thus, a non-native-English-speaking student learning to writeEnglish prose may be influenced by the rhetoricalpatterns of the native language. Similarly, readersnaturally expect discourse to be patterned accordingto the conventions of their own culture. A personreading a story written in the rhetorical traditionof another culture may have a tendency to transferthe discourse interpretation rules of the firstlanguage to the text in the second language. Thisphenomenon applies to writing as well. Kaplan(1966) provides some examples. Arabic speakerslearning to write English prose tend to include manyinstances of parallelism, which is common in Semiticlangtftges. Similarly, Oriental prose contains acircular rhetorical pattern, because topics aredeveloped indirectly through a discussion of tangen-tial views. Furthermore, Romance and Russian prosecontains long digressions. These differences inrhetorical thought patterns are illustratedgenerally in Kaplan's (1966) diagram (Figure 2.5).However, no claim is being made that these arerepresentative of all writers and all texts withineach cultural group.

Kaplan's representation of English as a linearsystem should not imply that English prose is nothierarchically strrctured. English expository prosecontains many interrelated segments (Hinds, 1979).Furthermore, narrat,ve prose is hierarchicallyorganized, as demorstrated by research on storygrammar (Stein & Glenn, 1978; Stein & Trabasso,

36

Bglish ilic

4-1.7

Oriental Romance' Russian

Figure 2.5.2.5. Schematic illustration of culturalthought patterns represented in prose.

Note. From "Cultural Thought Patterns in Intercul- /

tural Education" by Robert B. Kaplan, 1966, LanguageLearning, 16(2), p. 15. Copyright 0 1966 by

Research Club in Language Learning. Used with the

permission of the publisher and the author.

1981). Story grammar is an attempt to codify theinternal repreientatior. of a reader's or hearer's

hierarchical grammar for stories. In story grammar,

a story consists of categories, such as setting orevent, that structure episodes. Also included are

initiating events and internal and externalresponses, attempts, consequences, and resolutions,to name a few categories. The diagram in Figure 2.6

(Tierney 4 Mosenthal, 1982, p. 80) illustrates ,hierarchical model of a simple story.

AnotheL aspect of discourse is cohesion, whichis a property of text that exists by virtue of lan-guage devices that tie together related information.

Halliday and Hasan (1976) produced a model of cohe-sion in English consisting of a set of elaboratedevices that speakers and writers use to relate newinfotmation to previous (old) information:reference, substitution/ellipsis, lexical cohesion,

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Text

1. Dick lived on a farm in Vermont.2: One night he.heard a fox in the chicken coop.3. He knew he had to kill it.4. Dick got his rifle5. and went to the chicken coop.6. )4e surprised the fox with a chicken in its mouth.7. Dick shot the fox Where it stood.8. Dick buried the fox.

Figure 2.6. A story grammar analysis of a simplestory.

Note. From "Discourse Comprehension and Production:Analysing Text Structure and COhesion" by R. Tierneyand J. Nosenthal in Reader Meets Author/Bridging theGap, edited by J. Langer and M.T. Smith-Burke, 1982,Newark, DE: International Reading Association.Copyright 0 1982 by the ;international ReadingAssociation. Used with permission of the authorsand the International Reading Association.

38

and conjunction. An example of reference is per-sonal pronouns:

Peter, Rachel, and Joseph rode theirwagons down the sidewalk. Suddenly thegstopped as a bicycle sped across theirpaths.

Here, the personal pronouns relate information inthe second sentence' to the first sentence. Anexample of substitution occurs in the following'sentence:

Rachel enjoys her. Montessori school.So dote Peter.

So does substitutes for the predicate in the firstsentence. A related feature of cohesion is ellip-sis, which is basically a deletion of a phrase orword, whose meaning is assumed. For example,

Rachel was planning to walk to. the park.Peter and Joseph were, too.

Here, thA entire phrase (planning to walk to thepark) was deleted in the second sentence; themeaning is assumed because of the conventions ofcohesion.

Conjunction is another frequently used conven-tion of cohesion. Ideas are related to a text bycertein words (and, but, or, nor, however, because,then, furthermore, etc.). Such words indicatevarious semantic relations in.the text, such ascause-and-effect, time sequence, addition, compari-son, or contrast.

A fourth type of cohesion is lexical'cohesion.In a discourse, a given word can be used to relateto a similar concept:

Abraham Lincoln was truly a public servant.The sixteenth president signed the EmancipationProclamation,

This area of cohesion interacts very closely with

39

prior knowledge. A reader needs not only to knowthe meaning of a lexical item, but also to know howwords and concepts relate in his or her schemata.(See. previous section on vocabulary.)

Related to cohesion is coherence. Coherence isthe property of text in which the ideas are unified,making a text comprehensible to a reader. However,there is disagreement in the literature as to therole of cohesion in the coherence of text (seeCarrell, 1982; Tierney & Mosenthal, 1981).

Understanding cohesion is an important part ofa reading teacher's professional knowledge (Irwin,in press). The teacher can do much*to assist stu-dents in recognizing how the ideas in a text are,unified. This knowledge is extremely important forsecond language readers' comprehension, at cohesivedevices affect their information-gathering skills(Mackay, 1979). (For additional discussion ofdiscourse properties and reading comprehension, seeTierney & Mosenthal, 1982).

A most relevant question to ask is: Do differ-ences in the structure of text affect the comprehen-sion of readers from various cultures? .Cross-cultural differences in comprehension are suggestedin examining differences in story grammar structureacross languages. For example, Matsuyama (1983)claimed that-story grammar based on Western. cultureis not useful for describing stories in Japaneseculture because many Japanese stories Lack goalstructures for the main characters. Kintsch andGreene (1978) found that American university stu-dents recalled information from Western culture(e.g., Brothers Grimm fairy tales) better than fromIndian folk tales. Howeverl Handler, Scribner,Cole, and DeForest (1980) found that Liberiin andAmerican students performed similarly in recallinginformation from Liberian stories, heard in theirown language. They argued that many story struc-tures are universal across languages and cultures.Yet Carrell (1984a) found that the sequencing ofevents in stories affected the reading comprehensionof intermediate second language learners.

Cross-cultural differences in expository texthave also been investigated. Carrell (1984b)

40

reported an experiment in which the rhetoricalorganization of text affected the recall of nativeSpanish, Arabic, and Oriental readers in an inten-sive English program for foreign university stur.dents. Some variation in rhetorical devices wasfound to influence the ideas recalled by various ESLreadersp_there also appear to be different effectsof different discourse types on the quantity ofideas included in free written recall, depending onthe specific native language of the ESL reader.However, Connor (1984) foUnd'no significant differ-ence among three language groups (English, Japanese,and Spanish) in recall of high-level ideas in text,although the native English readers outperformed thenonnative English readers in total recall (see alsoConnor & McCagg, 1983). As there appear to be somecontradictory findings of various studies on cross-cultural discourse comprehension, this new area isopen to further investigation.

STRATEGIES FOR TEACHING DISCOURSE COMPREHENSION

Although research is still needed on cross -cultural comprehension, several activities can helpteachers facilitate discourse-level comprehension.Again, it is important to use natural texts forinstruction, since much awareness of language structures is a result of reading exposure.

41,Many of the techniques discussed earlier are

valuable for facilitating discourse awareness,especially as teachers direct students' readingthrough a text. The LEA, in which students dictatean experience-based story, can be useful. Theteacher can lead students to discover alternatediscourse patterns for their dictated drafts.Through questioning, the teacher can lead studentsto develop their prose by incorporating varioustypes of cohesion devices, for example.

The DR-TA is another basic comprehension tech-nique. Through reading a story, directed b./ theteacher, the students become more proficient at

41

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using strategies that predict, confirm, and rejectinformation in a text. The teacher can draw thestudents' attention to various elements of discourse(cohesion, story structure, causal relations, etc.).

Similarly, the ETA method and the PReP method can beadopted to incorporate discourse awareness. Withthe ECOLA technique, students can also developdiscourse awareness as they write about the contentthey are reading (see Kaplan, 1966, for some strate-gies for teaching English rhetorical patterns).

In addition to these basic. approaches to read-ing, other approaches deal 'With discourse structure.For example, the classic approach paraphrases andsummarizes a passage where specific discourse rela-tions are preserved (e.g., the relations of mainideas to detaile; the natural sequencing of events;various cause-and-effect relations). In fact, many ofthe relations can be represented by a visual model(Pearson & D.D. Johnson, 1978, pp. 94-95). To rep-resent the relationship of details to main idea, avariety of diagrams can be used. For example, Pear-son and D.D. Johnson (1978) suggest a hub with spokesor an inverted tree diagram (Figs. 2.7 and 2.8).

Figure 2.7. A hub and the spokes that keep it offthe ground.

Note. From Teaching Reading Comprehension (p. 94)by P.D. Pearson and D.D. Johnson, 1978, New York:Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. Copyright 0 1978by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Reprinted by permis-sion of CBS College Publishing.

42

Detail I Detail 2 Detail 3 Detail 4

Figure 2.8. An inverted tree, to emphasize the factthat details, are logically subordinate to mainideas.

Note. From Teaching Reading Compreheneion (p. 95)by P.D. Pearson and D.D. Johnson, 1978, New York:Holt, Rinehart and Winstol, Inc. Copyright 1978by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Reprinted by permis-sion of CBS College Publishing.

Similarly, diagrams can include time lines for rep-resenting a sequence of events or chain diagrams forrepresenting cause-and-effect relationships.

Visual diagrams can serve as useful alterna-tives to the traditional outlining approach. T.H.Anderson (1978) noted that, although outlining en-ables students to detect which ideas are subordinateto others, outlines do not show why or how ideas arerelated. T.H. Anderson argues that "mapping" is abettez alternative to studying the content of text.With mapping, iueas are visually diagrammed in termsof segmented boxei and lines specifying the semanticrelationships within a text; the shape of the maprepresents the organization patterns of ideas. Alist of the specific conventions of mapping differ=ent text relationships is presented in Figure 2.9\(Tierney & Hosenthal, 1982, pp. 95-96).

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Figure 2.0., Summary of mapping relationships and symbols.

1. Concept and ExamplesA is an instance of B

Example: A common type of setter is theIrish setter.

2. Concept and PropertiesA is a property B

Example: Canaries are yellow.

3. Concept and DefinitionA defines (restates, clarifies) B

Example: Anthropology is the scientificstudy of human culture.

.1. Temporal RelationshipA occurs before B

B

A

SetterIrish

A

canariesyellow

anthropologyDef: scientificstudy of human

culture

A B

Example: Nixon resigned shortly before the Bicentennial celebration.

FNixon resigned

5. Causal RelationshipA causes B

Bicentennial celebration

A ur BExample: Excessive exposure to the sun causes sunburn.

Lexcessive exposure to sun I

5144

L.... .... .... .....

sunburn

6. EnablementA enables B

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A

7. Conditional RelationshipA is a condition of a B is a condition of b

14.1B

8. Relationship olComparison(a) A is similar to B

A

A *--.`"" B

Example: In most respects, Illinois and Ohio are very similar.

Illinois

(b) A is not similar to B A 4 BExample: The Soviet economic system is quite different from the

American system.

Soviet economicsystem

(c) A is greater than BA is leu than B

American economicsystem

A > B

A < B

Example: A liter is slightly more than 'quart.

liter quart

Note. From "Discourse Comprehension and Production:Analyzing Text Structure and Cohesion" by R. Tierneyand J. Mosenthal in Reader Meets Author/dridging theGap: A Peoholinguiatic ana Sociainguietio Per-epectiye, pp. 95-96, edited by J. Langer and M.Smith-Burke, 1982, Newark, DE: International Re din-10K

Association. Copyright 0 1982 by the InternationalReading Association. Used with permission of theauthors and the International Reading Association. 52

While most of these techniques have been usedwith native speakers of English, many are useful infacilitating the discourse comprehension of secondlanguage readers. Since these techniques help read-ers to be concerned with higher-level organizationof text, which is crucial to reading academic mater-ial, they can help second language readers who arebound to word-level and sentence-level reading.

In dealing with discourse, additional strate-gies are used in the'ESL field. _'or reading aca- ,

demic discoAirse, advanced-level ESL readers can beled to divide a text into bisic notional blocks andplace them into a hierarchical arrangement. Afterthe students are prepaie4to read a text, a samplereading exercise consists of several steps. First,the students read the text or portion of text.Next, the students answer oral or written questionsthat help them focus on content and rhetoricalaspects of the text. Students' then divide the textinto blocs, summarize each bloc with a key phrase,and rearrange the blocs into a hierarchical struc-ture. Teachers should lead a discussion to guidethe students in developing their schemata for con-tent and form (Blanton, 1984).

In addition, for a variety of age and profi-ciency levels, a reading teacher may 'select textswhose discourse structure (as well as content, syn-tax, etc.) are more familiar to the students. Textscan also be unmodified, modified, or specially writ-ten to meet the proficiency levels of the secondlanguage reader (Mackay & Mountford, 1979). Like-wise, intensive and extensive reading, with appro-priate questioning, can' facilitate the ESL students'reading (Munby, 1979). The area of discourse com-prehension research andlinstruction is rapidlyexpanding in the reading field and in the ESL field.Much needs to be explored in terms of the researchand development of discourse strategies for non-native speakers.

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5,1

SYNTAX AND READING DEVELOPMENT

Recent research on linguistics and reading hasexamined units beyond the level of the sentence.However, in'the 19608 and 1970s, syntactic movementsin linguistic theory had parallel influences onreading research (Barnitz, 1975). Much of theresearch on sYntactic aspects of reading caa begrouped into four major categorlies (Barnitz, 1981).

Many studies demonstrated syntactic effectscomparing children's oral langmage patterns withsyntactic patterns occurring in beginning readingtexts. Strickland (1962), Rud4ell (1965), andTatham (1970) found that the closer the match be-tween the syntactic patterns of children's languageand the text, the higher the students scored onreading achievement tests. Likewise, children withgood comprehension tended to display more syntacticvariety and more syntactic complexity in orallanguage. This finding stands to reason as CarolChomsky (1972) correlated reading exposure withchildren's orpl syntactic development. Mostrecently, Eckhoff (1983) demonstrated that the syn-tactic patterns found in children's writing wereinfluenced by the syntactic structure of beginningreading series. These studies dooument the inter-relationship of syntactic development and profi-ciency in the language arts (see also Loban, 1976;Weaver, 1979).

The second set of studies examined the role ofsyntactic patterns in oral reading. Beaver (1968)and K.S. Goodman (1973) reported that children madetransformational shifts in their oral reading.Children made deletions, insertions, permutations,and soi on, which Are naturally expected when readersindeed process meaning. Such influences had littleaffect on meaning. Likewise, K.S. Goodman (1965)found that children, when reading orally, read wordsbetter in sentences than in word lists. Thisfinding illustrates the role of syntax and contextin word recognition.

Many studies examined the role of syntax inwritten language processing, involving the eye-voice

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r0 11

tit

span and eye movements. Schlesinger (1968) demon-strated that, for Hebrew speakers, the eye-voicespan (the syntactic distance between the oral utter-ance and the position of the eye) is affected by theconstituent boundaries. Levin and Kiplan (1968)found that the passive transformation and leftbranching also affected the eye-voice span. Simi-larly, Wanat (1971) found that syntactic processesare related to adult readers' regressive fixationsand regressions (see Gibson & Levin, 1975,sior morediscussion).

Finally, the most common approach used to'in-vestigate syntactic aspects of reading is to conduct',osvtholinguistic experiments on de:tactic complexityand comprehension, embedding specific target struc-tures within discourse, and asking children ques-tions based on the content of the target structures.Using this paradigm, for example, aspects of pronounrmferent structures were 'found to affect the dif-ficulty of material (Barnitz, 1979k 1980c; Richek,1977). However, research has also shown that syn-tactic effects may be overriden by the semantic con-tent of the material (Bernitz & Morgan, 1983;Lesgold, 1974; Pearson, 1975). This finding shouldnot be surprising because many levels of languageand schemata influence comprehension.

While syntax may not always have a strong ef-,fact on reading a first language, it is quite natu-ral to expect a greater potential for effects ofsyntactic differences on reading a second language,especially as syntax affects perceptual strategiesof listeners and readers (Bever, 1970; Cowan, 1976).This point can easily be illustrated by the follow-ing sentence (Hook, 1972):

yabanaumawildijigummaha'nigi

yam several people movebanauma = everybodywil across

diji = to the Westgumma - indeedhal = let usnigi NB we

47

This'sentence from the Yana Indian language innorthern California can be translated into English:"Let us each move to the West." If the gramar ofthe native speaker learning to read a second lan-guage is different from that of the target language,the reader may have difficulty predicting and inte-grating the semantic toles of the words/morphemes inthe sentence. Thus, contrastive analyses of syntaxmay be useful in anticipating possible points ofdifficulty (Cowan,.1976; Brownscombe, 1977). Forexample, in learning to read English, Hindi speakersmay expect to find a deleted noun rather than a pro-nominalized noun phrase in a text. Similarly,Persian speaLars, when reading relative clauses, mayexpect to find a subordinate marker at.the beginningof the clause with the antecedent elsewhere in theclause, unlike English. Thus, the referential func-tion of English relative pronouns could be miscon-strued. Nilagupta (1977) found that certainsyntactic structures in English were difficult fornative Thai college students to read. These,included negation, passivization, embedding, dele-tion, and nominalization. In addition, as Thaiadjectives follow the nouns they modify, Englishadjectives are frequently interpreted as verbs byThai readers of English. Although syntactic dif-ferences influence second Language reading, sec -ndlanguage readers will not always have difficulty(Brownscombe, 1977). Likewise, Flores (1982) docu-mented language differences as influencing ratherthan interfering with reading. Processing syntax infirst and second languages involves more than thesyntax itself; it involves the other linguistic andcognitive factors as well (schemata, context, lexi-cal knowledge, etc.) Thus, a difficult sentencemight very well be understood from context.

DEVELOPING SYNTACTIC ASPECTS OF READING

Keeping in mind the potential for processingdifficulties posed by nonnative syntactic struc-

48

tures, several principles and strategies can helpteachers facilitate the reading of syntacticallydifficult material. Any exercises or activitiesfocusing on specific pieces of language, such assyntax', should be related to the. total passage.Exercises isolated from reading for meaning shouldbe avoided, because isolating aspects of languageand reading destroys the integration of skills inthe interactive reading process. However, a shortdemonstration related to a difficult structure in apassage can be helpful to a confused reader. Thus,teachers need to become aware of the syntactic anddiscourse structures of the reading selections,being prepared to assist any readers who need helpwith a given structure.

Another principle to keep in mind is that thediscovery of syntactic structure and syntacticmeaning is best accomplished through an inductiveapproach, for rending is something that students do(Eskey, 1970). Wilson (1973) noted, furthermore,that teachers should guide students to generalizehow sentences convey meaning by first reviewing aknown pattern and then presenting a new patternrelated to it.

Several specific approaches are useful infacilitating syntactic comprehension. These wereclassified by Barnitz (1979) into five categories:paraphrase techniques, cloze techniques, manipula-tion of text, sentence building and combining, andquestioning. These teaching strategies can berelated to specific reading selections and can beused to supplement, but not replace, more holisticstrategies such as LEA, DR-TA, and so on. Again,isolated drills out of context of reading wholetexts should be discouraged.

Paraphrase techniques generally require learn-ers to either restate the propositional content ofthe target sentences or to identify paraphrases ofsentences with bimilar meaning (see Pearson & D.D.Johnson, 1978).

The cloze procedure has been traditionally usedas a technique for determining readability, wherebystudents supply words that have been deleted (seeTaylor, 1953; Bormuth, 1968). The progedure has

49

c.

also been refined to measure various aspects ofreading ability (e.g., Casbergue, 1984; De Santi,1982; Sullivan, 1983) and of ESL proficiency (seeClarke & Burdeli, 1977, and Oiler, 1979). The tech-nique has also been recommended for teachingsentence-level comprehension in a first language(Pearson & D.D. Johnson, 1978) and in a secondlanguage (Norris, 1970).

Manipulation of a text is another way teacherscan facilitate comprehension of difficult syntax.For example, Nilagupta (19/7) recommends simplifiedtexts with controlled syntax and vocabulary to beused with college -level Thai ESL students. A textcan be manipulated in at least two ways: (a) changethe format of difficult complex sentences to illus-trate phrase boundaries or embeddinga; and (b)rewrite parts of a story so that the difficult sen-tences are rewritten (see also Mason & Kendall,1978).

Sentence building and sentence combining activ-ities are also useful. In sentence building (orsentence expansion), a simple sentence is presented(such as The girl jumped), and the teacher induc-tively leads the students to expand the sentence(e.g., The young girl in the park jumped joyfuttyinto the sandbox; Fennimore, 1980).

Likewise, sentence combining (O'Hare, 1973;Combs, 1977) allows students to become sensitive totransformational processes. For example, the stu-dents learn how to embed sentences in Engl.:18h, alongwith the various constraints involved in embedding.Likewise, students can decombine complex writtentext to discover the syntactic processes of English.Sentence building and sentence combining activitiescan also be used in conjunction with the LEA byhaving students expand the sentences in their dic-tated stories.

Questioning is a basic technique for facilita-ting learning and reading comprehension. Questionscan be developed at the literal and inferentiallevel to help students focus on specific aspects ofsyntax within a text. A teacher can then guide thestudents tc comprehend a particular syntactic pat-tern within a text. Thus, syntactic instruction can

50

be incorporated within other approaches to teachingreading, such as the DR-TA.

In addition to the approaches outlined byBarnitz (1979), Onativia and Donoso (1977) recommenda "bilingual method" for facilitating syntacticlearning, in which picture cards and word cards inEnglish and the native language are juxtaposed toillustrate similarities and differences in the syn-tactic ways that the two languages convey meaning.Similarly, teachers can use commercial games forsyntactic reading (e.g., Sentence, Cubes). For moreadvanced-level readers, intensive reading study is avaluable context for analyzing syntactic aspects oftext (Berman, 1979). In this approach, reading formeaning is maintained, while at the same time thestudents.develop their syntactic knowledge. How-ever, regardless of the approach that is used,syntax should be examined as it relates to meaningrather than treated as a formal object in itself.(For more discussion on the role of grammar in lan-guage arts instruction, see Weaver, 1979.)

MORPHOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES AND READINGDEVELOPMENT.

Morphemes are the individual word parts thatcontribute to the meaning of words. Morphology isthe area of language that has traditionally formed amajor part of learning to read a first and secondlanguage. In reading curricula this area is fre-quently labeled etrioturat analysis, and it isfrequently included in the vocabulary component ofreading instruction. Thus, the study of roots, pre-fixes, and suffixes of a language has been a major'aspect of reading instruction, sometimes to theexclusion of higher-level comprehension instructionand more schematic aspects of vocabulary, discussedearlier.

Nonetheless, the morphology of the English lan-guage does contain some stumbling blocks for non-native speakers, especially if the native language

51

has a system that is quite different. Research hastraditionally demonstrated that the acquisition ofEnglish morphemes is generally the same regardlessof the native language (Dulay & BUrtf 1974; Bailey,Madden, & Krashen, 1974; Larsen-Freeman, 1975). Inthese studies, most of. the nonnative speakers ofEnglish already had a conceptualization of mor-phemes. For example, since many Western. languageshave prefixes and suffixes, these concepts arealready part of the"perceptual-strategies" (Bever,1970) of_many second-language learners of English.However, when second-language learners speak a non-Western native language that does not have morphemessuch as prefixes and suffixes, the concept of suchmorphemes can be more problematic (Greene, 1981,1983).

When contrasting the morphology of two lan-guages, is there a "morpheme conceptualizationbarrier"? Greene (1981,.1983) investigated thisphenomenon, especially to determine whether there isa hierarchy of difficulty for morpheme structures inadolescent and adult native Vietnamese speakers'reading.

As noted earlier, second language researchgenerally supports the claim that second language'learners of English tend to learn English morphemestructures in the same order, regardless of thenature of the first language. For this reason, acontrastive analysis of morphology will not neces-sarily be useful in predicting the errors of secondlanguage learners. Greene (1981, 1983) noted thatprevious studies on morpheme acquisition predomi-nantly examined inflected languages. It is naturalto expect that readers whose first language hasinflectional morphology to already have a schema forprocessing inflections as part of the English read-ing process. So Greene developed a reading compre-hension study, using modified cloze passages, inwhich specific morphemes were deleted. She pre-sented the passages to native speakers of Vietnam-ese, a language that does not generally inflect forplurals, tense, or aspect (see Grognet et al.,1977). Greene found a statistically significantdifferent hierarchy of difficulty for Vietnamese

52

ffU

speakers, when compared with the results in otherstudies. Most interestingly, a subset of Greene'sVietnamese sample was also bilingual, having French,an inflected language, as a second lannuage. Thesesubjects, having already_developed perceptual stra-tegies for inflectional processing in reading,mastered English inflectional morphology in a simi-lar order to nther learners who spoke inflected lan-guages before learning English. Thus, morphemeconceptualization can influence reading and learninga second language. Greene (1983) implies thatalthough Asian readers may read for comprehension,their comprehension may be further refined as theyovercome the barrier of inflectional morpheme con-ceptualization.

It is relevant to mention hero that researchhas already shown that morpheme differences betweenstandard and nonstandard dialects may also have aninfluence on the reading of nonstandard dialect-speaking students (Labov, 1970; Steffensen,Reynolds, McClure, & Guthrie, 1981). However,dialect speakers often rely on other clues in apassage for comprehension, although they may orallyread in their dialect, as noted by Sims (1982).(See Barnitz, 1980a and 1982b, for additionalreviews on dialects and reading.)

Keeping in mind that many speakers will need alinguistic awareness of English morpheme structureand that reading morphemes is only a part of thetotal reading process, what general strategies areavailable for developing morpheme acquisition inreading?

Generally speaking, structural analysis in-volves several components: prefixes, suffixes,roots, and compound words. According to Johnson andPearson (1984), a very useful strategy for develop-ing structural analysis ability is word building orword extending. Throughout many activities, stu-dents need to have many natural contexts withinwhich to build, extend, and manipulate morphemes.

In teaching word formation to ESL learners,Celce-Murcia and Rosensweig (1979) suggest selectingitems from more common suffixes and prefixes and as)students to find example words in which these forms

53

are used. Likewise, students can be asked to changefunctions of words by adding or subttacting basicprefixes and suffixes.

For example:to agree

to punishto argue

an agreement

(Celce-Murcia & Rosenaweig, 1979, p. 254)

As students gain more confidence with these andother aspects of morphology (e.g., Greek and Latinroots), they can be encouraged to guess meanings ofwords in context. They can be guided to do thiswithin various major reading approaches, such as theDR-TA or intensive and extensive reading, discussedearlier.

The cloze prodedure (or modified cloze pas-sages) can also be useful in guiding students to

. become aware of crucial word parts in context.Within a reading selection, the target suffixes canbe omitted and the ESL students can be led to putthe appropriate endings on words. This techniquecan be useful:for ESL students whose first languagedoes not have inflectional morphology.'

Likewise, teachers can disguise the traditionallist of Latin and Greek prefixes and suffixes. Theuse of games, crossword puzzles, and other means canfacilitate and motivate the acquisition of mor-phemes. Furthermore, students will learn morphologyby using it involving the students in writing andspeaking activities can facilitate language learn-ing. However, no matter what methods are. Used, thestudents should have instruction in morphology thatis related directly to reading selections. Over-isolating individual parts of language can destroythe connection the students will make between themorphemes and the meaningful reading process.

4

54

PHONOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES, ORTHOGRAPHIES,AND READING

The smallest minimal cue to meaningful readingof a first and second language is the phonologicalsystem (sound system), which is related to theorthographic system (writing system) of a language.In learning to read any Language, students need tomaster the relationship between the auditory andvisual cues to meaning. Yet, as students becomemore proficient in using higher-level cues, thephonographemic aspects of reading become far lessimportant. However, in learning to read a secondlanguage, the students may find some stumblingblocks because of either phonological or orthograph-ic influences.

Phonological differences can affect the audi-tory associations between sounds and symbols, aswell as auditory discrimination (Geissal & Knafle,1977; Hatch, 1971; Hatch, 1979). For example, Hatch(1971) (as described in Hatch, 1974) found thatSpanish-speaking children in fourth-grade Englishclasses misread (i.e., misunderstood) the word catas cot in multiple-choice tasks because there is nohe/ sound in Spanish. Similarly, as no phonologicaldistinction is made between the middle sounds of fitand feet or grin and green, the Spanish childrenmisunderstood the meanings of the 'words. This prob-lem is especially likely whenever a contrast is madein the target language that is not in the nativelanguage. Additional examples from various lan-guages include the lack of contrast between /1/ and/r/, as in Japanese and Bantu languages (Serpell,1168), producing homonym pairs such as tight/rIghtcloud/crowd, Zip/rip (Hatch, 1974). However, thephonological differences will not always cause thesecond language reader to stumble, especially if heor she is able to use context to assign meaningrather than auditory discrimination, similar to theway native speakers distinguish Knight/night, meat/meet or reign/rain. Thus. phonological differencesdo not always hinder the construction of meaning.

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In addition to the potential influence of audi-tory differences, there is a potential for writingsystem differences to be involved in learning toread. There is some evidence that a contrastiveanalysis of writing systems explains many second-language spelling errors (Oiler & Ziahosseiny,1970). A brief discussion of orthographies is rel-evant to second language reading teachers (seeBarnitz, 1978, 1982a; Kavanagh 4 Venezky, 1980;Gleitman & Rozin, 1977; I. Taylor & M.M. Taylor,1983, for fuller discussions).

Writing systems can generally be classifiedaccording to the type of relationship to languages.Traditionally, writing systems can represent meaningand/or various levels of the phonological system oflanguage. A writing system in which the symbolcorresponds to meaning is a logographic System.Chinese is often cited as a good example of thistype of system. Much of the Chinese system involvesa combination of logographic symbols, one giving aclue to pronunciation (phonetic), the other giving aclue to meaning (signific), as illustrated in Figure2.10 (Barnitz, 1978; Cowan, personal communication,June, 1976).

Other types of writing systems are related moredirectly to the sound system of language. Orthog-raphies that represent syllables are called sylla-baries, as in Cherokee and Japanese. In fact, theJapanese language has a combination of scripts, thesyllabic kana script and the logographic kanjscript. Some research has indicated that both ofthese scripts are processed differently (Steinberg tYamada, 1979a, 1979bi Tzeng & Singer, 1979). Fur-thermore, Makita (1968) suggested that reading disa-bility is relatively minimal in Japan because of thedirect correspondence of symbols and syllables.However, nonlinguistic factors may have contributedto this finding.

. The writing system most frequently used inmodern languages is the alphabet, in which thescripts generally relate to the phonemic system of alanguage. Examples include the scripts used inHindi, Russian, Arabic, Greek, Cambodian, and Viet-namese. The most frequently used alphabet is the

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$IGNIFIC PHONETIC CHARACTER

/14./

464' Rend'

il/.014/

ta'carry'

......418e (it/ MO/./.°7/040/ N

'fire' 'Package' ' f I recracker'

'it ti,/folly

//O%W/

'water' 'bubble'

Figure 2.10. An illustration of Chinese writing.

Note. From Interrelationship of Orthography andPhonological Structure in Learning to Read(Technical Report No. 57) (p. 5) by J. Barnitz,1978, Champaign, Ilst University of Illinois, Centerfor the Study of Reading. Copyright 0 1978 byCenter for the Study of Reading. Used with per-mission of the author and the Center for the Studyof Reading. The author is also grateful to JRonayne Cowan f$r this figure.

Roman .alphabet, which spread both to countrieswithout written traditions and to lands with othersystems. A spread of a writing system was oftenmotivated by the evangelization of native populationsby Christian missionaries or through colonization(see Stubb, 1980). For example, French andPortuguese missionaries brought the Roman alphabet

57

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

Cambodian:

ratriataleritiar taStswry retgal)gpvg

ortile sniliamornefisppPiheOrowska4er124111010Mts y teiterv, to /0/ rye

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Laotian:

IrlsragalatalaillmomMbinwilleINIM EN1111Paallron161110;01

evriattlitstenSID. rmatasitomvusiscirmairdentiso seedwougi

tillinsagg asimitUraullanontlibuir. us &i wswc r

semiballiCrigRairlialt110;118111:1111111b111191101.

ilibielieWtrittia1141114/1111111An 1314111111116511116101A114

iaLi)artaali.0601:11 bank Iteuerhhatuturisiv. tassige+.1

Figure 2.11. Examples of Cambodian and Laotianscript.

Note. From A Manual for Indochinese Refugee Educa-tion 1976-77 (pp. 75, 76) by A.G. Grognet et al.,1977, Arlington, VA: National Indochinese Clearing-house, Center for Applied Linguistics. Copyright 01977 by the Center for Applied Linguistics.Reprinted by permission.

58

ti

to the Vietnamese in the'16th century, the lettersof which do not always share the same Rhonemicvalues as in English. Also, the alphabets ofCambodians and Laotians evolveatfrom the alphabetused for Sanskrit (Grognet et al., 1977). Thesedevelopments illustrate cultural influences on writ-ten language.

The Roman alphabet does not correspond tovarious languages in the same way. Chao (1968)noted that some languages have a near one-to-onephoneme-grapheme fit (Spanish); some have a one-to-many phoneme-grapheme fit (French); while Englishhas a many-to-many

phoneme-grapheme system. Thedetailed discussion that English orthography. de-serves cannot be provided here (see Venezky, 1967;Chomsky, 1970; Barnitz, 1978; and various issues of

v.Spelling Progress Quarterly). However, readingteachers should be aware of the fact that Englishorthography has various degrees of relationships tothe sound system of language. In many cases, a sym-bol corresponds directly to a sound (the consonantsin diplomat); but in certain cases a sound is sub-ject t.,1 various phonological processes: Note thatthe t in writer is frequently' pronounced as /d/ instandard American English because of its positionbetween two vowels, making it almost homophonous torider for nonnative speakers, although there is aphonetic difference in vowel length. Moreover, muchof English orthography involves a deeper meaning-based relationship to the language. Thus, althoughthe spellings of malign, sign, and crumb have silentconsonants, their presence is important in pre-serving the relationship of these words to otherwords in 4 paradigm (malignant, signal, crumble);likewise, precede/precedent, compose/composition).Thus, many surface irregularities have a purpose inpreserving the visual relationship of many roots andthe words derived from them. If readers are awareof this phenomenon, then reading is facilitated(Chomsky, 1970). However, many of the true irregu-larities of English orthography are the result ofcultural and historical influences (see Barnitz,

59

1980b), which may not always facilitate learning toread by first or second language learners.

DEVELOPING AWARENESS OF ORTHOGRAPHY

Reading teachers of nonnative speakers of Eng-lish need to be aware of some basic problems thatstudents may have initially.

If students are literate in. their native lan-guage, then they will already have a workingknowledge of how a writing system works. Ifthesystem is an alphabet, then the students alreadyhave an awareness that the new writing dystem willfunction in similar ways. However4 the fact thatthe native language 'uses a Romad alphabet does notimply that the students will easily grasp everyaspect of English orthography. 'In the native lan-guage there may be a different type of relationshipbetween a specific symbol and sound, ranging from ahighly clone fit between phonemes and graphemes, asin Spanish or Tinnish, to a more abstract rela-tionship. Much of English orthography is related toa deeper morphological level of language (Chomsky,1970).

Likewise, many English symbols may representdifferent sounds to the nonnative speaker. As notedby Grognet et al. (1977), the Vietnamese letter x,inwords such as xinh, mu, and xe is much closer to anEnglish a or st "sin," "soo," and "say." Further-more, the native writing system, though using aRoman alphabet, may' have a different diacriticalmarking system. Again using Vietnamese as anexample, Vietnamese, a tone language in which thepitch of a syllable or word can make a difference inmeaning, would mark ma differently. In Vietnamese,Ma means "ghost"; ma means "cheek" or "mom"; ma isthe pronoun "which".or "that"; ma is a "grave"; mameans "horse"; ma is "rice seedling" (Grognet etal., 1977).

For any nonnative speaker, it is ,important torealize that the nonnative reader of English will

60

usually assign the phoneme of the native language tothe English grapheme. Thus, for example, a Viet-namese may be prompted to pronounce an x as an 8.The use of context clues is most crucial to readingfor meaning. Nonetheless, the ESL reading teachermust help the nonnative English reader to understandthe systematic differences between the first andsecond language alphabets as related to sounds.Students who are literate in alphabetic languagesthat do not use a Roman system need to learn theentire English system from the beginning, althoughthey will not have the problem of learning new pho-nemic associations for Roman symbols.

If the ESL reader is literate in a logographicsystem, such as Chinese, the teacher needs to leadthe student to discover the major differences be-tween an alphabet and logographic system. Perhapsthrough*a lexical or whole-word approach that asso-ciates root words with derived words the Chinesestudent can use the already-mastered meaning-basedwriting system. Yet, many Chinese students willhave already been exposed to alphabetic writingthrough pinyin, in transition to learning logo-graphs. In essence, the reading teacher needs todiscover, for each student, who is literate in afirst Language and what the nature of the student'sexposure to various writing systems is.

However, if tne students are not literate intheir first language, then the students need tolearn the entire speech-writing connection. In mostcases, illiterate students have the dual problem oflearning English as well as the writing system.Several general alternatives are available: immersethe students in the second language before teachingreading; teach initial literacy in the native lan-guage; or a combination of the two. This controver-sial topic will be discussed more fully later inthis volume.

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TEACHING PHONOLOGICAL-ORTHOGRAPHICALASPECTS OF READING

/

The ESL reading teacher needs to become awareof the various methods for teaching beginning read-ing to nonnative speakers, including t e phonics,syllabary, linguistic, and whole-word approaches(Hatch, 1979). However, the Language. ExperienceApproach, baeed on the holistic langiage-readingprocess, is ilore current.

In the !phonics approach, the emphasis is placedon learning the alphabetic principle, or the rela-tionship beween phonemes and graphemes. Studentslearn geneializations for letter-sound corresponden-ces as well as ways in which the Zetter3 and soundsare blended together to make wordS. However, phon-ics is limited by the fact that the English alphabetdoes not have a close phoneme-grapheme fit. Like-wise, the phonics method does not involve meaning.°ESL reading teachers must keep in mind that studentsneed to have a working knowledgef of the sound systemand a basic sight vocabulary before they can beginlearningiphonic generalizationsl In the syllabarymethod (fleitman & Rozin, 1973), students firstlearn though a rebus principle. Basic letter mom-binatione are related to syllable structures ofEnglish.'

/

TheIlinguistic approach is based on structurallinguist \cs (Bloomfield, 1942; Fries, 1963) in thatpatterns pf sounds and patterns of spelling areemphasized. Students learn basic patterns such asthe CVC pettern (oat, sat, mat) . According toBloomfieldA1942), children first learn regularpatterns and are gradually led to more irregularsurface patterns. Reading series are usually con-trolled and 'limited to basic patterns, which aresystematically introduced. ,Thus, patterns of struc-ture are given priority over meaning. Acc-xding toHatch (1979), \the linguistic approach is the mostpopular of these four methods for teaching linguis-tically differ4nt students. Note that while the"linguistic appioach" is based on structural lin-guistics, much of English orthography involves

62

deeper phonological processing (see Chomsky, 1970);thus students need to systematically discover addi-tional patterns of language. (See Dickerson, 1975,for a discussion of teaching word stress to ESL stu-dents, and Templeton, 1983, for a discussion ofvocabulary-based spelling instruction.)

The whole-word approach, commonly called the"look-say" approach, is the traditional approach ofmemorizing whole spellings of words associated withwhole word meanings. Whole-word memorization isoften combined with more systematic approaches. Awhole -word approach is good for dedling with trueirregularities (e.g., knight/through).

Beyond the basic approaches illustrated byHatch (1979), other approaches deserve mention: theLaubach Method and the LEA. Accordiuy to Aukerman "1",

(1971), Frank C. Laubach°was a Christian missionarydedicated to spreading literacy by personallyteaching illiterate peoples in various parts of theglobe. With the slogan of "each one teach one" anda set of Materials containing phonemic spellings(e.g., appi, 0/iv) associated with illustrative pic-tures, 4,aubach taught the alphabetic principle tothe "silent billion of the world" (Aukerman, 1971,pp. 351-56).

Finally, while these and-other approaches dealmostly with letter/word-level reading, the LEA,which has been discussed throughout this monograph,is useful in teaching the alphabetic prinriple(often combined with other approaches). Laingstories dictated by the students, the teacherassists them in discovering the print-speech connec-tion. The students gradually develop their sightvocabulary and phonic skills in context of thetotal language-communication proc s (again, seeAllen, 1974, Hall, 1981, and Stauffer, 1980).Again, the reading process or reading instructioncannot be isolated from whole language.

In conclusion, phonological and orthographicalaspects of reading are crucial parts of the earlyreading devc.iopment of native and nonnativespoakers. However, since these are only parts ofthe total reading process, reading instruction mustnot stop there. Moreover, reading is a meaning-

63

based activity in which readers construct meaningfor a text:

GENERAL SUMMARY

Reading is a multileveled, interactive, andhypothesis-generating process in which readersconstruct a meaningful representation of text byusing their knowledge of the world and of langauge.Reading; involves the use of various levels oflanguage that provide access to the meaningful pro-cess. Reakling occurs in social contexts. In thissection, th components of background knowledge(schemata) and language (lexicon, discourse, syntax,morphology, ?honology,.orthography) were reviewedand the ways in which these systems are involved inreading were demonstrated. Ways in which teachersof nonnative readers can develop each of theseareas, if students' native language influences orinterferes with getting meaning, were alsodiscussed. However, although language componentsand methods were discussed separately, none of theapproaches for developing a piece of language or apiece of reading should be isolated from the totalcontext for reading. Students should have manyopportunities to read textual material that isnatural and purposeful in real social contexts,rather than isolated exercises unrelated to thetotal reading process.

Reading teachers need to be knowledgeable oftrends and issues associated with teaching readingto nonnative speakers. In the following section, wewill review briefly some additional aspects of thereading jigsaw puzzle.

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72

[CHAPTER 3, ISSUES IN RESEARCH AND TEACHING]

Several linguistic and cognitive systems that affectlearning to read a first and second language werediscussed 0 Chapter 2. This chapter briefly out-lines four issues that are pertinent to understand-ing the state of the art on reading development ofnonnative speakers: To what extent do orthographicsimilarities and differences affect learning to reada first and second language? Should initial liter-acy be taught in the mother tongue or the secondlanguage? What is the nature of reading and learn-ing to.read in different languages? What is recom-mended for training and retraining teachers aboutrespecting linguistically different students andabout facilitating their literacy growth? While theanswers to these questions are certainly complex andwould require lengthy exposition, each is reviewedbriefly here and the reader is urged to consult thecited resources for thorough discussions.

ORTHOGRAPHIES, BILINGUALISM, AND READINGd

While the psycholinguistic movement has"emphasized the role of orthography in the readingprocess, graphic differences cannot be ignored insecond language reading acquisition, especiallygiven that two languages may have widely differentwriting systems. A few issues can be raised aboutthe role of orthography in reading a first andsecond language.

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73

Are orthographies in various languages pro-cessed in the same way? Research studies illustratehow various languages may require different phono-orthographic reading strategies depending on thewriting system. Research on language disordersinvolving Japanese, a language with a combinedsyllabary and logographic system, illustrates thatthe ability to process various parts ot the writingsystem is related to particular areas of the brain.Yamadori (1975), cited by Harris and Sipay (1981),found that a Japanese alexic adult could not readXana (the syllabary system), but could read Kanji(logographs) (See I. Taylor and M.M. Taylor, 1983,pp. 71-75, for a description of various conditionsof hemispheric processing for Kanji and Kana.)Likewise, informal research by Rozin, Poritsky, andSotsky (1973) suggests the possibility that childrenwith disabilities in learning to read a first lan-guage (English alphabet) were successful in learningto read some English words represented in Chineselogographs. Thus, these and other studies suggestdifferences in visual processing strategies forvarious writing systems. For more discussion onorthographic processing, see Kavanagh and Venezky(1980) and I. Taylor and H.M. Taylor (1983).

Caution must be taken in concluding that read-ing problems may be attributed to orthographies.K. Goodman, Y. Goodman, and 'Flores (1979) refutedthe claim that a more regular orthography is easierto Learn to read than a Less regular orthography.Many English-speaking countries, with a highlycomplex alphabet, have high literacy rates.Cultural factors, such as parental support and the'role of literacy in the community, can override thedifficulty of an orthography. Reading problems arecommon to many different languages and writingsystems. The reading process involves more thanprocessing orthography. As discussed earlier, manylinguistic factors interact in the reading process.However, some evidence exists that the regularitiesof an orthography can facilitate aspects ofbeginning reading (see Barnitz, 1978). r

A related question to raise is Will thenature of orthographic differences between a first

66

and second language influence the transfer of liter-acy from the first to a second language? Examplesfrom Vietnamese were discussed in the last chapterthat illustrated that a learner's lack of awarenessof the different phonemic associations for a symbolcan potentially be problematic, unless overridden byother Language factors. Similarly, Cowan, andSarmad (1976) assorted that the orthographic dif-ferences between Arabic script and Roman script cancontribute to blocking the transfer of basicliteracy skills for bilingual children in Iran.This argument became more convincing when theauthors contrasted the Iran bilingual programs tobilingual programs in Canada, where immersionchildren were more successful in transferringliteracy from French to English (Lambert & Tucker,1972). Cowan and Sarmad argued that French andEnglish were more closely related in orthography andlanguage structure than the Persian and EnglishLanguages. Thus, bilingual children would developtwo parallel sets of perceptual strategies forreading English and Persian. Nevertheless, the mostsignificant factor in learning to read the secondLanguage was the home Language.

While the psycholinguistic movement in readingeducation has deemphasized the role of orthographyin the reading process, orthographies cannot beignored in our understanding of second languageliteracy learning. However, when examining thetotal reading process, there has been documentationof universality of the totci, process (K. Goodman &Y. Goodman, 1978; Nudelsong 1981).

MOTHER TONGUE OR SECOND LANGUAGE

A major area of scholarly and political debateis whether bilingual students or students withlimited English proficiency should learn to read intheir native language or in the second Language.This issue is more than a linguistic one. K.Goodman, Y. Goodman, and Flores (1979) outline three

67

7.;

major considerations for developing literacy inmultilingual communities:

1. All literacy programs must bebased on careful consideration oflinguistic realities in aregion, or community.

2. Literacy programswith political, economic,realities.

3. Literacy programs must relaterealistically to existing and potentialeducational programs. (pp. 9-10)

given country,

must be in tune

and cultural

Each of these considerations is itself complex, andthey interact to influence decisions about initialliteracy in a first or second language.

Research can be found to support each position.Some of the studies supporting the position thatliteracy is best acquired in the mother tongue areThonis (1970), Friedenberg (1983), and Modiano(1968). Thonis .(1970) found that Spanish children,taught to read in their native language, were able "

to transfer literacy skills to the second language,English. Similarly, Friedenberg (1983) reportedthat Spanish-speaking Cuban-American children inMiami schools had higher English reading test scoresif they were exposed to literacy instruction inSpanish, the first Langauge. Likewise, Modiano(1968) found similar results, where Mexican Indianchildren, who were taught,to read their nativelanguage first, transferred literacy to Spanish, thesecond language. Indirect evidence can also befound in the research of Leaverton (1973): Inner-city black children who first learned to read usingmaterial written in black English vernacular per-formed better in standard English reading than thechildren who did not use the transitional series.These studies support the claim that learning toread is beat accomplished first in the language mostmeaningful to the children, the home tongue. Secondlanguage literacy is accomplished through transferof skills, as children are exposed to reading ilVthesecond language.

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Other studies support the position that readingcan be acquired through immersion in the secondlanguage. Cohen (1974) found that English-speakingchildren, who were taught beginning reading inSpanish, transferred their literacy skills to Eng-lish. Similarly, in the St. Lambert immersionprogram (Lambert & Tucker, 1972), native English-speaking children were immersed into a program inwhich instruction was conducted in French. Whileinitial literacy was learned in French, the secondlanguage, some Literacy skills transferred to Eng-lish. Although many minority students will developtheir cognitive/academic language proficiency byinstruction in a first language, Cummins (1981), whosupports a "common underlying proficiency model ofbilingual proficiency," asserted that "experiencewith either language can promote the development ofthe proficiency underlying both languages, givenadequate motivation and exposure to both, either inschool or in the wider environment" (p. 25).

The decision about initial literacy in a firstor second language is not only a psycholinguisticone, but also a sociolinguistic and sociopoliticalone, since factors such as home language, socioeco-nomic status, and political considerations areinvolved in the issue. For more discussion on thisissue, see K. Goodman, Y. Goodman, and Flores (1979)and Feitelson (1979).

READING IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES

Another interesting topic is the study ofreading and learning to read in different languagesand in various nations. Two questions will bebriefly discussed: (a) Is reading and learning toread the same across various languages? and (b) Whatis the nature of reading and learning to read invarious nations?

In answering the first question, it is impor-tant to recall that reading involves a complex array

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t'YI I

of cognitive processes that interact with variouslevels of language. Likewise, research supports theuniversality of the reading process, independent ofthe language in which the learner is becomingliterate or biliterate.

Investigations of the oral reading performanceof uecond language readers were reported by K.eGood-man and Y. Goodman (1978), Flores (1982), Hudelson(1981), and Cziko (1980). K. Goodman and Y. Goodman(1978) compared the English oral reading perf6rmanceand story retellings of bilingual children froNseveial different populations in the United States:Texan Spanish, Arabic, Hawaiian, Samoan, and Navajo.This study demonstrated that, although linguisticdifferences will manifest themselves in reading,children from these populations were able to deriveand produce meaning for a text. Furthermore, theauthors argue that in order to read a second lan-guage, the children do not have to be totally profi-cient in the language, for children learn the secondlanguage as they use it and make sense using it.This study showed that linguistically differentchildren can develop basic reading strategies:sampling, predicting, correcting, and confirming.Similarly, Flores (1982) claimed that, althoughlanguage differences influence oral reading, they donot necessarily inhibit comprehension. Additionalevidence was provided by Hudelson (1981), who pre-sented miscue and dime studies of readers fromvarious populatkons: Spanish, Polish, Yiddish,Lebanese Arabic, German, and Japanese. Similarly,Cziko (1980) found that both native French-speakingstudents and competent French-as-a-second-languagestudents in junior high school used both contextualand graphic clues in reading French. This findingdocuments the interactive nature of reading inFrench. However, Cziko also found that studentswith less competence in French were more text-boundand tended to rely more on lower-level text clues,rather than on higher-level contextual clues. Whilelanguage differences may not interfere with reading,limited language proficiency can "short circuit" theuniversal reading process (Clarke, 1979). With con-tinued functional reading exposure, combined with

70

second language instruction, second language readerscan develop the universal process of reading.

However, to say that reading is a universalprocess independent of the language being read doesnat mean that there will be no specific language-related differences in learning to read. Forexample, Cowan and Sarmad (1976), who studied thereading performance of bilingual children in Iran,suggest that Persian/English-speaking childrendevelop two sets of perceptual strategies for pro-cessing sentence structure because of the diversedifferences in the grammars of the two languages:Persian and English. This sort of biliterac may bedifferent from French-English biliteracy, in whichsimilar perceptual strategies are used, because ofcloser similarities between French and English thanbetween Persian and English (Cowan & Sarmad, 1976).Likewise, the comparative discourse analysis studies(e.g., Khplan, 1983) suggest the possibility of somelanguage-specific text sampling strategies forcomprehending and producing discourse. In addition,research on cross-cultural differences in learningto read suggest that orthographies may influencelearning to read (see Downing, 1973; Kavanagh &Venezky, 1980; I. Taylor & M.M. Taylor, 1983). Thuslanguage-specific strategies may be embedded in theuniversal reading process. More research is neededon this issue.

Secondly, as to the nature of reading andlearning to read in various nations, this questionis the heart of the field called comparative read-ing. According to Downing (1982), "The chief goalof comparative reading is to achieve a better theor-etical and practicel understanding of the fundamen-tal psychological processes of literacy behavior,both in their learning and in their developed func-tioning" (1.). 2). Thus, by examining reading andlearning Etread in various cultures, the education-al practices of the United States can be compared.

Several examples serve to illustrate cross-national aspects'of reading. The Soviet Union,which has a variety of languages and writing sys-tems, holds a national policy (declared by Lenin in1919) that reading instruction must be conducted in

71

the mother tongue as a means of eradicating illiter-acy (Downing, 1984). Comparing the reading of boysand girls in the United States, girls are usuallysuperior to boys in reading achievement in theprimary grades; while, in other countries (e.g.,Germany, Nigeria, India), the opposite trend isfound. These differences are attributed to culturalstereotypes, about the social roles of girls and boys(Downing, 1982).

Another interesting finding of comparativereading is the possibility that the cloze proceduremay not measure the same aspects of reading abilityindifferent languages -- English, Japanese andSwedish (Grundin, Courtney, Langer, Pehrsson,Robinson, & Sakamoto,,1978).

Likewise, a comparison of various countriesyields an understanding of various rates of readingdisability (see Harris & Sipay, 1981) and' variouscultural and educational cauees'and solutions forit. In essence, comparative reading research canshed light on our understanding of the universalreading process. .(For more information on compara-tive reading, see Downing, 1973; Feitelson, 1978;and Malmquist, 1982),

ON THE LINGUISTIC TRAINING OF TEACHERS

Teachers of reading have excellent opportuni-ties to develop their professional knowledge aboutthe reading process and the teaching of reading. Atmost universities, graduate and undergraduate teach-er education courses are available on methods andmaterials for teaching reading, corrective reading,diagnostic and remedial reading, and reading in theacademic areas. These courses provide teachers witha solid understanding of the reading process andways of teaching and evaluating reading performance.However, post of the content of these readingcourses focuses on reading and learning to readEnglish as a first languagJ. Colleges of education(in collaboration with colleagues in linguistics and

72

applied linguistics) need to provide opportunitiesfor teachers to acquire knowledge about languagedifferences and literacy, especially if they teachin a multilingual-multicultural

society. Teachertraining is an indirect way of developing literacyof linguistically different students (Barnitz,1983).

While many of the linguistic topics of literacydevelopment can and should be included in allcourses dealing with reading, it would be effectiveto develop complete courses on reading developmentof nonnative speakers. Developing teachers' profes-sional knowledge is crucial, for what the teacherknows is more important than the materials or tests(Shuy, 1981b). Teachers'' knowledge of theory can bequite instrumental in guiding practices in literacyinstruction (Harste et al., 1984).

Following is a brief outline of two courses(taught by the author at the University of NewOrleans) as part of the mission to enhance the lin-guistic and cross-cultural awareness of inserviceand preservice teachers. These courses can beadapted to a variety of training programs.

Teaching Reading/Language Arts ina Multicultural Society

The major brad objectives of this courseinvolve teachers' need to understand language andcultural differences among various ethnic groups;learn how to analyze the language performances ofethnically different children; develop an awarenessof current techniques for motivating and teachingreading, writing, and oral language; underst4ndaspects of first and second language acquisition;become familiar with bilingualism and bilingualeducation; appreciate various trends in linguisticresearch in reading/language arts education; exami'%evarious teacher attitudes toward the language ofculturally different children; and lc!krn how to ..up-port or refute various positions on controversialissues in teaching English to students with variouslanguage backgrounds (Barnitz, 1983).

73

Si

(

Units in this course include linguistic and educa-tional topics such as:

Issues in Multicultural Language TeachingDevelopment of American English DialectsRegional and Social VariationStandard and Nonstandard EnglishStructure of. Black English VernacularInner-City Communication StylesEnglish Spoken by Various Ethnic GroupsThe Ann Arbor DecisionTeaching Standard English to NonstandardSpeakers

Developing WritingReading Development for "Dialect" SpeakersApproaches to Bilingual EducationLanguage Interference and Language InfluenceTeaching English to Speakers of Other LanguagesReading Development of Nonnative Speakers

(as outlined in this monograph)

The undergraduate and graduate studentsenrolled in this course have opportunities to takeother courses in which many of the topics are oov-

, ered in more depth (e.g., courses in first-languagereading development; applied linguistics in languagearts; teaching English as a second language; multi-cultural education; linguistics).

Reading Development'of Nonnative Speakers

A more detailed course for graduate reading ,ndTESOL programs may include this graduate seminar.The participants in such a course will be led to:understand the role of linguistic and culturaldifferences in lea n n to read English as a secondlanguage; understan_ e relationship of second Lan-guava acquisition to literacy and biliteracy devel-opment; and apply their understading to developingreading abilities of bilingual and non-English-speaking children and adults.

1:4

74

This course or seminar can be covered from botha research and an.instruction perspective.. Generaltopics may include:

Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Learning to ReadThe Reading Process and the Nonnative ReaderResearch on First and' Second Language

Acquisition

The Relationship of Language to ReedingDevelopment

Cross - Cultural Schemata and Comprehension

Lexical Difference, and Reading a First andSecond Language

Discoerse Differences and Reading a First andSecond Language

Syntactic Differences and Reading a First andSecond Language

Morphological Differences and Reading a Firstand Second Language

Phonological Differences and Reading a Firstand Second Language

Orthographies and Reading a First and SecondLanguage

Bilingualism and ReadingReading in Different LanguagesCross - National Studies in Reading and Learning

to Read

Beginning Reading in a First or Second LanguageDialect Differences and Reading

Practical implications of research can be embeddedthroughout a course or seminar such as this. Again,this outline can be adapted according to a givenuniversity's program. Courses like these and otherscurrently offered at various universities can bedevelcped by'linguistically trained reading educa-tors and/or applied linguists Who are informed abouteducation and reading.

In addition to university courses, teachershave opportunities to attend inservice workshops intheir school systems. Many local school districtsare receptive to sponsoring applied linguisticsworkshops. Teachers are also encouraged to increasetheir professional knowledge through the many

75

professional organizationS (see "OrganizationalResources," p. 85), which4irovide books, monographs,journal subscriptions, and/or conferences. Thus,there are many opportunities for teachers to acquirethe professional knowledge they r-ed to develop thereading abilities of linguistical./ differentstudents.

(SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION)

This monograph has explored the linguistic and edu-cational literature on reading development of non-native speakers. The metaphor of a jigsaw puzzleeffectively illustrates the state of the art Ga thisinterdisciplinary topic. Research or theory andinstructional practicesjs scattered across thefields of education and applied linguistics. Manypieces are put together by reading educators incollaboration with ESL specialists, linguists, andapplied linguists. Likewise, many pieces are sharedby reseachers, while others are held by teachers.It is hcped that this monograph has helped to'orga-nize some of the pieces, just as the picture on thejigsaw puzzle box can be useful to completing thepuzzle.

This monograph presented a brief sketch of thepsycholinguistic reading process, which is universalacross cultures. A more detailed sketch of thevarious levels of language was included to demon-strate the ways in which language differences andlanguage proficiency can influence reading Englishas a second language. Assumed in the discussionswas a strong relationship between language profi-ciency and reading proficiency. Throughout thisdiscussion were included many !instructional strat-egies for facilitating a second language reader'sawareness of clues to meaning. However, in no wayshould the reading process be broken up into piecesof Language; any instruction on part of the lan-guage-reading process must be related to the totallanguage-reading process. Although many of theinstructional strategies were originally developed

77

for specific populations, teachers can possiblyadapt many strategies to a variety of populations.

In this discussion, research from both firstand second language reading was included illus-trating.further the similarities in the generalnature of reading. Many meaningful teachingstrategies are similar for both first and secondlanguage readers, as long as the teacher is aware ofadditional ways of helping students overcome anylinguistic challenges that exist.

The

somemajor section of the monograph

explored some of the issues related to readingdevelopment of nonnative speakers to fur; r ourunderstanding of this complex field. ionalissues can also be explored, such e,topics ofstandardized testing of minority studenV reading;legislation affecting minority students; dialectdifferences and reading; the development of writingas related to reading; and changes in curriculum.Yet, much more research is needed to develop ourunderstanding of tlie functional, not just the struc-tural, aspects of literacy. Such study will shedfurther light on the sociopsycholinguistic processof reading and instruction.

Throughout this monograph many references weregiven for further reading on specific aspects of thejigsaw puzzle. Teachers have a responsibility tokeep informed of developments in their fields.Additional references to general works on teachingreading to nonnative speakers and a partial list ofprofessional organizations are listed next. It ishoped that this monograph has stimulated deeperinsight into teaching students from various languagebackgrounds.

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[FOR FURTHER READING]

This selected list of resources is intended to aidteachers in understanding the reading process andthe reading development of nonnative speakers. Manyof the sources reflect a variety of theoretical andpractical orientations. Teachers will need to eval-uate and interpret older instructional strategies interms of current views of the reading process.

Anastasiow, N.J., Hanes, M.L., & Hanes, Michael L.(Eds.). (1982). Language and reading strategiesfor poverty children. Baltimore: UniversityPark Press. Contains detailed discussion aboutlanguage and reading development of childrenreared in poverty. While much of the bookdiscusses research related to minority childrenwho are nonstandard speakers, many strategiesare useful for teaching ESL and bilingualchildren.

Anderson, R.C., Osborn, J., & Tierney, R.J. (Eds.).(1984). Learning to read in American schools:Basal readers and content texts. Hillsdale, NJ:Erlbaum. Summarizes and synthesizes currentresearch and practice in reading and readinginstruction. Five major topics are: readingcomprehension instruction ;` stories in basalreaders and trade books; appraising textdifficulty; content area textbooks; andteacher's guides and workbooks.

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6 '/

Ching, D.C. (1976). Reading and the bilingual, child.Newark, DE: International Reading Association.Though outdated, this bulletin serves as aguide for teachers of bilingual children. Itsfour chapters are: The Bilingual Child;Research on Teaching English as a Second Lan-guage and Reading; Teaching Strategies for'Reading Instruction of the Bilingual Child; andFormal Reading Instruction. (ERIC DocumentReproduction Service No. ED 123 582)

Duffy, G.G., Rot.hler, L.R., & Mason, J. (Eds.).(1984). Comprehension instruction: Perspectivesand suggestions. New York: Longman. This volumeincludes a collection of readings examining the.interactive process of reading comprehensionand how instruction occurs in first languageclassrooms. The papers are categorized intofive parts: Background; Constraints on Instruc-tion; Text and Comprehension Instruction;Comprehension as Verbal Communication; andImplications for Research and Practice.

Feitelson, D. (Ed.). (1979). Mother tongue or secondLanguage? On the teaching of reading in multi -Lingual, societies. Newark, DE: InternationalReading Association. This collection of papersfrom the Sixth IRA World Congress on Reading(Singapore, August 1976) examines cross-national problems and solutions in multilin-gualism and reading. (ERIC Document Reproduc-tion Service No. BD 166 672)

Goodman, K., & Goodman, Y.M. (1980). Linguistics,psychoLinguistics and the teaching of reading(3rd ed.). Newark, DE: International ReadingAssociation. This annotated bibliography is avaluable resource for understanding a widerange of linguistic topics in the readingfield. (ER?: Document Reproduction Service No.ED 190 994)

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Goodman, K., GOodman, Y., & Flores, B. (1979). Read-ing in the bilingual classroom: Literacy andbiliteracy. Rosalyn, VA: National Clearinghousefor Bilingual Education. This monograph pro-vides a general overview of issues aboutliteracy in multilingual societies in theUnited States and the world. Implications forreading development in biliqgual programs arepresented. (ERIC Document Reloroduction ServiceNo, ED 181 725)

Harste, J.C., Woodward, V.A.., & Burke, C.L. (1984).Language stories d literacy lessons. Ports-mouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books. Thisvolume advances a sociopsycholinguistic theoryof literacy, supported by written language datafrom young children. Integrating theory andpractice, this volume documents children'sabilities to produce written discourse invarious social settings.

Hudelson, S. (1981). Learning to read in differentlanguages (Linguistics and Literacy Series No.1). Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguis-tics. This volume provides a collection ofpsycholinguistic research studies, investi-gating universals in the reading performancesin various languages. Many studies involvehilingual readers. (ERIC Document ReproductionService No. ED 198 744)

Kavanagh, J.F., & Venezky, R.L. (Eds.). (1980).Urthography, reading, and dyslexia. Baltimore:University Park Press. For an understanding ofthe processes of word recognition and ortho-graphic processing, this volume provides across-cultural perspective. Research is dis-cussed by a variety of authors and is groupedunder several sections: Orthography andReading: A Cross-National View; Design andImprovement of Literacy Programs; ReadingProcesses: Initial Stages; Reading Processes:Skilled Reading; and Dyslexia and RelatedLinguistic Disorders.

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Laffey, J.L., & Shuy, R. (Eds.). (1973). Languagedifferences: Do they interfere? Newark, DE:International Reading Association This editedvolume contains 15 papers examiniag the role oflanguage and dialect interference in reading.This is an excellent collection for understand-ing the complex issues involved in readingdevelopment of nonstandard English and non-English-speaking students. Though the book isoutdated, many of the issues are still current.(EPIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 076968)

Langer, J.A., & Smith-Burke, M.T. (Eds.). (1982).Reader meets author/bridging the gap: A psycho-linguistic and sociolinguistic perspective.Newark, DE: International Reading Association.These readings, collected from a variety ofexperts in reading education, present thecurrent state of the art of cognitive and lin-guistic aspects of reading and implications forteaching. While this volume emphasizes firstlanguage reading, it is also useful reading forsecond language teachers. (ERIC Document Repro-duction Service No. ED 217 395)

Mackay, R., Berkman, B., & Jordan, R.R. (Eds.).(1979). Heading in a second languae : Hypoth-eses, organization, and practice. Ru4ley, MA:Newbury House. This volume contains 13 chap-ters, many of which were previously published,which describe aspects of the psycholinguisticmodel of reading and implications for curricu-lum and instruction in second language reading.

Malmquist, E. (1'82). Handbook on comparative read-ing: An annotated bibliography. Newark, DE:International Reading Association. This hand-book is a valuable resource for current cross-national studies on research and instruction invarious cultures. (ERIC Document ReproductionService No. ED 220 804)

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McNeil, J.D. (1984). Rending comprehension: Newdirections for classroom practice. Glenview,IL: Scott, Foresman. This book prepants a widevariety of current techniques for teachingreading comprehension. Chapters include:Reading Comprehension as a Cognitive Process;Active Readers; Elaboration in Readin4;Restructuring Schemata; Metacognition inReading Comprehension; Teaching Vocabulary froman Interactive View of Reading Comprehension;Improving Comprehension of Sentences; andComprehending Different Kinds of Discourse.Many activities can be adapted to second lan-guage reading instruction.

Pearson, P.D. (Ed.), Barr, R., Kamil, M.L., &

Mosenthal, P. (Section Eds.). (1984). Hanabookon reading research. NY: Longman. This compre-hensive volume contains 25 papers representingthe state of the art of eeading research andinstruction. Papers are grouped into three mainsections: Methodological Issues; Basic Proces-ses: The State of the Art; and InstructionalPractices: The State of the Art. A useful ref-erence book on first language reading research.

Rodrigues, & White, R.H. (1981). Mainstreamingthe non-English speaking student. Urbana, IL:ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading and CommunicationSkills (National Council of Teachers of Eng-

.

lish). While this volume does not discussreading exclusively, it is a useful guide to

teachers with non-English-speaking children inthe regular classroom. Contains many practicalstrategies for developing language arts. (ERICDocument Reproduction Service No. ED 197 382)

Shafer, R.E. (Ed.). (1979). Applied linguistics andreading. Newark, DE: international ReadingAssociation. This volume contains paperstreating a variety of linguistic topics inreading education. Papers deal with linguistic,

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sociolinguistic, and psycholinguistic topics onresearch, curriculum, and instruction. (ERICDocument Reproduction Service No. ED 170 711)

Shuy, R.W. (Ed.). (1577). Linguietic theory: Whatcan it say about reading. Newark, DE: Interna-tional Reading Association. This edited volumecontains a collection of papers treating thecontributions of linguistics to the study ofreading. Two papers are included under each offive topics: grammar, phonology, sociolinguis-tics, pragmatics, and ethnography of speaking.(ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 138925)

Taylor, I., & Taylor, M.M. (1983). The psychology ofreading. New York: Academic Press. Contains asynthesis of the psychological processesinvolved in reading and learning to read. Chap-ters are grouped into three sections: WritingSystems, Reading Processes, and Learning toRead. The section on writing systems is mostrelevant to ESL reading research.

Thonis, E.W. (1970). Teaching reading to non-engtiehspeakers. New York: Collier Macmillan Inter-national. Although much of the research isoutdated, many of the issues and strategiesdiscussed in this book are still current. Chap-ters are grouped into three sections: Readingin the Vernacular; Reading in English; andAppraisal of Pupil Progress in Reading.

Thonis, E.W. (1976). Literacy for America's Spanishspeaking children. Newark, DE: InternationalReading Association. This volume contains prac-tical advice for teaching reading to Spanishspeakers. Many of the instructional principlesand strategies are applicable to other languagepopulations. (ERIC Document ReproductionService No. ED 126 425)

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(ORGANIZATIONAL RESOURCES]

For information about publications, membershipsand/or conferences, write to:

American Association forApplied Linguistics

Suite 211

1325 18th St., NWWashington, DC 20036

Center for AppliedLinguistics

1118 22nd St., NWWashington, DC 20037

Center for the Study ofReading

University of Illinois174 Children's ResearchCenter

Champaign, IL 61820

ERIC Clearinghouse onLanLuages andLinguistics

Center for AppliedLinguistics

1118 22nd St., NWWashington, DC 20037

ERIC Clearinghouse onReading and Communica-tion Skills

National Council ofTeachers of English

1111 Kenyon Rd.Urbana, IL 61601

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International ReadingAssociation

800 Barksdale Rd.Newark, DE 19711.

National Association forBilingual Education

Rm. 405

1201 16th St., NWWashington, DC 20036

National Clearinghousefor BilingualEducation

Suite 6001555 Wilson Blvd.Rosslyn, VA 22209

National Council ofTeachers of English

1111 Kenyon Rd.Urbana, IL 61801

Teachers of English toSpeakers of OtherLanguages

202 D.C. Transit Bldg.Georgetown UniversityWashington, DC 20057

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Allen, R.V. (1974). Language experienoes in reading.Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica Press.

Anderson, R.C. (1977). Schema-directed processes inlanguage comprehension (Technical Report No.SO). Urbana-Champaign, IL: University ofIllinois at Urbana-Champaign, Center for theStudy of Reading. (ERIC Document ReproductionService No. ED 142 977)

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Grubaugh, S.J. (1981). A comparison between a con-text model and a word-with-stories model ofvocabulary acquisition for middle schoolstudents. Unpublished doctoral dissertation,University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO.

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0

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SJohn G. Barnitz (Ph.D., University of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign) is an associate, professor in theDepartment of Curriculum and Instruction, College ofEducation, at the University of New Orleans. As 4napplied linguist and a former public school readingteacher, he teaches a variety of graduate andundergraduate courses in applied linguistics andreading-language arts.

Dr. Barnitz received his B.A. from NortheasteirnIllinois University, Chicago, where he studiedlinguistics and English/reading education. He was)granted an A.M. in linguistics and Ph.D. in appliedlinguistics by the University of Illinois at.

Urbana-Champaign.:fhere he served as a resarchassistant in psycholinguistics and sociolinguisticat the enter for the Study of Reading. He condo isresearch'in psycholinguistics and reading compre esion, and is also interested in the language andliteracy development of students from various lin-guistic backgrounds.

Dr. Barnitz is the author or coauthor of many,

articles and reviews, published in such national andinternational journals as: Reading ResearchQuarterly, Journal of Reading, The Reading Teacher,Journal of Reading dehavior, Discourse Processes,Language Arts. He also has publications at the \ 1

University of Illinois (Technical Report Series of 1

the Center for the Study of Reading, Studies in theLinguistic Sciences, and Studies in LanguageLearning). In addition, he has presented papers atnational conferences of the American Association forApplied Linguistics, the International ReadingAssociation, the National Council of Teachers ofEnglish, and the National Reading Conference. Hefrequently serves as a consultant, conducting work-shops on linguistic topics in reading and languagearts education for local school districts and, pro-fessional organizations.

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A

Language in Education:e, Theory and Practice

ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) isa nationwide network of information centers, eachresponsible for a given educational level or fieldof study. ERIC is supported by the National Insti-tute of Education of the U.S. Department of Educa-tion. The basic objective of ERIC is to makecurrent developments in educational research,instruction, and personnel preparation more readily,accessible to educators'and members of related pro-fessions.

ERIC /CLL. The ERIC Clearinghouse on Languagesand Linguistics (ERIC/CLL), one of the specializedclearinghouses in the ERICjiystem, is operated bythe Center for Applied LinVuistics. ERIC/CLL isspecifically responsible for the collection and dis-semination ofoinformation in the general area ofresearch and application in languages, linguistics,and language teaching and learning.

LANGUAGE IN EDUCATION: THEpReiND PRACTICE. Inaddition to processinginformation, ERIC/CLL is alsoinvolved in information synthesis and analysis. 'TheClearinghouse commissions iecognized authorities inlanguages and linguistics to write analyses of the

current issues in their areas of specialty. Theresultant documents, intended for use by educatorsand researchers, are published under the title Lan-guage in Education: Theory and Practice. Theseries incl'Udes practical guides for classroomteachers and extensive state-of-the-art papers.

This publication may be purchased directly from theCenter for Applied LingUistics. It aleo will ireannounced in the ERIC monthly abstract journalResources in Education (RIE) and will be availablefrom the ERIC Document Reproduction Service,

Computer Microfilm International Corp., P.O. Box190, Arlington, VA 22210. See°RIE for orderinginformation and ED number.

For further information on the ERIC system,ERIC/CLL, and Center/Clearinghouse publications,write to ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages andLinguistics, Center for Applied Linguistics, 111822nd St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20037.

Gina Doggett, editor, Language in Education

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