Chapter 5 The first level of chapter 3 reading: basic reading

We live in an age of high interest and concern for reading.Officially, the 1970s were declared "the age of reading."Bestsellers tell us why Johnny reads or doesn't.In the teaching field of preliminary reading, more and more people are doing research and experiments. The frenzy of our age arises because three historic trends or evolutions have just converged.The first is that the United States continues to promote education for all, which means, of course, at least there should be no illiteracy in the country.America has been making such an effort for years, even from the earliest days of the nation, as a cornerstone of democratic life, and it has paid off.The United States achieved near-universal education earlier than any other country, thus helping the United States become the highly developed modern industrialized society it is today.But there are also many problems.In conclusion, teaching a small number of highly motivated children to read (often from intellectual parents) is a very different thing than teaching a few children to read, no matter how weakly motivated or how poor their families may be—one This was true a hundred years ago, and it is still true today.

The second historical trend is that reading education itself has changed.As late as 1870, everyone was taught to read in much the same way as in early Greek or Roman schools.In America, at least the so-called ABC pedagogy still dominated the 19th century.The child learns to pronounce each letter separately—hence the name of the pedagogy—and then to combine it into syllables, first the first and second letters, then three and four, regardless of whether the resulting words have significance.Therefore, those who want to master the language will practice syllables like ab, ac, ad, ib, ic.When a child can remember all combinations of syllables, he can be said to understand the ABC.

Such reading teaching methods were severely criticized in the middle of the 19th century, and two changes were produced.One is the change of the ABC teaching method, which has become a phonic method.In this way, characters are recognized not by letters, but by pronunciation.In order to represent the various sounds represented by a letter, especially the vowels, many complex and ingenious printing techniques are used.If you're over fifty, chances are you learned this type of pronunciation in school. There is an entirely different pedagogy that focuses on analysis rather than artificiality.Originated in Germany, it was advocated by Horace Mann and other educational experts in 1840.This pedagogy emphasizes visually recognizing entire words before noticing individual letters or sounds.Later, this so-called sight method first looked at the whole sentence and its meaning, then learned to recognize the words, and finally the letters.This method was very popular between 1920 and 1930, which was also a period of transition from oral reading to silent reading.The study found that oral reading ability is not necessary for silent reading, so if silent reading is the goal, the teaching method of oral reading may not be applicable.Therefore, from 1920 to 1925, the reading method of silent reading comprehension has almost become an exclusive trend.Later, however, the tide turned and pronunciation was reemphasized—indeed, pronunciation has never been eliminated.

All these different approaches to teaching basic reading that work for some students may not work for others.In the past two or three decades, the failed cases have always attracted more attention.As a result, the third historic change occurred again.In America, criticizing schools is a tradition.Parents, self-proclaimed experts, and educators have attacked and accused the education system for centuries.Of all the criticisms of schools, reading education has been the most severely criticized.The textbooks in use now have a long lineage, and every innovation brings with it a host of skeptics and a few hard-to-convince observers.

These criticisms may or may not be true.But, in any case, as education for all enters a new chapter, with a growing number of high school and post-secondary students, the problem has taken on a new and acute facet.A young man or a young woman who doesn't know how to read is hindered in his pursuit of the American Dream.If he's not in school, it's mostly his own big problem.But if he's still in high school or junior college, it becomes a concern for his teachers and classmates. Therefore, educational researchers are very active at present, and the results of their work are reflected in many new reading teaching methods.Some of the more important new teaching methods include eclectic approach, individualized reading ap-proach, and language-experience approach, many of which are based on linguistic principles. pedagogy, and others that are more or less tied to a particular educational program.In addition, some new media, such as the Initial Teaching Alphabet (Initial Teaching Alphabet), have also been introduced, sometimes including new teaching methods.There are also some teaching methods such as "total immersion method", "foreign-language-school method", and the well-known "see-say" and "see-say" methods. and say "(look-say) or "look-and-say" (look-and-say) and so on. There is no doubt that these teaching methods have been proved by experiments to have their own ingenuity. To judge which method is the best It may be too soon to say that there is a panacea for all reading problems.

※ Stages of learning to read A very useful recent study analyzed the stages of learning to read.It is now widely accepted that children go through at least about four distinct stages before they are able to read proficiently.The first stage is called "reading readiness".Experts point out that this stage starts from birth until the age of six or seven. The reading preparation phase includes several different preparations for learning to read.Physical preparation, including good eyesight and hearing.Intellectual preparation is to have a minimum cognitive ability so that the child can absorb and remember a word and the letters that make up the word.Language preparation includes speaking articulately and being able to utter some correct sentences.Personal preparation includes the ability to learn with other children, maintain attention, obey, etc.

The overall maturity of reading readiness is assessed by tests or by experienced and discerning teachers who know how to judge whether elementary school students are ready to learn to read.The most important thing to remember is that the triple jump usually leads to failure.If a child is not ready to be taught to read, he may not enjoy the learning experience, and it will affect later in school education and even adulthood.Although some parents may worry that their child is "sluggish" or "not keeping up" with peers, delaying reading instruction past the reading readiness stage is not a serious matter.

In the second stage, the child will learn to read some simple books.At least in the United States, the beginning of reading is some picture literacy.By the end of the first year, you will basically know 300 to 400 characters.During this period, some basic skills will be introduced, such as the use of words, the meaning of words, the pronunciation of words, etc.By the end of this stage, primary school students should be able to read simple books by themselves and enjoy reading very much. At this stage, there are some incidental things worth observing.That's some very mysterious, sort of magic-like stuff that happens at this stage.At some point in a child's development, a sequence of symbols in a book feels meaningless to him.But after a while—maybe only two or three weeks—he understood the meaning of the symbols.He knew it was saying, "The cat sat on the hat." No one really knew how it happened, despite the fact that philosophers and psychologists had spent more than 2,500 years studying this miracle.Where does the meaning of these words come from?How do French children understand "Le chatAasseyait sur le chapean" (The cat sits on the hat)?In fact, knowing how to discover the meaning of some symbols is the most astonishingly clever skill that humans have shown, and most people have shown this intelligence before the age of seven.

The third stage is characterized by the ability to rapidly build vocabulary by "unmasking" unfamiliar words from clues provided by the context.In addition, children at this stage will learn to read with different goals and fields, such as science, sociology, language arts, and so on.They learn that reading is something they can do on their own outside of school—they can read for fun, to satisfy their curiosity, or simply to "expand their horizons." Finally, the fourth stage is characterized by the refinement and enhancement of previously learned skills.Most importantly, the student begins to assimilate his reading experience—moving from one point of view presented in one book to another, comparing the views of different authors on the same subject.This is the mature stage of reading. It should be a state that a teenager should reach, and it should continue throughout his life.

But to many parents and educators, it's clear that children are not reaching that goal.The reasons for failure are many and wide-ranging, ranging from deprived family circumstances—economic, social, or intellectual (including illiterate parents)—to personal problems (including resistance to the “system” as a whole).But there is one reason for this failure that is not often noticed.Too much emphasis on the preparatory stage of reading, and too much focus on teaching children how to read first, often means that other higher levels of reading may be neglected.This is quite understandable, considering the extent of the various emergencies and problems that may be encountered at the first level.However, the overall problem of reading in our society cannot be effectively addressed unless we invest in efforts at all reading levels.

※Stages and levels of reading We have described the four levels of reading and enumerated, in a very basic way, the four stages of learning to read.What is the relationship between these levels and stages? Most importantly, the four stages listed here belong to the first level of reading we talked about in the previous chapter.These stages, all basic reading, are very helpful in differentiating the curriculum in primary education.The first stage of basic reading—the reading preparation stage—is equivalent to a preschool or kindergarten learning experience.The second stage—literacy—corresponds to the typical learning experience of a first-grade student (although quite a few normal children are not “typical” in some way). As a result of this stage, the child learns what we call the first Stage 2 reading skills, or first grade reading, or initial literacy. The third stage of basic reading—vocabulary growth and use of text—is usually (but not comprehensively, even for normal children) the same) at the end of the fourth grade, the results of this stage can be called "fourth grade literacy" (fourth grade literacy) or "functional literacy" (functional literacy), that is, the ability to It is easy to read traffic signs, or picture instructions, fill out relevant simple government forms, etc. The fourth stage of basic reading is the last stage. By this stage, students will graduate from elementary school or junior high school. This stage Sometimes called 8th, 9th, or 10th grade literacy. In some ways, the child is a "mature" reader who can read almost anything, but is not sophisticated enough To put it simply, he is mature enough to attend high school courses. In any case, he is not what we call a "mature" reader in this book.But he has mastered the first level of reading, that's all.He can read on his own and is ready to learn more reading skills.But he still doesn't know how to go beyond basic reading and do further reading. We mention these because they are closely related to the message of this book.We assume, and we must assume, that you—our readers—have ninth-grade literacy and proficiency in elementary reading, in other words, that you have successfully passed what we describe as the four stages of reading.If you think about it, our assumptions are not far off.No one can learn from a book that teaches him how unless he can read.Especially for a book to teach how to read, its reader must be able to read to some extent. The distinction between assisted and unassisted self-discovery reading is relevant here.Generally, the four stages of basic reading are accompanied by a teacher.Of course, every child is different and some need a little more help than others.However, during the basic years of education, a teacher is usually present in the classroom to answer questions and resolve any difficulties that arise during this stage.Only when a child has mastered the four stages of basic reading is he ready to move on to higher levels of reading.Only when he can read by himself can he begin to learn by himself.Only in this way can he become a truly excellent reader. ※ Higher level reading and higher education Traditionally, high school education in the United States has provided students with little instruction in reading, and nothing in college.Things have changed a bit in recent years.About two generations ago, high school enrollments increased dramatically in a short period of time, and educators began to realize that they could no longer assume that all students could read effectively.Guidance education for corrective reading has thus appeared, and from time to time, as high as 75% of students need correction.In the last ten years, the same situation has happened in universities.For example, in the fall of 1971, about 40,000 newcomers entered the City University of New York, but as many as half, that is, more than 20,000 young people required some kind of corrective course for reading training. In any case, this does not mean that over the years, many American universities have offered instructional courses beyond basic reading.In fact, almost none at all.Instructions for corrective reading do not count as instructions at higher levels of reading.Corrective reading instruction is simply to bring the student to a level of reading ability that he should have by the time he graduates from elementary school.To this day, most higher education instructors either don't know how to guide students beyond basic reading, or lack the equipment and talent to do so. We can argue this despite the fact that some four-year colleges or technical colleges have recently instituted courses in speed reading, or "effective reading," or "competitive reading."In general (although there are some exceptions), these are courses in corrective reading.But these courses are all designed to overcome failures in primary education.These courses are not designed to take students beyond Level 1 reading.Nor is it guiding them into the reading level and field that this book mainly emphasizes. Of course, this should not be the case normally.A high school with excellent humanistic literacy, even if it does nothing, should cultivate readers who can achieve analytical reading.A good university, even if it contributes nothing, should cultivate readers who can read on topics.A university diploma should represent the reading level of general college graduates, not only able to read any kind of general material, but also to do personal research on any kind of topic (this is what reading on a topic allows you to do. things).However, usually college students have to study for three or four years after graduation to reach this level, and it is not necessarily achieved. One should not spend four years in graduate school just to learn how to read.Four years of graduate school, plus twelve years of primary and secondary education, and four years of university education add up to twenty years of school education.It shouldn't have taken so long to learn how to read.If this is the case, there must be a big problem in the middle. Things are wrong and can be corrected.Many high schools and colleges can arrange courses according to the methods provided in this book.The approach we offer is not mysterious, nor is it even new.Most are just common sense. ※ The concept of reading and democratic education We don't just want to be nitpicking critics.We know that no matter how good our message is, when it comes to thousands of new people thumping on the school stairs, nothing will be heard.When we see that there are quite a large proportion of these new students, or that most of them cannot reach the basic level of effective reading, we should be vigilant. The most urgent thing is to teach reading from the lowest level and the smallest common denominator. Even, at this moment, we don't want to mention whether there is a need for another kind of education.Our history has always emphasized that unrestricted educational opportunity is the most valuable service a society can provide to its people—or, more correctly, that educational opportunity is only as limited as a person's self-desires, abilities, and needs. restricted.Just because we haven't been able to provide that kind of opportunity doesn't mean we have no reason to give up trying. - But we—students, teachers, and laymen alike—have to understand that even when we've accomplished the task at hand, we're still not done with the whole job.We must go one step further than a literate nation.Our compatriots should become readers who are truly "capable" and can truly understand the meaning of the word "capable".Without reaching this state, we will not be able to meet the needs of the future world.