READING MICROSKILLS AND PROCEDURE FOR TRAINING THEM

1. The role of teaching reading

Reading is an important skill that helps students to get an enormous amount of

information available in graphic symbol or print (Thornis, 1970). Results of a
survey (Orlando et al., 2003) also reveal that students in colleges have to read a
lot for important information besides what has been provided by lecturers. In
learning a foreign language, reading has its own contribution to improving
speaking, listening and writing skills (Yang, 2005). It is reasonable to conclude
that reading plays a very important role in studying.

2. Approaches of teaching reading skills

According to Brown (2001), a half-century ago, reading specialists might have

argued that the best way to teach reading is through bottom-up methodology:
teach symbols, grapheme-phoneme correspondences, syllables and lexical
recognition first, then comprehension would derive from the sum of the
parts.
Recently, researchers have shown that interactive reading (a combination of top-
down and bottom-up processing) is almost always a primary ingredient in
successful teaching methodology because both processes are important. In
practice, a reader continually shifts from one focus to another, initially adopting
a top-down approach to predict probable meaning, then moving on to the
bottom-up approach to check whether that is really what the writer says (Nuttal,
1996).

Research has shown that the reader brings information, knowledge, emotion,
experience and culture, that is, schemata to the printed word. Reading is only

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incidentally visual. More information is contributed by the reader than by the
print on the page. That is, readers understand what they read because they are
able to take the stimulus beyond its graphic representation and assign it
membership to an appropriate group of concepts already stored in their
memories. Skill in reading depends on the efficient interaction between
linguistic knowledge and knowledge of the world.

3. Reading micro skills

The use of microskills allows students of English as a foreign language to

become efficient readers. Brown (2001) lists some important micro-skills
that learners should use in reading tasks:
 process writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit purpose;
 recognize a core of words and interpret word order patterns and their
significance;
 recognize grammatical word classes, pattern, rules and elliptical forms;
 recognize that a particular meaning may be expressed in different
grammatical forms;
 recognize cohesive devices in written discourse and their significance for
interpretation;
 recognize communicative functions of writ ten texts, according to form
and purpose;
 infer context that is not explicit by using background knowledge;
 infer links and connections between events, ideas, etc, deduce causes and
effects, and detect such relations as main idea, supporting idea, new
information, given information, generalization and exemplification;
 distinguish between literal and implied meanings;
 detect culturally specific references and interpret them in a context of the
appropriate cultural schemata;
 develop and use a battery of reading strategies such as scanning,
skimming, detecting discourse markers, guessing meaning of words from
context and activating schemata for the interpretation of texts.

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4. Reading strategies

Language instructors are often frustrated by the fact that students do not
automatically transfer the strategies they use when reading in their native
language to reading in a language they are learning. Instead, they seem to think
reading means starting at the beginning and going word by word, stopping to
look up every unknown vocabulary item, until they reach the end. When they do
this, students are relying exclusively on their linguistic knowledge, a bottom-up
strategy. One of the most important functions of the language instructor, then, is
to help students move past this idea and use
top-down strategies as they do in their native language. When language
learners use reading strategies, they find that they can control the reading
experience, and they gain confidence in their ability to read in the foreign
language.
For most second language learners who are already literate in a previous
language, reading comprehension is primarily a matter of developing
appropriate, efficient comprehension strategies. Some strategies are related to
bottom-up procedures, and others to top-down processes. Following are ten such
strategies, each of which can be applied as class room techniques (Brown,
2001):
1. identify the purpose of reading (clearly identify the purpose in reading
something so you will know what you are looking for);
2. use graphemic rules and patterns to aid bottom-up decoding, especially for
beginning level learners;
3. use efficient silent reading techniques for rapid comprehension (for
intermediate to advanced levels);
4. skim the text for main ideas (quickly running one’s eyes across whole text for
its gist) for prediction;

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5. scan the text for specific information (quickly searching for some particular
piece or pieces of information in a text);
6. use semantic mapping or clustering (grouping ideas into meaningful clusters,
helps readers to provide some order to the chaos);
7. guess when you aren’t certain (guess a meaning of a word, guess a
grammatical relationship, guess a discourse relationship, infer implied
meaning, guess about a cultural reference and guess content messages);
8. analyze vocabulary (look for prefixes, look for suffixes, look for roots that are
familiar, look for grammatical contexts that may signal information, look at
semantic context for clues);
9. distinguish between literal and implied meanings;
10. capitalize on discourse markers to process relationships.

5. Procedure to teach reading

According to Williams and Moran (1989), to ensure that reading is

“taught” in the sense of helping readers develop increasing ability to deal
with the text, a three-phase procedure involving pre-, while- and post-reading
stages is widely used.

During the pre-reading phase, learners can be encouraged to do a

number of things:
 Become oriented to the context of the text (for ex. for what purpose was it
originally produced?);
 Tune in to the context of the text;
 Establish a reason for reading;
 Express an attitude about the topic;
 Review their own experiences in relation to the topic;
 Activate existing cultural knowledge;
 Become familiar with some of the language in the text.

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 A range of activity types are possible at this stage and teachers can select
or combine from a repertoire, for example: talking about pictures accompanying
the text; predicting from the title; agreeing or disagreeing with a set of
proposals about the topic; or discussing the topic.

In the while-reading phase learners can be given activities which require them to
do any of the following:
 Follow the order of ideas in a text;
 React to the opinions expressed;
 Understand the information it contains;
 Ask themselves questions;
 Make notes;
 Confirm expectations or prior knowledge;
 Predict the next part of the text from various clues.

To encourage these activities, teachers can use a range of exercise types,

for example: ask students to tick a list of expectations or find answers to their
own questions; suggest they tick and cross in the margin in reaction to the
writer’s opinions; give them questions to stop and think about; or provide a
chart for them to fill in with points of information.

These are just some of the activities now used by teachers and textbook
writers who believe that it might be useful to intervene in the reading process in
some way. As yet, there are few research studies to show the effects of
intervention, and their outcomes are contradictory. However, many students
find it useful to have while-reading activities and many teachers, therefore, try
to encourage activity, reflection, and response while reading.

Post-reading activities can be as varied as the texts they follow, but ideally
will tie up with the reading purpose set, so that students check and discuss
activities done while reading and make use of what they have read in a

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meaningful way, for example, by discussing their response to the writer’s
opinions or by using notes for a writing activity. After that, a wide range of
activities focusing either on the context of the text can be undertaken, for
example, debate, role-play, reading of contrasting texts, or focusing on its
language. At this phase many teachers will want to build their students’
language competence by concentrating on some linguistic features (f.e.,
vocabulary). In this way it is possible to introduce useful techniques for future
bottom-up processing. It is also possible to use a text to demonstrate language
features which have been studied separately as part of a language-awareness
course.

6. Preparing for teaching reading skills and strategies

6.1. Separate versus integrated instruction

On the instructional approach, researchers often focus on the questions of whether

LLSI should be integrated or separate from language or subject content instruction, whether
it should be explicit (direct) or implicit (embedded).

Whether LLSI should be separated or integrated is still an unresolved issue (O’Malley

and Chamot, 1993). Researchers in favor of separate learning strategy programs argue that
strategies are generalizable to different context (Derry and Murphy, 1986; Jones et al. 1987 -
cited in O’Malley and Chamot, 1993) and strategies learned within a language class are less
likely to transfer to other tasks (Gu, 1996; cited in Chamot, 2004). Another argument
supporting separate instruction is that it is difficult for students to focus their attention on
both developing strategic processing skills and learning content at the same time (Jones et al.
1987; cited in O’Malley and Chamot, 1993). From a practical point of view, some
researchers (Vance, 1999; Weinstein and Mayer, 1986; cited in Chamot, 2004) think it is
easier to plan for one separate strategy course than to prepare all teachers to teach strategies.

However, researchers supporting integrated instruction have their own reasons. They
claim that learning in context is more effective because learners can realize immediate
applicability (Wenden, 1987b; cited in O’Malley and Chamot, 1993). Besides, this approach
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provides students with opportunities to practice learning strategies with authentic language
learning tasks (Chamot and O’Malley, 1994; Chamot et al., 1999; Cohen, 1998; Grenfell &
Harris, 1999; Nunan, 1997; Oxford & Leaver, 1996; cited in Chamot, 2004), which makes it
easier for learners to transfer strategies learned to similar tasks they may encounter in
different classes (Campione and Armbruster, 1985; Chamot and O’Malley 1987; cited in
O’Malley and Chamot, 1993).

6.2 Direct (explicit) versus embedded (implicit) instruction

Though it is not so unresolved as “separated or integrated”, there are arguments for

the question of whether LLSI should be explicit or implicit (Chamot, 2004).

Generally, the pairs of terms direct/explicit and embedded/implicit are used

interchangeably by researchers. To make it simpler, the terms explicit and implicit will be
used from now on in this thesis.

In explicit instruction, learners are informed of the value and purpose of strategies
being taught, while in implicit instruction, learners deal with activities and materials
structured to elicit the use of the strategies without being aware of the fact that they are
being taught learning strategies (O’Malley and Chamot, 1993).

O’Malley and Chamot (1993) cite Brown, Armbruster, and Baker (1986) in claiming
that early researches on training learning strategies with implicit approach showed little
transferring strategies to new task. Recent studies following explicit approach, which inform
students about the purpose and importance the strategies to be trained and give instruction on
how to regulate and monitor the strategies, found the strategies trained were maintained over
time and transferred to new tasks (Brown et al. 1986; Palincsar and Brown, 1986; reported in
O’Malley and Chamot, 1993).

According to Jones (1983; cited in O’Malley and Chamot, 1993), implicit training has
advantage in requiring little teacher training and giving students chances of learning to use
the strategies cued by textbooks when they work on activities and tasks. However, being
unaware of the strategies they are using, students cannot develop independent learning
strategies and have little opportunity to become autonomous learners (Wenden 1987b, cited
in O’Malley and Chamot, 1993). This was proved by a study of Barnett’s (1988; cited in
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O’Malley and Chamot, 1993) whose subjects were first-year college students of French.
Therefore, many researchers recommend that learning strategies should be taught explicitly
(O’Malley and Chamot, 1993).

Most researchers in both first and second language contexts appreciate the importance of
explicitness in strategy instruction (Chamot, 2004). With such points of views, Cohen
(1998), Chamot (2005), Grenfell and Harris (1999) developed their own LLS explicit
instruction models, whose characteristics are summarized in Table 2.1 below.

Table 2.1 Models for Language Learning Strategy Instruction (Adapted from Harris, 2003
by Chamot, 2004).

CALLA** Model
SSBI* Model (Cohen, 1998) (Chamot, 2005; Chamot Grenfell & Harris (1999)
et al., 1999)

Teacher as diagnostician: Preparation: Teacher Awareness raising: Students

Helps students identify identifies students’ current complete a task, and then
current strategies and learning strategies for identify the strategies they
learning styles. familiar tasks. used.

Teacher as language Presentation: Teacher Modeling: Teacher models,

learner: Shares own models, names, explain discusses value of new
learning experiences and new strategy; asks strategy, makes checklist of
thinking processes. students if and how they strategies for later use.
have used it.

Teacher as learner trainer: Practice: Students practice General practice: Students

Trains students how to use new strategy; in practice new strategies with
learning strategies. subsequent strategy different tasks.
practice, teacher fades
reminders to encourage
independent strategy use.

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Teacher as coordinator: Self-evaluation: Students Action planning: Students set
Supervises students’ study evaluate their own goals and choose strategies
plans and monitors strategy use immediately to attain those goals.
difficulties. after practice.

Teacher as coach: Provides Expansion: Students transfer Focused practice: Students

ongoing guidance on strategies to new tasks, carry out action plan using
students’ progress. combine strategies into selected strategies; teacher
clusters, develop fades prompts so that
repertoire of preferred students use strategies
strategies. automatically.

Assessment: Teacher Evaluation: Teacher and

assesses students’ use of students evaluate success
strategies and impact on of action plan; set new
performance. goals; cycle begins again.

* Styles and Strategies-Based Instruction ** Cognitive Academic Language Learning

Approach

From the table, It can be seen that all the three models begin by identifying students’
current learning strategies through activities such as completing questionnaires, engaging in
discussions about familiar tasks, and reflecting on strategies used immediately after
performing a task. These models all suggest that the teacher should teach LLSs explicitly by
modeling the new strategy. However, in comparison with Cohen’s (1998) model, both
CALLA Model and Grenfell & Harris models, teachers are suggested to fade their
controlling so that students can begin to assume greater responsibility in selecting and
applying appropriate learning strategies (Rasekh & Ranjbary, 2003). Another advantage of
The CALLA model is that it builds in a self-evaluation phase for students to reflect on their
use of strategies before going on to transfer the strategies to new tasks and provides option
of revisiting prior instructional phases as needed (Chamot, 2004).

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 In summary, current models of language learning strategy instruction are solidly based
on developing students’ knowledge about their own thinking and strategic processes and
encouraging them to adopt strategies that will improve their language learning and
proficiency (Chamot, 2004).

With the information about the issues have been brought about by researchers, LLSs
should be taught explicitly following integrate approach so that strategies learned would be
more likely to be transferred to other situation (Chamot, 2004).

6.3. Language to be used in giving strategy instruction

It is clear that in first language case, LLSs are taught in students’ native language.
Therefore, language of instruction just becomes an issue in second or foreign language
context. Especially, in the case of beginning learners, whose target language is not good
enough to understand explanations in the target language of why and how to use learning
strategies. Anyway, delaying training LLSs until intermediate level deprives beginning
learners of tools that might help them to enhance language learning and become
independent, motivated learners (Chamot, 2004). In such a case, it would be best to give
LLSI in learners’ native language (Chamot, 2005). Some studies (Florez, 2000, Rybicky,
2002; cited in Chamot, 2004) carried out on beginning language learners have used native
language in giving LLSI.

Chamot (2004) also mentioned researches using a combination of target and native
language in learning strategy instruction. Those are Grenfell and Harris’ (1999), Ozeki’s
(2000). Especially, in a study by Chamot and Keatley ( 2003; cited in Chamot, 2005), six of
the teachers provided initial strategy instruction in the students’ L1, then asked students to
use the same strategies when reading in English. The remaining eight teachers attempted to
teach the strategies only in English. The results showed that it is easier to teach strategies in
the native language; teachers in classrooms in which all instruction was in English
encountered difficulties in teaching learning strategies because of the low level of students’
target language proficiency, and most abandoned the attempt to teach strategies. With the
information revealed by those studies, initial learning instruction should be in native
language.

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