Effective Reading Strategies and Their Benefits

Posted on Jan 16, 2025 in Primary Education

What is Reading?

Reading is a written receptive skill that activates a chain of cognitive processes in making sense of the text. In this sense-making, readers draw inferences, construct interpretations, and respond actively to written texts. (Madrid & McLaren, 2004:220).

In brief, we can say that understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible.

Reading can be considered an interactive process. The reader interacts with the text to create meaning: the reading situation, the type of text, and the reading purpose.

  • Understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible.
  • We apply different reading strategies depending on the type of text.
  • Reading is an interactive process: the reader interacts with the text to create meaning.
  • The reader’s “schemata”: the preexisting concepts about the world and about the text to be read.

What do Schemata Mean in Reading?

In this view of reading as an interactive process, the reader’s schemata, the preexisting concepts about the world and about the text to be read, are very important. The reader fits what he or she finds in a text into his/her schemata. Content schemata can be defined as the reader’s background knowledge about the cultural aspects or content of a text. Formal schemata refer to the reader’s expectations or knowledge about the structure, organization, and formal aspects of a text.

Reader’s Schemata:

  • Content schemata: the reader’s background knowledge about the cultural aspects or content of a text.
  • Formal schemata: the reader’s expectations or knowledge about the structure, organization, and formal aspects of a text.

Reading is an Activity with a Purpose

Whenever we read, we have a specific purpose in mind, and this purpose guides the reader’s selection of texts and also determines the appropriate approach to reading comprehension. We also read for enjoyment, to follow instructions, to keep in touch, to find out when and where, and to satisfy curiosity about a topic.

Aspects that Determine Reading Strategies

The purposes for reading and the type of text determine the specific knowledge, skills, and strategies that readers need to apply to achieve comprehension. Reading comprehension is thus much more than decoding. Reading comprehension results when the reader knows which skills and strategies are appropriate for the type of text and understands how to apply them to accomplish the reading purpose.

Reading Comprehension is More than Decoding

The purposes for reading and the type of text determine the specific knowledge, skills, and strategies that readers need to apply to achieve comprehension. Reading comprehension results when the reader knows which skills and strategies are appropriate for the type of text and understands how to apply them to accomplish the reading purpose.

Types of Knowledge in Reading

According to Hedge, we can differentiate six types of knowledge:

  • Syntactic knowledge (clause structure, position of auxiliary verbs, etc.).
  • Morphological knowledge (word classes, word information, cohesive devices, etc.).
  • General world knowledge (background knowledge).
  • Sociocultural knowledge (social and cultural aspects).
  • Topic knowledge (expectations or previous ideas with respect to the content).
  • Genre knowledge (stories, poems, plays, science fiction, etc.).

Formal Schemata: First three.

Content Schemata: Last three.

Approaches to Reading

There are different approaches to reading. The following are the most relevant:

  • Bottom-up process: This approach to reading is based upon the assumption that the reader, in order to build up the meaning of the text, starts from decoding or recognizing the smallest units of the language (letters), then the bigger ones (words, phrases), and so on until he constructs the meaning of sentences and texts.
  • Top-down process: In this process, the reader does not need to decode every single unit in the text in order to understand its general meaning. The reader starts from the higher levels of processing, and his background knowledge plays an essential role since the reader combines what he already knows about the text with the new information.
  • Interactive process: In this approach, the reader, depending on his purpose, the type of text, etc., uses different strategies which shift from bottom-up to top-down and vice versa.

Intensive Reading vs. Extensive Reading

The goal of intensive reading is to achieve sufficient understanding to fulfill a particular reading purpose. Intensive reading usually focuses on linguistic and content accuracy. It is the kind of reading that students usually do in the classroom because it is used to show or exemplify different aspects of the language. Texts used are short, and they are chosen to practice specific skills or linguistic aspects. Students have to read carefully and in-depth.

Skills Needed to be an Efficient Reader

Strategies that can help students read more quickly and effectively include:

  • Previewing
  • Predicting
  • Skimming
  • Scanning
  • Reading for detail
  • Reading for pleasure
  • Inferring opinion and attitude
  • Deducing meaning from context
  • Recognizing function and discourse patterns and markers
  • Inferring meaning

When language learners use reading strategies, they find that they can control the reading experience, and they gain confidence in their ability to read the language.

Characteristics of Good Readers

Reading research shows that good readers can:

  • Read in various ways, using different strategies (skimming, scanning, etc.).
  • Adapt the way they read according to the text and their reason for reading, having a flexible reading style, depending on what they are reading.
  • Understand the relationship between sentences.
  • Use textual and visual clues (headings, the way the text is organized into paragraphs, pictures, etc.) in order to help understanding.
  • Use contextual clues.
  • Infer meaning.
  • Guess meaning.
  • Integrate information in the text with existing knowledge.
  • Read for a purpose; reading serves a function.

Also, good readers read extensively and are motivated.

Reading Supports Learning in Many Ways

Reading is an essential part of language instruction at every level because it supports learning in multiple ways:

  • Reading to learn the language: Reading material is language input. By giving students a variety of materials to read, they are provided with multiple opportunities to absorb vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, and discourse structure.
  • Reading for content information: Students’ purpose for reading in their native language is often to obtain information about a subject they are studying, and this purpose can be useful in the language learning classroom as well. Reading for content information in the language classroom gives students both authentic reading material and an authentic purpose for reading.
  • Reading for cultural knowledge and awareness: Reading everyday materials that are designed for native speakers can give students insight into the lifestyles and worldviews of the people whose language they are studying. When students have access to newspapers, magazines, and Web sites, they are exposed to culture in all its variety.

Steps to Achieve Comprehension from a Text

When reading to learn, students need to follow four basic steps:

  1. Figure out the purpose for reading. Activate background knowledge of the topic in order to predict or anticipate content and identify appropriate reading strategies.
  2. Attend to the parts of the text that are relevant to the identified purpose and ignore the rest.
  3. Select strategies that are appropriate to the reading task and use them flexibly and interactively.
  4. Check comprehension while reading and when the reading task is over.

Types of Text

A first distinction must be drawn between authentic and non-authentic material. Authentic texts are those which are designed for native speakers: they are real texts designed not for language students, but for the speakers of the language in question. Any English newspaper, an English advertisement, an English novel, etc. are examples of authentic texts.

A non-authentic text, in language teaching terms, is one that has been written especially for language students, but here we have to make another distinction between texts written to illustrate particular language points for presentation and those written to appear authentic. The justification for the latter is that beginner students will probably not be able to handle genuinely authentic texts, but should nevertheless be given practice in reading and listening to texts that look authentic.

Introducing the Topic of a Text

Reading is an essential part of language instruction at every level because it supports learning in multiple ways:

  • Reading to learn the language: Reading material is language input. By giving students a variety of materials to read, they are provided with multiple opportunities to absorb vocabulary, grammar, etc. Students thus gain a more complete picture of the ways in which the elements of the language work together to convey meaning.
  • Reading for content information: Students’ purpose for reading in their native language is often to obtain information about a subject they are studying, and this purpose can be useful in the language learning classroom as well. Reading for content information in the language classroom gives students both authentic reading material and an authentic purpose for reading.
  • Reading for cultural knowledge and awareness: Reading everyday materials that are designed for native speakers can give students insight into the lifestyles and worldviews of the people whose language they are studying. When students have access to newspapers, magazines, and Web sites, they are exposed to culture in all its variety, and monolithic cultural stereotypes begin to break down.

Benefits of Extensive Reading for Learners

Extensive reading helps learners to:

  • Provide comprehensible input.
  • Enhance learners’ general language competence.
  • Increase their exposure to the language.
  • Increase knowledge of vocabulary.
  • Improve writing.
  • Motivate learners to read.
  • Consolidate previously learned language.
  • Build confidence with extended texts.
  • Facilitate the development of prediction skills.
  • Develop learner autonomy.
  • Develop general, world knowledge.
  • Encourage the exploitation of textual redundancy.

Benefits of Extensive Reading for Teachers

Extensive reading helps teachers to:

  • Facilitate personal development.
  • Be better informed about their profession and about the world.
  • Enhance general language competence.
  • Develop general, world knowledge.
  • Extend, consolidate, and sustain vocabulary growth.
  • Improve writing.
  • Create and sustain motivation to read more.

In brief, we can say that extensive reading has the same benefits for teachers as for learners, but we can point out some specific ones:

  • It helps teachers to be better informed, both about their profession and about the world.
  • It helps teachers to keep their own use of English fresh. As for learners, it can enhance all areas of language competence.
  • It gives us a rich mental yeast which we can use to interact with others.

Teachers can be models for their students.