Reading and Writing Skills: A Comprehensive Analysis
Characteristics of Written Languages
Written language differs significantly from spoken language in several key aspects:
- Performance: Readers can revisit written information as many times as needed.
- Processing Time: Decoding written information takes longer, but readers can proceed at their own pace.
- Distance: The context of writing often differs from the context of reading.
- Orthography: Written language uses graphemes, punctuation marks, pictures, and charts to convey meaning.
- Complexity: Written sentences tend to be more complex than spoken sentences.
- Vocabulary: Written language often employs a more varied and formal vocabulary.
- Formality: Written language utilizes conventionalized forms to help readers identify the text type.
The Importance of Reading and Writing Skills
Reading and writing are fundamental to written communication. Here’s why they are crucial:
- They form the basis of written communication.
- Good readers process information more quickly.
- Effective reading skills enable individuals to learn about the world, enrich their vocabulary, and improve their writing.
- Good writing creates a positive impression of the individual.
- Writing enhances vocabulary in both written and oral communication.
Schemata in Reading as an Interactive Process
Schemata refer to the reader’s pre-existing knowledge about the world and the text. There are two main types:
- Content Schemata: The reader’s knowledge of 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: An Activity with a Purpose
Reading always has a goal, whether it’s for enjoyment (poems, stories), information (menus, signs), curiosity (magazines, newspapers), instructions (recipes, maps), communication (postcards, letters), or scheduling (programs). This purpose guides the reader’s text selection and approach to comprehension.
Factors Determining Reading Skills and Strategies
The purpose of reading dictates the strategies and competencies a reader employs. These include:
- Linguistic competence
- Sociolinguistic competence
- Discourse competence
- Strategic competence
Reading Comprehension: Beyond Decoding
Reading comprehension occurs when the reader knows which skills and strategies are appropriate for the text type and how to apply them to achieve the reading purpose.
Approaches to Reading
- Bottom-up: Starting with decoding the smallest units of language and building up to sentences and texts.
- Top-down: Utilizing higher-level processing and background knowledge.
- Interactive Process: Employing various strategies to achieve the reader’s purpose.
Intensive vs. Extensive Reading
- Intensive Reading: Focuses on linguistic and content accuracy, often used in classrooms with short, selected texts to practice specific skills.
- Extensive Reading: Aims for general understanding, information gathering, pleasure, or learning, typically involving longer texts like books and articles, often done outside the classroom.
Characteristics of Good Readers
- Employ diverse reading strategies.
- Infer meaning effectively.
- Integrate textual information with background knowledge.
- Utilize contextual clues.
Reading Supports Learning in Multiple Ways
- Reading to Learn the Language: Reading material serves as language input.
- Reading for Content Information: Acquiring information on a specific subject.
- Reading for Cultural Knowledge and Awareness: Engaging with materials designed for native speakers.
Steps to Achieve Reading Comprehension
- Determine the purpose for reading and activate relevant background knowledge.
- Focus on relevant parts of the text and disregard the rest.
- Select and flexibly use appropriate reading strategies.
- Monitor comprehension during and after reading.
Writing: More Than Just an End Product
Writing is the act of communicating ideas, emotions, and feelings in a written form. It involves a purpose, an audience, and a didactic function.
Written Language is Often Decontextualized
Writers are often separated by time and place from their readers. Consequently, written text lacks the stress, facial expressions, and gestures present in spoken communication, making it decontextualized.
How Writing Aids Learning
- Learn about subject matter.
- Learn a language.
- Learn to generate and structure ideas.
- Develop fluency.
- Communicate with others.
- Train memory.
The Complexity of Writing
Writing is complex because it requires the simultaneous use of multiple sub-skills, including creativity, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and appropriate word choice.
Graphic Skills
- Handwriting: Forming letters.
- Spelling: The often-irregular relationship between sounds and spelling.
- Punctuation: Using capital letters, full stops, etc.
- Layout: The structure of the text.
Grammatical Skills
Linguistic competence.
Expressive Skills
Sociolinguistic competence.
Rhetorical Skills
Discourse competence.
Organizational Skills
The organization of the text.
Does Language Practice for Accuracy Lead to Writing Skills?
Writing practice should extend beyond reinforcing grammar and vocabulary. It should specifically address the skills needed for effective writing, including grammar, syntax, and vocabulary, to create a well-structured text.
What Constitutes “Good Writing”?
- Grammatical Accuracy:
- Syntax: Structure, word order, agreement.
- Morphology: Spelling rules, irregular forms, parts of speech.
- Mechanics of Writing: Spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.
- Word Choice: Appropriate vocabulary.
- Organization:
- Paragraph division.
- Discourse referents.
- Topic and comment.
- Clear Purpose: Writing for meaning and reader understanding.
- Revision: The text has undergone revision.
Writing as a Communicative Act
When writing is viewed as a communicative act, purpose and audience become paramount. Before writing, consider:
- Content: What you are writing about.
- Reader: Who you are writing for.
- Purpose: Why you are writing.