The Text and the Reading Process

OVERVIEW
A. Types of Texts
1. Persuasive
2. Informative
3. Letters
4. Descriptive
5. Narrative
6. Expository
7. Argumentative
B. The Reading Process (Part One)
C. Types of Reading:
1. Skimming
2. Scanning
3. Intensive Reading
4. Extensive Reading
5. Silent Reading vs. Reading Aloud
D. Types of Knowledge in Reading
1. Syntactic Knowledge
2. Morphological Knowledge
3. General world Knowledge
4. Sociocultural Knowledge
5. Topic Knowledge
6. Genre Knowledge
TYPES OF TEXTS
A text can come in any form and be any kind of writing. Letters, adverts, user-guides, emails,
postcards, notes and magazine articles are all different types of text.
When reading something, it helps to know what type of text it is. It also helps to know why it
has been written. For example:
An advert is written to persuade you to buy something.
A user-guide is instructive and is written to tell you how to use something (such as a
video recorder or washing-machine).
A formal (business) letter might be written to inform you about school dates.
A personal letter might be written by a friend, describing a holiday.
1. Persuasive Text: encourages you to do something; examples: written speeches
~ Use capital letters, exclamation marks, questions and repeated words to catch your
attention.
~ Use adjectives to make something sound attractive.
~ Give only one side of an argument.
~ Take the form of an advert
2. Informative Text: gives facts, information or news in a clear, step-by-step way:
examples: newspaper articles, websites, school handouts, cookbooks
3. Letters:
A personal letter from a friend can be set out in whatever way the writer wishes and
will often describe a person, place or thing.
A business letter is a letter from one company to another, or between such
organizations and their customers, clients and other external parties.

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4.

5.
6.
7.
8.

A circular letter is sent to many people and, like an advert, will often try to persuade
the reader to buy something.
Descriptive Text: lists the characteristics of something; tells you what something is like.
The writer is trying to help you imagine or see a person, place or thing.
~ The topic is usually about the attributes of a thing.
~ Third person pronoun forms are used.
Examples: Requirements for employment, the appearance of a person, the details of a
location
Narrative Text: retell a story (usually in the past tense); to entertain or to amuse the
readers or listeners about the story.
Expository Text: explains, analyzes facts; identifies and characterizes phenomena;
examples: scientific books, journals, textbooks, directions, newspaper, biographies
Argumentative Text: uses evidence and facts to prove whether or not a thesis is true.
It presents two sides of a single issue, and covers the most important arguments for and
against.
Functional Text: provides support and helpful information to readers. Compare with
informative text.

TYPES OF READING

A. Skimming

Skimming is reading a text quickly to get a general idea of

meaning. (BBC)

Skimming is sometimes referred to as gist reading. Skimming may help in order to know
what the text is about at its most basic level. You might typically do this with a magazine or
newspaper and would help you mentally and quickly shortlist those articles which you might
consider for a deeper read. You might typically skim to search for a name in a telephone
directory.
You can reach a speed count of even 700 words per minute if you train yourself well in
this particular method. Comprehension is of course very low and understanding of overall
content very superficial.

Example: A learner taking a reading exam decides to approach text by looking at the title,
introductions, and any diagrams and sub-headings, then skim reading to get a clear general
idea of what the text is about. (BBC)

In the classroom: Skimming is a specific reading skill which is common in reading

newspapers, messages and e-mails. It is important that learners understand that there is no
need to read every word when skimming, so often teachers set this as a timed task to
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encourage speed. (BBC)

B. Scanning

Scanning is reading a text quickly in order to find specific

information, e.g. figures or names. (BBC)

Picture yourself visiting a historical city, guide book in hand. You would most probably
just scan the guide book to see which site you might want to visit. Scanning involves getting
your eyes to quickly scuttle across sentence and is used to get just a simple piece of
information. Interestingly, research has concluded that reading off a computer screen
actually inhibits the pathways to effective scanning and thus, reading of paper is far more
conducive to speedy comprehension of texts.
Something students sometimes do not give enough importance to is illustrations. These
should be included in your scanning. Special attention to the introduction and the conclusion
should also be paid.

Example: A learner taking a reading test needs to scan a text on population rates quickly to
find out if a series of statements about the population figures are true or false. (BBC)

In the classroom: As the above example shows, scanning is a specific reading skill which is
often used in combination with others such as skimming and intensive reading. Learners
need to learn different ways and understand that choosing how to read is an important step
in building reading skills. (BBC)

C. Intensive Reading

Intensive reading involves learners reading in detail with

specific learning aims and tasks. (BBC)

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You need to have your aims clear in mind when undertaking intensive reading.
Remember this is going to be far more time consuming than scanning or skimming. If you
need to list the chronology of events in a long passage, you will need to read it intensively.
This type of reading has indeed beneficial to language learners as it helps them understand
vocabulary by deducing the meaning of words in context. It moreover, helps with retention
of information for long periods of time and knowledge resulting from intensive reading
persists in your long term memory.
This is one reason why reading huge amounts of information just before an exam does
not work very well. When students do this, they undertake neither type of reading process
effectively, especially neglecting intensive reading. They may remember the answers in an
exam but will likely forget everything soon afterwards.

Example: The learners read a short text and put events from it into chronological order.
(BBC)

In the classroom: Intensive reading activities include skimming a text for specific
information to answer true or false statements or filling gaps in a summary, scanning a text
to match headings to paragraphs, and scanning jumbled paragraphs and then reading them
carefully to put them into the correct order. (BBC)

D. Extensive reading

Reading for pleasure. Extensive reading involves learners

reading texts for enjoyment and to develop general reading
skills. (BBC)

Extensive reading involves reading for pleasure. Because there is an element of

enjoyment in extensive reading it is unlikely that students will undertake extensive reading
of a text they do not like. It also requires a fluid decoding and assimilation of the text and
content in front of you. If the text is difficult and you stop every few minutes to figure out
what is being said or to look up new words in the dictionary, you are breaking your
concentration and diverting your thoughts.

Example: A teacher reads a short story with learners, but does not set them any tasks
except to read and listen. (BBC)
In the classroom: Extensive reading is often overlooked, especially as a classroom activity.
Teachers often feel it is not an effective use of class time or are just uncomfortable with the

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extended silence. Learners can be encouraged to read extensively by setting up a class
library, encouraging review writing, and incorporating reading of books into the syllabus, and
dedicating some class time to quiet reading. (BBC)
http://www.howtolearn.com/2012/08/different-reading-techniques-and-when-to-use-them/
E. Reading Aloud vs. Silent Reading

Reading aloud

Silent Reading

reporting information
improving pronunciation

understanding a text may

be difficult; there is little
retention

vary pace
concentrate on
understanding more
difficult portions of the
text
think more deeply about
the content
risk of being distracted

TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE IN READING

Linguistic/Systemic Knowledge
1. Syntactic knowledge involves the way that words are assembled and sentences are
constructed in a particular language, while semantic knowledge involves the meaning
found from the actual text, symbols and signs themselves. In essence, syntactic
knowledge is the understanding of the grammar of a language.
How does a language work? How are phrases, sentences
and clauses formed?
2. Morphological knowledge (or, morphological awareness) is the recognition,
understanding, and use of word parts that carry significance. For example, root words,
prefixes, suffixes, and grammatical inflections (e.g., -s or -es for plurals) are all
morphemes which can be added or taken away from a word to alter its meaning.
How are words formed? How can word meanings change
when letters are added to root words?
Schematic Knowledge
3. General world knowledge is the experience that individuals bring to any learning
situation. This knowledge gives us the hook that we can hang new information or
ideas on; conversely, it is the knowledge that allows us to bring meaning to something
that was previously vague or totally unfamiliar to us.

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4. Sociocultural Knowledge: awareness of the societies and cultures of the target
language, and therefore of the contexts the language is used in. (BBC)
5. Topic Knowledge is the understanding or experience that the reader has related to the
topic being studied. In order for the reader to be able to digest even a small amount of
information from a text, he/she must have some familiarity with, or at least exposure to,
the topic at hand.
6. Genre Knowledge is the comprehension the reader has of the kind of text being
studied, e.g. scientific, expository, mystery, poetry, etc.
SOURCE
https://nexus.uwinnipeg.ca/d2l/lms/blog/view_userentry.d2l?
ou=6606&ownerId=12755&entryId=159&ec=1&iu=1&sp=&gb=usr

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