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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 392 235 FL 023 547 AUTHOR Blue, George, Ed. TITLE Perspectives on Reading. CLE Working Papers 2. INSTITUTION Southampton Univ. (England). Centre for Language Education. PUB DATE 92 NOTE 152p.; For individual papers, see FL 023 548-557. PUB TYPE Collected Works General (020) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC07 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Art Activities; Classroom Communication; *Cognitive Processes; Elementary Education; Elementary Secondary Education; English; Foreign Countries; French; Independent Study; Learning Strategies; *Literacy; Modern Language Curriculum; *Reading Comprehension; Second Language Instruction; Second Language Learning; Student Needs ABSTRACT This set of working papers concentrates on reading issues. This collection contains the following papers: "Literacy: The Needs of Teachers and Learners' (Christopher Brumfit); "Eight Lessons from Research into Literacy" (Henrietta Dombey); "'The Disqualified Half': Gender Representation in a Children's Reading Scheme" iSimon Williams); "Reading to Learn: Study Reading for All?" (Virginia Kelly); "Reading in a Foreign Language: A Self-Access Approach" (George Blue); "Reading and Communication in the Modern Languages Classroom" (Michael Grenfell) ;"Reading in French-GCSE to A Level" (Pat Rees); "POPS, PROPS, and FOPS: A New Way of Thi-king About Readers' Response to Narrative" (Frank Myszor); "Reading Media Texts: Media, Imagination, and National Curriculum English" (Andrew Hart); and "Looking at Paintings: Representation and Response" (Michael Benton). (NAV) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. * *****************.:***************************************************** University of Southampton Perspectives on Reading CLE Working Papers 2 S DEPARTMENT OF Pe RVIIS`,ONI c tIE '3RODUGE I HIS EDUCATION TERAt HA 8HN Pese,i,ch ,, (RAN1ED rDUCAT1ONAL RESOURCESINFORMATION CENTER (ERICI This document has beenreproduced as C t received Iron, the personor organization originating it Minor changes have beenmade to Improve reproduction quality ) 1HE EDULAIIONAL Points ol view or opinionsstated in this HP,OURCES document do not necessarily C;RMATION CEN ER ,1RIC1 represent Okra( OERI peytion orpolicy Centre for 1,anguage in Education 1992 BEST COPY AVAILABLE 9 Perspectives on Reading Edited by George Blue CLE Working Papers 2 Centre for Language inEducation 1992 3 Contents Page Introduction V Goirse Blue Literacy: The Needs of Teachers and Learners Christopher Brumitt Eight Lessons from Research into literacy 12 Henrietta Dombey "The Disqualified Half": Gender Representation Scheme in a Children's Reading 28 Simon Williams Reading to Learn: Study Reading for All? 43 Virsirlia Kelly Reading in a Foreign Language: A Self-Access Approach 52 Georxe lliue Reading and Communication in the Modern Languages Classroom MIL Wel Grenfell Reading in French GCSE to A Level 78 Pat Ree. POPS, PROPS and FOPS: A New Way ofThinking about Readers' Response to Narrative 1)9 Irank A41/4:or Reading Media Fe ts: Media, linagination and Natiimal Curriculum Fnglish 110 Ambew Hart 1.00king at Paintings: Representation andResponse 128 Ms haul Iteulf011 4 Ill Introduction Following the 2uccess of the first volumeof CLE Working Papers, which was intende I to reflectsomething of the range and breadth of theCentre's work, we decided that the next volumeshould be a thematic one. The topic that immediately sprang to mind was onethat has been the subject of intense interest and debate recentlyand one to which members of CLE could contribute from a number ofdifferent perspectives: reading. -1 collection, like the last, represents workfrom staff in the University, students or ex-students, and othercontributors to CLE activities. The collection opens with ChristopherBrumfit's investigation into the scope of literacy, showinghow this concept may be defineddifferently by different communities and challenging anumber of assumptions and oversimplifications. This theme is continuedby Henrietta Dombey, who draws cut a number of important lessonsfor anyone interested in children learning to read and write. Simon Williamsthen takes a look at a children's reading scheme to see whether maleand female protagonists are equally represented. Ginger Kelly's paper forms a kind ofbridge between work with native speakers and teaching reading in aforeign language, as the study skills approach she describes for use withchildren with specific learning difficulties is very similar to some ofthe approaches described in the following three papers, all of which areconcerned with learning to read in a foreign language.My own contribution investigatesthe potential of a self-access approach to developing foreignlanguage reading skills, bearing in mind that both languageskills and reading skills are involvedhere. Mike Grenfell relates work in themother tongue teaching of reading to that reading in a foreign language,particularly at GCSE level, and argues reading activities should pli y a much moreimportant role in the language classroom. Pat Rees investigates theplace of reading in the experienceof pupils who have taken GCSE and reports on astudy of the difficult transition from GCSE to A Level. In the last three papers we movefrom the role of literature in foreign languages back into mother tonguework, and investigate three different types of "reading", all fromthe point of view of reader-response.Frank Myszor describes three kinds of prediction thatyoung readers use in their approach to fiction. Andrew Hart extends the notion of"reading" to media texts, looking particularly at children'sresponses to television. Finally, Mike Benton makes the link between respondingto literature and responding to paintings, showingmany similarities between the processes by which readers and viewers create meaning. All of the papers are offered in the hope that theywill inform and enrich the debate on reading in its many differentguises. The papers are not necessarily intended to be in polishedor final form, and they certainly do not represent the last word on the subject. Comments willalways be welcomed by the authors, as will suggestions fortopics to be treated in further volumes of CLE Working Papers. George Blue Centre for Language in Ed uca tion University of Southampton vi Literacy: The Needs ofTeachers and Learners Christopher Brumfit with There are three main sectors ineducation which have been concerned initial literacy, and in many ways itis confusing to group themall together because their problems vary. Incountries where literacy is wellestablished within the community, all primaryschool teachers are concernedwith introducing reading and writing to youngchildren. At the same time, with the teachers of adults are concernedwith learners who are dissatisfied those who level of skill in these areas thatthey reached at school, and with than have come from overseas countrieswhere literacy is less widespread have been here. In addition, literacy campaignsin some overseas countries concerned with attempts to reduceilliteracy in whole commu nities, a ttempts of written which have sometimes beenaccompanied by the establishment solely on the forms of languages that hadhitherto operated satisfactorily basis of oral demands. Each ofthese situa tions demands different responses. phenomenon At the same time, however, ourgenefal studies of literacy as a spill over into each of these areas,and none of the assumptionsunderpinning others, work in one of these areas can beignored by those working in the from if only because people move toand fro. Teachers and learners move society to society, so ourboundaries arc never impermeableand our categories are never watertight. Over the past twenty years our views onthe nature of literacy have changed the result of clearer considerably.Some of this change has been understanding of the psychologicaland linguistic processesunderlying reading and writing; much of it,however, has resulted from thechanging have of role of literacy in the world, andthe increased awareness we now literacy as a social construct(Cook-Gumperz 1986). in this paper I propose and learners need to to examine a number ofkey ideas which both teachers understand if they are to make senseof their own and others' -literacy. The will of specific means by which differentpeople achieve understanding to situation. But if the course vary from personto person and from sit,tation deal of time will areas I discuss arefundamentally misunderstood, a great be caused. be wasted, and unnecessaryfrustration and unhappiness will P' In addition to discussion of these generalmatters of concern, I shall raise a number of questions resulting from whatwe do not understand about literacy, for we need to know whatareas no-one knows about even more than wc need to understand other people'srelevant knowledge. Probably more harm results from being unaware ofour ignorance than from failing to grasp what we do understand. Literacy is not an absoluteconcept There is not a reader of thispaper who is not illiterate in some dialector style of English. Theremay even be a number who have difficulty in translating the negatives in the previoussentence satisfactorily, and would have even more difficulty if theyencountered the sentence in the spoken form. Illiteracymay be conceived of as a failure to realise one's ambitions in reading or in writing- but clearly what are considered appropriate ambitions will vary from situationto situation. Yet the liberal position I