READING AND REFLECTING ON TEXTS A sourcebook for secondary teacher education READING AND REFLECTING ON TEXTS A source book for secondary teacher education i Copyright © 2021 by IUCTE, Mysuru. All the rights reserved. This book is the outcome based on the workshops conducted at IUCTE, organized by Inter-University Centre for Teacher Education (IUCTE), Regional Institute of Education (NCERT), Mysuru with eminent experts in this field of Education. First published in January 2021 (Edition I) Publisher & Author: Prof. Y. Sreekanth Chief Coordinator, IUCTE ISBN: 978-81-948852-0-7 Published by Inter-University Centre for Teacher Education (IUCTE) Regional Institute of Education (NCERT), Manasagangotri, Mysuru – 570006 Karnataka, INDIA https://iucte.riemysore.ac.in/ Cover and Interior Design: Shravan Kumar Pendyala Art Objects: Pikisuperstar, Starline/Freepik Printer: Sri Vijayalakshmi Printers, Mysuru ii PREFACE The education system today is advancing towards imparting the 21st century skills to its learners. The four Cs which are most sought after in the 21st century skills are Critical thinking, Creativity, Collaboration and Communication. Of these, Critical thinking which is, an objective evaluation of an issue, is also connected to the abilities of Problem solving. Creativity relates to thinking outside the box to provide unique solutions. Collaboration teaches how to work together to achieve a common goal and Communication helps learners to convey their ideas effectively. It is said, ‘Think before you speak’ and it can be added to that 'Read before you think'. This is true for all, more so in the case of teachers and teacher educators. It is an obvious observation today that the undergraduate students in-our universities need to be voracious readers and effective communicators through writing in order to excel in the globally competitive era. If the prospective teachers passing out of the universities are to be equipped with the essential 21st century skills mentioned above, reading and reflecting on what is read is the first step. With this aim NCTE has incorporated the course "Reading, and Reflecting on Texts" for teacher education programmes since 2014 under the courses for Enhancing Professional Capacities. The course is aimed at creating an atmosphere to learn to read and think, both individually and interactively in groups; thereafter, respond critically and creatively. The interactive nature of the course thus develops a collaborative spirit. Student teachers are also expected to enhance their metacognitive awareness to become conscious of their own thinking process as they grapple with diverse texts. These readings and reflections also provide ample contexts for writing with a sense of purpose, thus enhancing communication skills. The IUCTE, Mysuru took up the task of producing a source book on "Reading and Reflecting on Texts". The source book is the result of an effort in collaborating with experts from across the southern states. It is hoped that this source book serves the needs of teacher educators and student-teachers of this course. iii This extensive work is a result of the efforts made by various people at different stages of its design and development. The draft material is an outcome of the efforts of Dr. Asha G. V, Dr. B Danappa, Dr. Deepesh Chandrashekharan, Dr. Faisal, Dr. Karunakaran B. Shaji, Prof. M. S. Lalithamma, Dr. Mridula. K, Dr. V. Prasad, Prof. Prema Raghavan, Dr. Ravinarayan Chakrakodi, Dr. Sajida Sultana, Dr. P. Bhaskaran Nair and Dr. Paramita Shastri. Dr. K. K. Chandini has worked tirelessly to bring out the draft till its editing stage as the coordinator of this programme. Prof. V. D. Bhat has undertaken the initial review and Dr. G. Rajagopal, has edited the source book for its content and language. Design and technical support to publish this source book is provided by Mr. Shravan Kumar Pendyala and Ms. Deepika K. M of IUCTE, Mysuru. Any further suggestions for improvement of this source book would be much appreciated. Prof. Yagnamurthy Sreekanth Principal, RIE & Chief Coordinator, IUCTE, Mysuru iv CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1-4 Unit I Understanding Reading 5-22 Unit II Approaching Academic Reading 23-62 Unit III Critical and Reflective Reading 63-84 Unit IV Reading Nonverbal Texts 85-100 Unit V Reading Integrated into Communication 101-122 Unit VI Assessing Academic Reading 123-132 Unit VII Reading Activities and Guidelines 133-148 for Internal Assessment BIBLIOGRAPHY 149-158 APPENDIX 159-191 v vi READING AND REFLECTING ON TEXTS _____________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION The more a teacher reads, the greater she or he will be known as a teacher with a difference. Reading the textbooks prescribed for study forms only a very small part of the teacher’s reading. Reading newspapers and periodicals keeps a teacher updated with the current events —social, political, cultural, and so on. Reading reference materials far above the level of the textbooks elevates the teacher to new heights. Only this teacher can properly guide the students to the higher levels of academic career. Reading those fringe materials which lie between the hard-core theory of one’s subject and its popularly known applications makes the teacher a catalytic agent of social change. For example, a well-read teacher of Biology or Zoology can teach the society why a particular species of plant or creature is essential for our grandchildren to exist. A vast reading of the history of the past equips the teacher of History with the potentials of shaping the future of humanity— history reconstructs the past into future. Reading of literature binds single individuals together into a society. Yes, Man is the only reading animal! This book has been designed to serve two purposes. First, the student-teachers who do a Bachelor’s programme in education can use this as a resource book. Secondly, for teacher educators, this small volume serves as a springboard from which they can leap into higher or deeper levels of reading instruction. The central theme is reading; but the volume focuses on academic reading: its components and the pedagogy of reading. The approach followed here is that of descriptive, rather than prescriptive, though any textbook, course book or resource book may have certain degrees of prescriptive undertones inherent in them. The aim of this volume is to equip the teachers of future to have better scientific understanding of the nature of reading as opposed to the traditionally handed down teacher beliefs. Teacher beliefs about the subject which is going to be taught are crucial to the learning outcome. But more important is the testimonials as to how _____________________________________________________________ close those teacher beliefs are to scientifically tested theories and empirically proven practices. In other words, as more rapidly and frequently teacher beliefs undergo changes, the better will be the teaching-learning outcomes. “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes,” asserted Walt Whitman, the 19th century American poet-philosopher. Teachers are the best change agents a society looks forward to listen to—not scientists or technocrats. Therefore, let us get ready to change— change into ‘a terrible beauty’ as the 20th century Irish poet W.B. Yeats remarked. This small volume claims to possess the ammunition with which an explosion is made possible—an explosion of unearthing the hidden potentials of its readers. Let it be elaborated as follows. The traditional notions of reading and reading instruction have always been product-oriented. The only question that haunted a sincere teacher has been “How well my learners have been able to read?” And, the teacher need not go hunting for the answer; it is there in the learner’s written scripts: ranging from the exercise book to the exam script. Just look at the funny paradox of testing reading ability through writing! Is it possible to judge an athlete’s short-distance running speed from her or his performance in the long jump pit, just because running is common to both? Don’t you think that there should be an exclusive measuring mechanism to record the short distance running speed, which again is different from long distance speed? This book provides the student-teacher with the framework of a scientific approach to teaching reading—in the first and second language. How does this framework offer guidelines to the novice teacher? First, the book outlines the need of perceiving the phenomenon called reading from the point of view of a process. In pedagogy, a process approach naturally focuses on learning rather than the ‘learnt product’. Secondly, this book treats each of its readers as a distinct individual, not ‘uniform readers’. Both the strengths and weaknesses in reading are unique to a single reader. This approach, in turn, is expected to be followed back in the classroom, where the novice teachers start teaching reading in the first or second language. Thirdly, this resource book not only encourages, but makes it mandatory that students in a class must work in collaboration—in pairs, small groups and occasionally, in large groups as well. 2 | P a g e _____________________________________________________________ There is no need to remind the student-teacher of the need to carry this pedagogic tool, namely collaborative learning, to the classrooms which they are going to enter shortly. Finally, this small volume constantly reminds the reader of the need of integrating reading into communication, without treating reading skills in isolation—both in teaching- learning and in testing, as well. The Unit I, as its title suggests, enables the reader to understand the linguistic-cognitive-psychological-kinesthetic complexity called Reading. It answers academic issues such as why should we read, what to read and how to read. This unit also highlights that reading cannot be treated in a homogeneous way, since each reader is an individual with varying potentials, and at the same time, has limitations too.