Technique of reading

Efficient reading is based on the psycho-linguistic models of reading proposed by Goodman and Smith. According to Goodman, reading is ‘‘a psycholinguistic guessing game that involves an interaction between thought and language’’. He says that reading processes are cycles of sampling (choosing meaningful units), predicting, testing and confirming. According to Smith, two types of information are necessary in reading: visual information (which we get from the printed page) and non-visual information (which includes our understanding of the relevant language, our familiarity with the subject matter, our general ability in reading, and our knowledge of the word). The more nonvisual information we have when we read, the less visual information we need, and vice versa.

He says: ‘‘Skill in reading actually depends on using the eyes as little as possible…, as we become fluent readers we learn to rely more on what we already know, on what is behind the eye-balls, and less on the page in front of us’’.

The psycholinguistic models of reading can be summarized as following process:

1. The reader approaches a text with expectation based on his knowledge of the subject.

2. He uses only minimal sampling of the text in deriving meaning by relying on his knowledge of the language and subject, as well as his background knowledge.

3. On the basis of sampling, he makes predictions as to what message he expects to get from the text.

4. As he progresses into the material, he tests his predictions, confirming or revising them, and makes still more predictions on the basis of what he was been reading.

5. By making use of minimal orthographic, syntactic, and semantic clues in the material, he integrally re-created a replica (exact copy) of the textual message.

6. Once such reconstruction has taken place, he will test its accuracy against previous information extracted from the text, as well as the store of information in his long-term memory relevant to the topic.

7. a) If the reconstruction is in agreement with his previous knowledge, the cycle of sampling begins again.

b) If inaccuracy or inconsistency occurs, he will adopt some compensatory strategy such as re-reading.

According to the psycholinguistic model of reading, efficient reading is possible because the fluent reader does not read letter by letter nor word by word, but in meaningful units. By looking at a sample of the text, he can predict the meaning of a larger part based on what he has sampled and on his prior knowledge of this subject at hand. He then looks at another part of the text to confirm his prediction. The efficient reader is one who guesses correctly with minimal text sampling.