This study proposes an integrated reading instruction model for teaching reading for any purpose, any level and any text type. According to the proposed model, reading instruction should make the following connections: (1) Phonic connections: to determine the pronunciation and meaning of unknown words by identifying letter combinations and spelling-pronunciation correspondences; (2) Morphological connections: to determine the meaning of unknown words by breaking them into roots, prefixes and suffixes, by identifying inflectional endings, compound words, contractions and possessives; (3) Contextual connections = such as the topic, words preceding and/or following the unfamiliar words and commonly used expressions, synonyms, antonyms, definitions, direct explanations, descriptions, examples, parenthesis …etc.; (4) Syntactic connections: to determine the meaning of unknown words by noting the inflectional endings, position of words in a sentence, mandatory agreement, and others; (5) Text structure connections = paragraph topics and subtopics, text structure types and organizational clues; (6) Inferential relationships, i.e. using knowledge or experiences or finding a semantic, grammatical or logical (causal) relation between the propositions, making backward and forward inferences; (7) Anaphoric relationships, i.e., linking words and phrases that refer back to other words and phrases used earlier in a text; (8) Cohesion connections, i.e. linking the component parts of a text together. (9) Connections with students’ prior knowledge and global culture.
Prof. Reima Al-jarf
King Saud University
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/aljarf
Bookmark/Search this post with:
