Different types of reading

Although it is easy to observe when, and for how long, someone engaged in a reading into writing task reads the source texts, Chan suggests that this information is far less important than which reading processes have been used. Chan's framework specifically identifies higher level reading processes as being required during reading into writing tasks.

Chan proposes that the model of reading outlined by Khalifa and Weir (2009) is useful when considering reading as part of reading into writing. Khalifa and Weir's model of reading (see section 2.3) breaks reading into eight sub processes. These range from low level processes such as word recognition through to high level processes such as creating an

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intertextual interpretation. Khalifa and Weir’s model (2009:43) lists the sub processes as follows:

creating an intertextual interpretation* creating a text level representation* building a mental model*

inferencing*

establishing propositional meaning syntactic parsing

lexical access

word recognition (* Higher level processes)

Khalifa and Weir's (2009) description of reading identifies two very different types of reading: careful and expeditious, both of which can be applied at global and local levels as discussed in section 2.3

Chan reports that ‘(c)areful reading involves comprehension of every part of the whole text while expeditious reading means processing texts selectively, quickly and efficiently to access desired information from a text’. Khalifa and Weir (ibid.) suggest that comprehension of a text involves not just decoding sentences to understand the meaning of individual sentences, the micro-structures, but also understanding the relationship between the main ideas contained in the text, the macro-structure of the text.

Khalifa and Weir suggest that careful global reading is used to handle the majority

of the text with readers reading each sentence slowly and sequentially, building up a detailed understanding of the text. Careful local reading occurs when, as with careful global reading,

the reader is attempting to access a complete understanding of the meaning, but the bout of reading is confined to a single sentence.

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With Khalifa and Weir's description of expeditious global reading the purpose is to

skim read the content to get the gist or to search read for the main ideas. The reader will be quick, selective and regularly skip chunks of text, indicating strategic reading. Expeditious local reading is also quick and selective but here the reader is searching to locate a single

word, fact or figure.

According to Khalifa and Weir's descriptions of reading it is possible to surmise that

careful global reading and expeditious global reading both represent higher level reading

skills as both are likely to contribute to the reader arriving at an understanding of the whole text(s) and how the text(s) relate to the writing task. It is difficult to see how Khalifa and Weir's locally focused reading activities can be seen to represent higher level reading skills. Expeditious local reading in particular, which relates to searching for a single piece of information, seems unlikely to contribute to overall understanding of the text. The only exception is perhaps the occurrence of inferencing when careful local reading is used to process sentences containing ambiguity. The researcher would argue that careful local reading may be used by a reader whilst re-reading an ambiguous sentence in order to try and resolve meaning.

Grabe and Stoller (2011) suggest that fluent readers initially form a text model of reading comprehension. That text model is the basis for a more elaborate interpretation of

the text which Grabe and Stoller refer to as the situation model of reader interpretation. The

creation of these two models relies upon two high level reading processes.

Lower level reading processes generate clause level meaning units which are linked together in the form of a network using higher level processes. The ideas and themes which allow new meaning units to be added to the network are reinforced and become central to the text model. Ideas which are not referred to again or provide no link to new ideas / themes

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are likely to be erased or forgotten. Thus, the text model becomes the reader's internal summary of the main ideas. Grabe and Stoller report that the coordination of ideas, which facilitates the building of the text model, is the most fundamental of the two higher level reading processes.

As the reader is building the text model they are simultaneously elaborating on this text model to build a more sophisticated situational model. The situational model is influenced by the reader’s goals, feelings and back ground expectations. Grabe and Stoller suggest that in the process of forming this situational model the fluent reader engages in the other high-level process of elaboration. This elaboration relies on making inferences, drawing on background knowledge, monitoring comprehension, forming attitudes about the text and author, adjusting goals and critically evaluating the information being read.

Grabe and Stoller suggest that these dual models of the text are what allows the reader to interpret a text according to what the reader thinks the writer is trying to say and according to the reader’s own purpose for reading. The writer suggests that creating this situational model could be seen as central to the connecting and generating process identified by Chan and described further in the next section.