Teaching Second Language Reading

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This book examines a variety of approaches from classrooms and research that are used for teaching reading, and explores teaching methods focused on strategies.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction (p. 3)
• 1 Issues in reading
• Introduction (p. 7)
• Second language reading (p. 12)
• Examining some of the processes (p. 13)
• Synthesis of reading requirements (p. 25)
• Some concerns about reading that motivate this text (p. 26)
• Summary and conclusions (p. 29)
• Discussion and study questions (p. 30)
• 2 Theories and models of first language reading processes
• Introduction (p. 31)
• A brief overview of research on reading processes (p. 32)
• Bottom-up approaches (p. 34)
• Top-down approaches (p. 37)
• Interactive approaches (p. 39)
• New literacy approaches (p. 55)
• Summary and conclusions (p. 57)
• Discussion and study questions (p. 58)
• 3 Second and foreign language reading issues
• Introduction (p. 59)
• Views of second language reading (p. 59)
• Research into first language and second language relationships (p. 65)
• Summary and conclusions (p. 73)
• Discussion and study questions (p. 74)
• 4 Reading skills
• Introduction (p. 77)
• Reading skills in the first language (p. 77)
• Separability of skills (p. 79)
• Hierarchy of skills (p. 84)
• On skills and their hierarchical nature in the second language literature (p. 90)
• Lower-level processing in second language (p. 91)
• Higher-level skills in second language (p. 96)
• Summary and conclusions (p. 103)
• Discussion and study questions (p. 103)
• 5 Strategies and metacognitive skills
• Introduction (p. 105)
• Strategies and metacognition in first language research (p. 107)
• Basic reading comprehension strategies (p. 107)
• Metacognition and automaticity in application of reading strategies (p. 112)
• Metacognition and reading (p. 116)
• Strategies and metacognition in second language reading (p. 118)
• Second language strategy and metacognitive training (p. 130)
• Implications for instruction (p. 136)
• Summary and conclusions (p. 137)
• Discussion and study questions (p. 138)
• 6 Content schema and background knowledge
• Introduction (p. 141)
• Introduction to content and cultural schema (p. 142)
• Prior knowledge and first language reading (p. 143)
• Content schema across cultures and languages (p. 151)
• Cultural background (p. 151)
• Cultural background and text complexity (p. 156)
• Cultural background and text genre characteristics (p. 159)
• Summary and conclusions (p. 161)
• Discussion and study questions (p. 162)
• 7 Formal schema and second language reading
• Introduction (p. 165)
• Orthographic and phonemic knowledge (p. 165)
• Syntax and language structure (p. 168)
• Cohesion (p. 173)
• Text structure (p. 179)
• Narrative (p. 179)
• Expository text (p. 182)
• Text structure and second language reading (p. 187)
• Narrative text structure (p. 187)
• Expository text structure (p. 190)
• Instruction in text structure (p. 192)
• Summary and conclusions (p. 199)
• Discussion and study questions (p. 199)
• 8 Genre and contrastive rhetoric
• Introduction (p. 201)
• Genre (p. 201)
• Contrastive rhetoric (p. 213)
• Instructional approaches in genre and contrastive rhetoric (p. 221)
• Summary and conclusions (p. 224)
• Discussion and study questions (p. 225)
• 9 Vocabulary in second language reading
• Introduction (p. 227)
• What does it mean to know a word? (p. 229)
• Breadth of word knowledge (p. 229)
• Depth of word knowledge (p. 233)
• Relationships of breadth and depth (p. 235)
• Reading and first language vocabulary learning (p. 236)
• Reading and second language vocabulary learning (p. 245)
• Second language vocabulary and pedagogy (p. 249)
• Dictionary use (p. 249)
• Marginal glosses (p. 252)
• Meaning-in-context vocabulary learning strategies (p. 255)
• Summary and conclusions (p. 261)
• Discussion and study questions (p. 261)
• 10 Reading and writing relationships
• Introduction (p. 263)
• Views of reading and writing relationships (p. 264)
• The first language literacy skills of reading and writing (p. 268)
• Read-to-write (p. 268)
• Write-to-read (p. 274)
• Reading and writing and knowing (p. 277)
• Second language reading and writing connections (p. 279)
• Instructional bases of reading and writing (p. 283)
• Summary and conclusions (p. 286)
• Discussion and study questions (p. 287)
• 11 Wrap-up of second language reading: teaching issues
• Issues covered (p. 289)
• Complexity of the issue (p. 289)
• First and second language theories of reading (p. 289)
• Reading skills (p. 291)
• Strategies and metacognitive skills (p. 292)
• Content schema and background knowledge in second language comprehension (p. 293)
• Formal schemata in second language reading (p. 294)
• Genre and contrastive rhetoric (p. 295)
• Vocabulary in second language reading (p. 296)
• Reading and writing relationships (p. 296)
• Summary (p. 297)