THE NATURE AND PSYCHOLOGY OF READING

Reading – a process of getting meaning from the book and bringing meaning into it
- the key which admits us to the world of thought, fancy and imagination

Miles Zints illustrated the reading process as follows:

1. Word Perception – the ability to pronounce the word as a meaningful unit
The eyes see the printed symbols with the aid of light rays that strike the retina. Together the eye s move in a swift and well – coordinated manner, jumping from word to word in a series of fixations. Reading takes place when the eyes pause or rest. The eyes do not really see much nor read when they are constantly in motion.

Span of perception or recognition span – distance/number of words between fixation points.

A good reader makes few fixations and fewer regressions or backward eye movements. Therefore, his perception span is much longer than that of a poor reader.

Word perception involves the identification of the printed symbol and the meaning intended by the author.

Example:
The reader identifies the combination of the letters c-a-t as cat and not as cot or cut.

The printed word, then, acts as a trigger to release a meaning which the reader already possesses.

In order to do this task known as a decoding process, one should possess the following skills:

a. use sight vocabulary and configuration theory
b. use context clues to determine pronunciation and meaning
c. determine pronunciation and meaning through an analysis of the structure/parts of the word consisting of its root and affixes, and inflected, or derived in form
d. relate the sound of the spoken word to its visual or graphemic symbol, a process referred to as phonetic analysis
e. use a dictionary to determine pronunciation and meaning of words resistant to analysis through the use of other skills

2. Comprehension – requires the fusion of meanings of separate words into a chain of related ideas

On the literal level, one reads to understand the passage – its main thought, specific detatils, sequence, and directions to be followed.

3. Reaction – ability to judge accurarcy, quality or worth
- these judgments are the result of critical reading and experience

- these judgments are the result of critical reading and experience
- on the emotional level, reaction requires value judgments, background experience, and the ability to recreate sensory images
- one’s reaction is affected by culture.
- culture controls the quality of experience available to the reader. Thus, experience becomes the foundation of the reading process.

4. Assimilation/Integration – if ideas are accepted, they become a part of his total experience
- they are integrated with all previous related experience
- wrong concepts are corrected and new insights are acquired
- involves applying ideas acquired to problem solving

Rate – refers to the speed of recognition, comprehension, reaction and assimilation
- vary according to the reader’s purpose and the difficulty of the materials

PROCESSES THAT AFFECT READING

1. Reading is a social process. It is affected by one’s attitudes, loyalties, conflicts and prejudices.
2. Reading is a psychological process. How one feels about oneself and about others affects the reading process. Emotional stability determines one’s comfort in the reading situation. Defense mechanisms like inhibition, repression, projection, aggression, rationalization and nervousness are responses to anxiety in all types of situations.
3. Reading is a physiological process. They are skills in auditory and visual discrimination, verbal expression and eye – hand coordination.
4. Reading is a perceptual process. It utilizes cues such as combination of sounds and letters, size, shape and color.
5. Reading is a linguistic process. It requires sound – symbol relationships, understanding of intonation, stress, rhythm and tone sequences.
6. Reading is an intellectual process. It is dependent on vocabulary, memory, verbal reasoning, generalizing and critical judgment.