Reading and It's Impact on Education

The reading process as a whole is a very complex area, and is constantly changing, but as an elementary school teacher responsible for teaching young children to read, it is vital for me to understand the theories behind the reading act itself. The three theories which I feel are the most important, and which I feel are intertwined to account for the reading process are subskill theories, interactive theories and transactive theories. I believe that all three of these theories have components that fit together to account for reading and the understanding of reading. One theory alone cannot account for every aspect of the reading process.

The subskill theory approach to reading is one that has been around for a long time, and is based on instructional strategies to teach letter-sound relationships, sight words and decoding skills (among others), until the reading act becomes automatic. Comprehension does play a role in this theory, but it is a small role, in my opinion. I know this system works, because it is the way I was taught to read. I believe it is vital for young children to understand the relationship between sound and symbol relationships. This approach gives children a strategy for sounding out words that are unfamiliar to them. Unlocking the pronunciation of a word can sometimes lead to the word's meaning, if the child is familiar with the word, and this is an important skill for young readers to have. But, the goal of reading is to gain meaning from the text, not just to pronounce the words correctly. When the reader is unable to attach meaning to the word, the decoding skill becomes useless. This is why the subskill theory, by itself, cannot account for all aspects of the reading act. I have witnessed many elementary students who are prolific readers, can sound out even the most complex words, but do not have a clue about the meaning of what they have read. Studying a reading skill in isolation does not guarantee its use in practice. This is the point where I believe the interactive theory comes into play.

The interactive theory makes the connection between the reader and the text, and the theory states that the result of this continuous interaction produces meaning. One of the most important aspects of this theory has to do with the reader making predictions about what they are reading (top down processing) while at the same time, they are using visual cues from the text to test these predictions (bottom down processing). Unlike the subskill theory where there is excessive focus on words and skills are stressed more than meaning, the transactive theory takes it one step further and gives value to the reader. The reader uses their background knowledge and experiences to bring meaning to the text. Without the young reader being able to relate to the text, they are unable to derive meaning from it. This is an essential aspect of the reading process, in my opinion. At Roberts we have learned that good teaching bridges the gap between previously learned knowledge and new material. We have a section on our lesson plans devoted to it! The reading process is no different- it must bridge the gap between the print and the information contained in it to background knowledge. The interactive theory explains this connection, but I believe