THE EFFECTIVE READER

▣ THE EFFECTIVE READER

■ The most significant finding indicated that good readers adjust to the materials at hand and quickly fit their "attack” skills to the type of text they are reading and to their personal objective for reading. Furthermore, when mismatches occur good readers know how to abandon nonsuccessful strategies and select new ones, how to re-deploy old strategies, and how to combine those that seem to work best in the particular interpretation process at hand. 

 

 

■ During the reader's processing of the text, the reader moves along a decision-making continuum that is basically seeking answers to such questions. When reading comprehension is effective, there is probably a close match between the reader's expectations and the actual text; however, there are often serious mismatches that may lead to difficulty in processing. 

 

 

 

■ The effective reader makes constant adjustments to the text by recruiting background knowledge for top-down processing and by changing strategies to fit bottom-up decoding of the particular text. Such a reader thus combines top-down and bottom-up techniques in the most efficient and most expedient way in order to understand the text. 

 

 

■ Good readers are not only effective strategy users, they are also effective decoders (van Dijk and Kintsch, 1983) who successfully employ accurate and automatic bottom-up techniques. They are capable of recognizing words, expressions, and phrases quickly and effectively, even without reliance on context and therefore consciously use bottom-up strategies mostly for compensation when top-down strategies indicate a mismatch. Reading speed in a L2 can also be a problem. In English, research shows that readers should process at least two hundred words per minute to read effectively. Thus, in some cases it may be necessary to help learners measure and increase their reading rates in order for them to improve their comprehension. 

 

 

■ Good readers also make efficient use of co-text - the information available in the text at the local level. But perhaps most important, good readers readjust constantly. They continuously match old and new information and experience, both at the global and local level.