Abstract
M. Ed. (Educational Psychology)
Reading is a complex activity which is of the utmost importance for successful progress in
mainstream education, but which is seldom fully understood by professionals in the field of education. It is also an ability which is often problematic for children to master. The purpose with this study was to gain a better understanding of the reading process and to explore the reasons why some children fail to learn to read effectively. The research was based upon the following research questions:
what constitutes beginning reading;
how these problems manifest in the reading behaviour of the child with reading
problems; and
how the child with reading problems describes his knowledge about reading.
The first aim of the study was to establish what the nature of reading is, how it develops in
beginning readers (in the junior primary phase) and what the possible causes of reading
problems are. This was achieved by an analysis of reviewed literature, emphasising the child as a system whereby his inner world is in interaction with the world around him. The
additional aim was to conduct a qualitative analysis was undertaken in which the reading
actions of two eight year old readers were presented and analyzed by means of a protocol
analysis. The data of the two early readers were compared and the following categories of
their reading actions identified: the mechanics of reading. construction of meaning and metareading knowledge. It was argued that these categories are interrelated in the sense that the one influences the other to such an extent that they cannot be separated for purposes of teaching reading skills. The mechanics of reading seems to be the foundation of meaning construction as it was apparent that the readers could not answer the comprehension questions when they were unable to recognise the words. This promotes a "back to basics" approach of teaching reading. On the other hand it also came to light that the readers could read certain words, but did not understand them due to the fact that they did not comprehend the context thereof and clearly had not constructed schema in the domain previously. The levels of functioning of the two readers were explained by using comparative matrices which indicated that they function on pre-conceptual and systematic conceptual levels, that is below the level that could be expected for their reading age group.
Arguing from the findings of the research it was evident that teachers, as well as therapists concerned with reading remediation, probably address reading problems without fully understanding what the act of reading entails. Furthermore, school curricula which have the teaching of reading skills as objective could adopt a "back to basics" approach whereby phonics teaching and the accompanying emphasis on word recognition could be the point of departure. Thereafter comprehension and meta-reading aspects could be emphasised. It is, however, extremely important to keep in mind that each of these components of the teaching of reading, namely phonic recognition, word recognition, comprehension and meta-reading are not seen in isolation, but that the interaction of these aspects is understood and taught.