An Evaluation Of The Teaching Of Reading Skills Of English In Bangladesh A Thesis Submitted In Partial Fulfillment Of The Requirements For The Degree Of MA In English

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
UNIVERSITY OF RAJSHAHI
RAJSHAHI, BANGLADESH
AN EVALUATION OF THE
TEACHING OF READING SKILLS
OF ENGLISH IN BANGLADESH
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
the degree of
MA in English
by
Md. Hamidur Rahman
Roll No. 042069
2004
Supervisor
Dr. M. Shahidullah
Professor
Department of English
University of Rajshahi
January 2007

ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
At first I would like to express my gratitude to the Almighty Whose mercy enabled
me to complete this thesis successfully.
I am deeply indebted to Professor Dr. M. Shahidullah, an inspirational teacher of the
Department of English, University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi for his friendly guidance
and assistance at all stages of this dissertation. I would like to acknowledge humbly
that his constant guidance inspired me all through the study. Without his help and
careful guidance this thesis would not have been possible.
I would also like to express my sincerest gratitude to Professor Jahurul Islam, the
Chairman of the Department of English, University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi for his
every possible help during the entire period of the work. At the same time I would
like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the respected teachers of the department for
their valuable input.
I would like to express special thanks to Sanjida Islam, Sadia Islam and their family
for their constant help, mental support and encouragement.
I am very much thankful to Masum, Iqubal and Shohel for their help in various
stages of the research. I am also very grateful to the students and the honourable
teachers of various government and non-government colleges for their co-operation.
My heartfelt thanks go to all those persons who assisted me in various ways from
time to time to complete the work successfully.

iii
ABSTRACT
This study investigates an important area of English language teaching and learning.
It examines the present situation of teaching reading skills of English, the problems
students encounter during reading an English text and the learners’ proficiency level
of reading skills when they are at the H.S.C level in Bangladesh. It also examines the
reading syllabus and reading materials used at the intermediate level.
The study discusses the recent developments in reading pedagogy. It also presents an
evaluation of teaching the different sub-skills of reading and then through an
empirical study examines whether both higher and lower order sub-skills are covered
in the reading syllabus, and taught properly in the country. The empirical
investigation examines whether the modern methods of reading pedagogy are used in
teaching reading in Bangladesh.
The methods for empirical investigation in the study include students’ and teachers’
questionnaire survey, students and teachers’ interview, classroom observation and
administering reading tests. Reading components of the syllabus and the reading
materials are also evaluated.
The thesis consists of 5 chapters:
Chapter 1 introduces and establishes the topic focus, outlines the objectives,
highlights the problems in the field of study and discusses the significance of the
study. It also outlines research methodology briefly, and defines the key terminology
used in the study.
Chapter 2 describes theoretical development in reading pedagogy which includes the
definition of reading, purposes of reading, techniques of and approaches to teaching
reading in the class. It discusses in detail the sub-skills of reading and the problems
students face while reading. It has also points out how to select an appropriate text
for reading classes or for an appropriate purpose.
Chapter 3 briefly discusses the methods usually used in ELT research of this type,
and the methods used in the present study. It discusses the instruments used for

iv
questionnaire survey, interview, classroom observation and tests of reading skills. It
also presents sampling plans for each method.
Chapter 4 presents the results and analyses the data. It includes the results collected
through the empirical investigation.
Chapter 5 presents a summary of the findings, discusses the implications of the
findings and makes some recommendations for improving the reading syllabus,
materials and pedagogy in Bangladesh. It includes a general conclusion.
The findings show that students’ present level of reading is not up to the mark; the
reading pedagogy used in the country is also largely backdated.
At the end of the paper some functional measures are suggested.

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CONTENTS
Dedication i
Acknowledgement ii
Abstract iii- iv
Contents v- x
List of Tables xi- xii
Chapter 1 Introduction 1- 30
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Statement of the Problem 4
1.3 Objectives of the Study 7
1.4 Significance of the Study 8
1.5 Literature Review 8
1.6 Purposes of Reading 13
1.6.1 Reading for Pleasure 13
1.6.2 Reading for Information 14
1.6.3 Reading for Meaning 15
1.7 Types of Reading 18
1.7.1 Academic Reading 18
1.7.1.1 Basal Reading Programme 19
1.7.1.2 Individualized Reading 20
1.7.1.3 Management Systems 21
1.7.2 Non-academic Reading 21
1.7.3 Intensive Reading 22
1.7.4 Extensive Reading 23
1.8 Requirements for Effective Reading 25
1.8.1 Knowledge and Experience 26
1.8.2 Schemata and Reading Skills 27
1.9 Research Methodology 29

vi
1.10 Conclusion 29
Chapter 2 Theoretical Development in Reading Pedagogy 31-73
2.1 Introduction 31
2.2 Problems Students often Encounter with Reading 32
2.3 The Sub-skills of Reading 39
2.3.1 Skimming 39
2.3.2 Scanning 40
2.3.3 Browsing 41
2.3.4 Search Reading 41
2.3.5 Careful reading 42
2.3.6 Prediction 42
2.3.7 Inferencing 44
2.3.8 Previewing 45
2.3.9 Anticipation 45
2.3.10 Presupposition 47
2.3.11 Shared Assumptions 47
2.3.12 Recognizing Text Organization 48
2.4 Approaches to Reading 50
2.4.1 Top-down Approach 50
2.4.2 Bottom-up Approach 51
2.4.3 Interactive Reading 51
2.5 Techniques of Teaching Reading 54
2. 5.1 Teaching How to Tackle Meaning 54
2. 5.2 Approaches to Teach the Skills to Understand Meaning 58
2. 5.2.1 Non-linguistic Approach 59
2. 5.2.2 Linguistic Approach 59
2. 5.3 Classroom Procedures for Teaching Reading 61
2. 5.3.1 Pre-reading 62
2. 5.3.2 While-reading 63
2. 5.3.3 Post-reading 64

vii
2. 5.4 ‘Top Ten Principles’ for Teaching Reading 64
2.6 Text Selection 68
2.7 Conclusion 73
Chapter 3 Research Methodology 74- 94
3.1 Introduction 74
3.2 Purpose of the Empirical Investigation 74
3.3 Methods of Data Collection 75
3.3.1 Questionnaire Survey 75
3.3.2 Interview 76
3.3.3 Observation Method 77
3.3.4 Schedule Method 77
3.4 Methods of Data Collection Adopted for the Present Study 77
3.5 Instruments Used for the Empirical Study 78
3.6 Construction of the Instruments 78
3.7 Detailed Description of the Instruments for Students’
Questionnaire Survey and Interview 80
3.8 Detailed Description of the Instruments for Teachers’
3.9 Pilot Survey 81
3.10 Detailed Description of the Instruments Used for
the Classroom Observation 82
3.11 Detailed Description of the Test of Reading Skills
Administered for the Study 82
3.12 Sampling Plan for the Empirical Study 83
3.12.1 Sampling Plan for Students’ Questionnaire Survey 85
3.12.2 Sampling Plan for Students’ Interview 86
3.12.3 Sampling Plan for Teachers’ Questionnaire Survey 87
3.12.4 Sampling Plan for Teachers’ Interview 88
3.12.5 Sampling Plan for Classroom Observation 88
3.12.6 Sampling Plan for the Test of Reading Skills 89

viii
3.13 Administration of the Empirical Study 90
3.13.1 Administration of the Students’ Questionnaire Survey 91
3.13.2 Administration of the Students’ Interview 91
3.13.3 Administration of the Teachers’ Questionnaire Survey 92
3.13.4 Administration of the Teachers’ Interview 92
3.13.5 Administration of the Classroom Observation 92
3.13.6 Administration of the Test of Reading Skills 93
3.13.7 Evaluation of the Reading Components of
the Syllabus and Materials Used at H.S.C Level 93
3.14 Processing and Analyzing Data 94
3.15 Conclusion 94
Chapter 4 Results 95-152
4.1 Introduction 95
4.2 Result of Students’ Questionnaire Survey and Interview 95
4.2.1 Description of the Results of the Students’
4.2.1.1 Students’ Present Level of Reading Proficiency
(Items 1- 16) 102
4.2.1.2 Students’ Strategies for Reading (Items 17- 20) 104
4.2.1.3 Approaches and Methods Currently used for
Teaching Reading (Items 21- 58) 106
4.2.2 Interpretation of the Results of the Students’
4.2.3 Summary of the Findings of the Students’
4.4 Analysis of the Results of Teachers’
4.4.1 Description of the Results of the Teachers’
4.4.1.1 Students’ Present Ability (Items 1-16) 120

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4.4.1.2 Approaches and Methods Used by the Teachers (Items 17- 54) 122
4.4.2 Interpretation of the Results of the Teachers’
4.4.3 Summary of the Findings of the Teachers’
4.5 Comparative Study: Government and
Non-government Colleges 132
4.5.1 Interpretation of the Comparative Study 137
4.6 The Results of the Classroom Observation 138
4.6.1 Description of the Results 140
4.6.2 Interpretation of the Results 143
4.6.3 Summary of the Findings of the Classroom Observation 146
4.7 Analysis of the Results of the Test of Reading Skills 146
4.7.1 Summary of the Results of the Test of Reading Skills 149
4.8 Analyses of the Points Noted down During Classroom
Observation 149
4.9 Contradictions between the Results of
Questionnaire Survey and Interview and of the
Classroom Observation and Reading Test 150
4.10 Reasons of the Contradictions 151
4.11 Conclusion 152
Chapter 5 Summary of the Findings, Recommendations and
Conclusion 153- 161
5.1 Summary of the Findings 154
5.1.1 Problems of Students as Found in the Study 154
5.1.2 Syllabus, Materials and Tests Used in the Country 154
5.1.3 Teachers’ Approaches Currently Used for Teaching
Reading 155
5.2 Implication of the Findings 155

x
5.2.1 Implication for Text Selection 156
5.2.2 Implication for Syllabus 156
5.2.3 Implication for Materials 156
5.2.4 Implication for Methodology 157
5.2.4.1 Implication for Teachers’ Role 157
5.2.4.2 Implication for Learners’ Role 157
5.2.4.3 Implication for Classroom Activities 157
5.3 Recommendations 158
5.3.1 Recommendations for Syllabus 158
5.3.2 Recommendations for Text Selection 158
5.3.3 Recommendations for Material 159
5.3.4 Recommendations for Pedagogy 159
5.3.4.1 Teachers’ Role 159
5.3.4.2 Learners’ Role 160
5.4 Recommendations for Teacher Training 161
5.5 Conclusion 161
Bibliography 162- 170
Appendices 171- 192
Appendix 1 Instrument for the Students’ Questionnaire
Survey and Interview 172
Appendix 2 Instrument for the Teachers’ Questionnaire Survey
And Interview 177
Appendix 3 Instrument for the Classroom Observation 182
Appendix 4 Test of Reading Skills 186
Appendix 5 A Lesson from the H.S.C Textbook 191

xi
List of Tables
Table 1 Results of the Students’ Proficiency in Reading Skills 6
Table 2 Sampling Plan for Students’ Questionnaire Survey 85
Table 3 Sampling Plan for Students’ Interview 86
Table 4 Sampling Plan for Teachers’ Questionnaire Survey 87
Table 5 Sampling Plan for Teachers’ Interview 88
Table 6 Sampling Plan for the Classroom Observation 89
Table 7 Sampling Plan for the Test of Reading Skills 90
Table 8 Result of Students Questionnaire Survey and
Interview (Items 1-16) 95
Table 9 Results of Students’ Questionnaire Survey (Items 17- 20) 100
Table 10 Results of Students’ Interview (Items 17- 20) 101
Table 11 ‘Very High’ Mean Score of Students’
Table 12 ‘High’ Mean Score of Students’ Questionnaire
Table 13 ‘Low’ Mean Score of Students’ Questionnaire
Table 14 ‘Very Low’ Mean Score of Students’ Questionnaire
Table 15 The Results of Teachers’ Questionnaire Survey
and Interview 116
Table 16 ‘Very High’ Mean Score of the Teachers’
Table 17 ‘High’ Mean Score of the Teachers’
Table 18 ‘Low’ Mean Score of the Teachers’
Table 19 ‘Very Low’ Score of the Teachers’

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Table 20 Comparative Study of the Results of Questionnaire
Survey in Government and Non-government Colleges 132
Table 21 Results of the Classroom Observation 138
Table 22 ‘Very High’ Mean Score of the Classroom Observation 143
Table 23 ‘High’ Mean Score of the Classroom Observation 144
Table 24 ‘Low’ Mean Score of the Classroom Observation 144
Table 25 ‘Very Low’ Mean Score of the Classroom Observation 145
Table 26 Results of the Reading Test 147
Table 27 Item-wise Results of the Reading Test 148
Table 28 Comparison of the Overall Mean Scores of Survey,
Interview and Classroom Observation 150

Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Introduction
Over the last part of the twentieth century, ELT (English Language Teaching)
methodology has developed very rapidly and has been subject to changes and
controversies. Communicative approach to teaching and learning English has been a
significant development; at present, it is used worldwide in teaching and learning
English, especially, in EFL and ESL situations. In Bangladesh also this approach is
recommended by NCTB (National Curriculum and Textbook Board) and being
implemented by ELTIP (English Language Teaching Improvement Project), PERC
(Primary Educational Research Council), American Peace Corps and by teachers and
experts, trained both overseas and locally. Instead of grammar-based approach,
practice-based learning is considered important in recent theoretical approaches. This
practice covers training of all four basic skills- listening, speaking, reading, and
writing. Success of the teaching of English through communicative approach
depends entirely on the practice of these skills. Among the major skills, teaching of
reading has a significant place in Bangladesh as it is still very important for higher
education (Haque, 2006). Teaching of reading, therefore, needs special attention
from the experts and professionals for a meaningful higher education in the country.
English is the no. 1 library language of the world, a vast majority of world’s library
resources are in English, and the biggest publishing industries of the world publish
books in English. Therefore, it has become quite impossible to pursue meaningful

2
higher education without the reading skill of English. In Bangladesh, though Bangla
is the official language and the medium of instruction and examination in the
mainstream education, library resources are still in English. Haque’s (2006: 133)
study shows that books and journals in central and seminar libraries in various
universities in the country are mostly in English.
According to his study, in the central library of Dhaka University the total number of
books is 6 lakhs of which 405668 (67.6%) are in English, and out of 73,500 journals
65,662 (89.3%) are in English. In the central library of Rajshahi University the total
number of books is 2,74,586 of which 1,98,922 (72.4%) are in English, and the
number of journals is 36,290 of which 35,582 (98%) are in English. In the central
library of Agricultural University, Mymensingh, the total number of books is
1,41,321 of which 1,20,282 (85.1%) are in English, and the number of journals is
35,577 of which 33,248 (98.1%) are in English. And in the central library of BUET,
the total number of books is 1,17,718 of which 92,887 (78.9%) are in English, and
out of 15,143 journals 13,487 (93.9%) are in English.
Similarly, books and journals in seminar libraries are mostly in English. According
to the same study (Haque, 2006: 135), in 15 departmental seminar libraries in Dhaka
University, there are 99, 849 books of which 94668 (94.8%) are in English, and there
are 10,415 journals of which 8,339 (80.1%) are in English. In 30 departmental
seminar libraries in Dhaka University, there are 71,551 books of which 50,858
(71.1%) are in English, and there are 15,018 journals of which 13,571 (90.4%) are in
English. In 12 departmental seminar libraries in BUET, there are 46485 books of
which 45282 (97.4%) are in English, and there are 5459 journals all of which (100%)

3
are in English. In 3 departmental seminar libraries in Agricultural University,
Mymensingh, there are 22255 books of which 20900 (93.9%) are in English, and
there are 6860 journals of which 6850 (99.9%) are in English. Again, in the analysis
of University syllabuses Haque (2006: 140) tries to find out the number of texts and
reference books recommended for the undergraduate and Masters Syllabuses.
According to his study, syllabuses of 17 departments of Dhaka University, the
number of recommended texts and reference books for undergraduate programme is
4439 of which 4070 (91.7%) are in English, and for the Masters programme, 1892
texts and reference books of which 1839 (97.2%) are in English. In 39 departmental
syllabuses of Rajshahi University, the number of recommended texts and reference
books for undergraduate programme is 10696 of which 8893 (83.1%) are in English,
and for the Masters programme, 3949 texts and reference books of which 3547
(89.8%) are in English. . In 7 departmental syllabuses of Agricultural University,
Mymensingh, the number of recommended texts and reference books for
undergraduate programme is 2217 of which 2182 (83.1%) are in English, and on the
Masters programme, the number of recommended texts and reference books is 1061
of which 1052 (99.2%) are in English.
These data show an overall picture of the central libraries, seminar libraries and
recommended syllabuses of various universities in Bangladesh. Therefore, it is
impossible to have effective higher education without the reading skills of English.
Many others, for example Raquib (1987), consider reading skills of English very
important for higher education in Bangladesh. Moreover, today’s world is becoming
increasingly globalized; a graduate is produced today not only for the local, but for

4
the global market. So, graduates should have education of an international standard
which is not at all possible without the reading skills of English.
This is also an age of Internet, and it is the best and swiftest medium of getting
information and being acquainted with the world. As the language of Internet is
English, a fair level of reading skill in English is necessary to use or browse Internet.
Reading is, therefore, a very important English language skill that we need in this
present competitive world.
Reading is also necessary to know the answers to a particular question or issue for
which someone reads. To satisfy one’s thirst for knowledge, reading books is
necessary, and most of the books are in English. This being the reality of the present
world, teaching of the reading skills of English is very important for Bangladesh, and
it has no alternative.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Importance of the reading skills of English has reached new heights in the present
context of the globalized world. But the question is: how far are the learners in
Bangladesh prepared for it?
Students’ proficiency of reading English is very poor here. A large majority of
students at the undergraduate level in our country cannot access English textbooks
prescribed in their syllabus for their lack of required proficiency of reading skills in
English. Therefore, they depend only on Bangla books, and the vast resources in the
libraries being in English remain unutilized. As a result, in most cases, higher
education in this country suffers miserably; it falls far below the international
standard.

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Though students do some reading in school, they prefer memorising things– words
from dictionaries, sentences from various books, and rules of grammar from different
grammar books.
Reading component of English course in the country focuses on understanding word
meaning and answering specific questions which students mostly get done by private
tutors or at coaching centres. At no stage of the whole education system, students are
encouraged to process the information from texts by themselves through an
intellectual engagement, analysis and interpretation of the text. Reading is not taught
properly in scientific methods. Teachers also do not have necessary training for that.
Greenwood (1998: 5) rightly points out that teachers fail to recognize the potentiality
of reading, and they neglect and/or ignore it in the classroom. According to him, the
responsibility of this failure goes to the attitude first of the teacher and then of the
students.
The most acknowledged cause of failure of the students in effective reading is the
lack of vocabulary. Many students inspired by friends or guided by teachers
sometimes try to read a book but soon they lose the eagerness and interest with
which they start reading the text. In every paragraph, or even in every sentence, or
every phrase they come across some new words, which create a constant barrier for
them to understand the meaning. Sometimes, they do not understand long sentences,
and they miss the links between parts of a text. As a result, they lose their patience
and their interest, and they give up reading. Sometimes they may feel inspired to
look up the words in the dictionaries, but checking the dictionary too many times
proves boring, and at last, their enthusiasm for reading the text dies down.

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There are some other problems that discourage the students to continue reading a
text. Most students fail to understand the syntax, especially when the sentence
structures are long. They also have problems with understanding text organization.
Some ELT researches in Bangladesh found that students’ proficiency in reading is
very poor. Tasmin (2001: 52-53) found out that students’ proficiency in almost all
the sub-skills of reading is below average. Tamin’s findings are as follows:
Table 1
Results of the Students’ Proficiency in Reading Skills
Survey Interview
Q.
No.
Questions
Mean Std. Dev Mean Std. Dev
4
Understanding unfamiliar
words and expressions in text
1.10 0.29 1.10 0.14
5
Guessing meaning of the words
from context
1.13 0.29 1.13 0.13
9 Understanding long sentences 1.23 0.55 1.13 0.09
10
Understanding shift and
transition of ideas in a text
1.13 0.35 1.08 0.08
11 Reading for substance 1.15 0.21 1.03 0.04
12
Understanding the writer’s tone,
mood and purpose
1.13 0.35 1.17 0.17
13 Reading for specific information 1.05 0.29 1.23 0.19
14
Critical appreciation and
evaluation of texts
1.08 0.29 1.00 0.17
15
Making inferences, drawing
conclusion and supplying
implied details
1.05 0.21 1.13 0.13
16
Perceiving the organization of
passage or a text
1.08 0.21 1.18 0.22
19
Reference skills: consulting
dictionary for words and their
use, index, and library
catalogue
1.28 0.49 1.13 0.45
N.B Only the relevant questions and their results have been used here keeping the
serial numbers of the original study. A 5 point scale was used for the study; the
minimum number of the scale was 1, and the maximum was 5.

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The table shows that students’ proficiency level in most of the sub-skills is poor.
Haque (2006: iii) also shows that students’ proficiency level in reading skills is
below average. In his study, Mean scores of the question related to students’ level of
proficiency are 2.60 in the questionnaire survey and 2.57 in the interview. These
findings prove the fact, and suggest that teaching and learning of the reading skills of
English needs special attention in the present context of Bangladesh.
Pedagogic approach to the teaching of reading in Bangladesh is still very backward,
though it is an important area of the English syllabus and tests in the country. Focus
in the reading tests, though shifted in recent times, is inadequate in Bangladesh. All
these need closer examination and evaluation to improve the situation in the country.
1.3 Objectives of the Study
The study would examine the recent developments in the methodology for the
teaching of reading skills and its implementation in the academic setting of
Bangladesh. It seeks to outline the problems students face in reading English. It
would recommend measures to overcome the problems of the teaching of reading
skills prevailing at the intermediate levels. The objectives of the study are to
1. examine the problems students face during their reading,
2. examine the recent development in reading pedagogy,
3. evaluate the reading component or the English syllabi,
4. evaluate the reading pedagogy, materials and tests currently in use in the
country,
5. recommend measures to improve the present condition.

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1.4 Significance of the Study
There have been significant developments in the theories and practices of reading, in
the world in the last three/four decades. It is important to examine those
developments for insights that can help us bring about significant changes in reading
pedagogy in Bangladesh.
Research in this field is very significant for Bangladesh, because standard of
education of the country depends on students’ reading proficiency in English. For
meaningful education, it is very important to improve the reading proficiency of
learners in English. It is equally important to examine the present state of students’
reading skills in Bangladesh, to identify the problems and address those to improve
the overall situation in the interest of the country. It is admitted that higher education
of the country suffers a setback because of students’ poor level of reading
proficiency. To improve the situation in the country, some measures must be taken to
identify the problems, address them, and improve the situation. This study is an
attempt to do so. Therefore, the study will be of great significance and interest for the
country as a whole.
1.5 Literature Review
For the right focus in the teaching of reading, it is important to define it and closely
examine what problems students face while reading something in English.
It is difficult to define reading in a word. Many thinkers have defined and analyzed it
in many different ways. The perspective of reading differs from person to person
depending on the person’s individual attitude and aims towards printed words, from
language to language considering the cause of reading and the content of the text. So,

9
the definition and meaning of reading depend, largely, on the purpose of the reader,
on the text and textual contents, on the attitude of the readers towards the text, on the
reading materials and on the experience and schemata of the reader. However,
experts have tried to define it differently, in their own way of observation and
thought.
Some argue that reading is a conceptual and thinking process through print, and the
process is interpretative (Emarald et al.: 1982). Widdowson (1979) is of the same
opinion that reading is the “process of getting linguistic information via print.”
Ransom (1978: 14-15) defines reading as ‘a conversation’ between the writer and the
reader. He states that like someone who is talking, “the writer is trying to convey
some message to another person.” Shaw (1959: viii) also states that reading is the
communication of thoughts, moods, and emotions through which one receives ‘from
others their ideas and feelings’. Nuttall (1996: 4) regards reading as the process of
“getting out of the text as nearly as possible the message the writer put into it.”
Williams (1996: 2) states reading as ‘a process’ through which one looks at and
understands a written text. Goodman (1967) defines reading as a ‘psychological
guessing game’, and Patricia Carrel et al (1988) define reading as an ‘interactive
process’ where readers employ their background knowledge and past experience to
make sense of the text. Reading, according to Moynihan (1969: 267), “frequently
uses chronology, comparison-contrast, causality, and analogy.”
This process is precisely active (Doff, 1997: 67; and Rauch et al. 1968) and cognitive
(Urquhart and Weir, 1998: 17), and the reader in a contact with the text carries it out
(op. cit.). Grellet (1996: 8) defines reading as ‘an active skill’. Rauch and Weinstein

10
(1968) terms reading as an active, alert thinking process “where the reader matches
the writer thought for thought.” According to Shaw (1959: viii) reading is “thinking
with the author, absorbing his ideas.”
Urquhart and Weir (1998: 22) have tried to give a precise, shortcut and acceptable
definition of reading after observing and analyzing the definition of others.
According to them, reading “is the process of receiving and interpreting information
encoded in language form via the medium of print.”
There are different approaches to defining, analyzing and teaching reading as there
are different schools of critics. According to the New Criticism, reading is just a
process of ‘recreating’ in our mind the mental condition of the authors or the writer
(Eagleton, 1996: 41). The psychoanalysts consider reading as the proper means to
reach the psychology or, more precisely, the unconscious of the author and to know
the personality of the author, his/her surroundings and hidden desires. But post-
structuralist attitude towards reading is quite different from it. Derrida (1976), a post-
structuralist, thinks that reading is not a psychological process, for reading “cannot
legitimately transgress the text toward something other than it … or toward a
signified outside the text.”
Reading is not a passive skill. It requires frequent practice and exercise. According to
Rauch and Weinstein (1968), “Reading improvement is possible and probable-
provided you work at it. There are no shortcuts, gimmicks, or panaceas that will cure
all reading problems. Frankly, reading improvement is hard work”, but they assure
that it is ‘gratifying’. In short, the more one reads, the better they will read, and the
better one reads, the faster they will read (op. cit.).

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To be an effective reader, one should make a logical link between the language of
the text and his mental perception. Therefore, the language should suit the level and
perception of the reader and, “should enable a student to enter inner worlds which
become real to the perceiver.” (Rolaff, 1973) These ‘inner worlds’ of the reader and
of the text and their structure play vital role in understanding the text. Students
should enable themselves to enter the world of the text without seeking the help from
the traditional teaching method of comprehension checks. “Instead they could be
more actively engaged in negotiation for potential meaning, both individually and
with other students. Interest in the activity can sustain interest in the text or be
fuelled by interest in the text.” (Greenwood, 1998: 89)
The first and prime thing required for reading is the ability to recognize the written
forms of the words. Then come the perception and internalization of the meaning or
message that a text contains. Thus reading is regarded as a ‘two fold process’.
Dechant (1982: 288) gives an elaborate description of the process:
First, it requires word identification (visual discrimination of the word, and recoding or
ability to pronounce the word), which is generally effected by configuration cues, phonic
cues, morphemic analysis cues, and sometimes by picture and context cues. Second, reading
requires comprehension (decoding or associating meaning with the symbols that comprise
the words).
According to Urquhart and Weir (1998: 18) reading is a cognitive activity, and being
so, it mainly takes place in mind; the other physical manifestations such as eye
movement, subvocalization etc. are, to them, ‘comparatively superficial’.
Reading is not just an act of going through the text. It involves certain attitudes and
reactions towards the text a reader is reading. According to Grellet (1996: 8), reading
“constantly involves guessing, predicting, checking and asking oneself questions.”
Rauch and Weinstein (1968) comment that reading “involves more than the ability to

12
recognize and pronounce words correctly.” It involves knowledge of language, the
processing of messages the text carries, guessing power of the reader to a certain
extent, perception, psychomotor movements and emotional response. In one of the
best-known papers on reading, Goodman (1967) argues that syntactic, semantic and
pragmatic knowledge are involved in the reading process. Urquhart and Weir (1998:
18) argue that reading is a language activity, and it involves, at some time or another,
“inferencing, memory, relating text to background knowledge, as well as decoding,
and obvious language aspects as syntax and lexical knowledge.” According to Shaw
(1959: viii), reading involves ‘re-creating’ the thought and experience of the author,
‘forming’ images produced by the printed letters, and increasing vocabulary. It
requires organizing and retaining ideas and impressions gained from the printed
page.
Reading also involves linguistic analysis of the text. Eskey (1988: 98) argues that to
teach reading as a kind of ‘cued speculations’ we should be able to teach reading as
‘a kind of linguistic analysis’.
Nuttall (1996: 41, 62, 78) states that effective reading involves ‘word attack’ skill,
‘sentence attack’ skill and ‘text attack’ skill. To her, reading involves not only
looking at sentences and words and going through them at random but also
recognizing and understanding them intellectually. It helps students pick up new
words, syntax and style of writing.
Dechant (p: 335) has summarized the whole thing. He believes that a ‘complete
reading’ involves four steps: recognition of the written symbols, understanding the

13
meaning or message of the text, reaction of the reader after completing reading and
integration of the whole process.
However, many experts have worked on the development of the reading pedagogy.
Eddie Williams, Cristine Nuttall, Francois Grellet among others made significant
contribution to this field.
1.6 Purposes of Reading
Reading serves multifaceted purposes. People read books for a variety of reasons.
They read to comprehend a text and answer comprehension check questions, to do
grammar activities, to solve language problems, to improve language ability, to
achieve pleasure and information, to know the instruction of using a particular tool,
to be familiar with a particular country or place, to decode message from a printed
document, to get idea from inscription from any objects etc. Doff (1997: 170) states,
“We usually have a purpose in reading: there is something we want to find out, some
information we want to check or clarify, some opinion we want to match against our
own etc.” The reasons and purposes of reading a text differ from person to person
because of their different opinions, backgrounds and experiences and schemata
(Nuttall, 18). Thus, a same text may be a source of diverse interests depending on the
person concerned. According to the purposes of and reasons for reading, Grellet
(1996: 4) has divided non-academic reading into two main criteria. They are (a)
reading for pleasure and (b) reading for information.
1.6.1 Reading for Pleasure
While talking about non-academic reading or ‘private reading’ in his article,
“Reading for Pleasure”, Strong (1995: 41) comments that ‘the only sensible reason

14
for reading anything is because we enjoy it or hope to enjoy it’ because ‘pleasure
covers a whole variety of feelings and shades of feeling’, and so one should read
‘only what one likes’ so that s/he may get expected range of pleasure.
Eagleton (1996: 166) is of the same opinion that people read books of poems, novels
etc. because ‘they find them pleasurable’, and it is truly appropriate as far as the
foreign language is concerned. Intention for seeking pleasure from a text makes
readers read more and more which ultimately leads them towards a better
understanding of and building up vocabulary, and it ultimately helps them to develop
the overall skills in reading ESL and EFL. A reader enjoys a book when s/he gets
pleasure. If the book ceases to provide the pleasure s/he seeks, s/he will simply stop
reading. For this reason, the aim of a reading programme should be, according to
Nuttall (1996: 31), “to enable students to enjoy (or at least feel comfortable with)
reading in the foreign language.”
Rosenblatt (1938) has described reading for pleasure as ‘aesthetic reading’ since it
meets the thirst of souls and provides readers with aesthetic pleasure.
1.6.2 Reading for Information
Rosenblatt (1938) has described reading for information as ‘efferent reading’ since
many people prefer reading to collect information from anything written. The truth is
that written texts as permanent sources of information still have more effect on the
reader than other media (e.g. voice-recording), and reading is widely used skill in
decoding the meaning from these sources.

15
Grellet (1996: 4) states that people read books “in order to find out something or in
order to do something with the information [they] get”. Nuttall (1996: 3) is of the
same opinion that we read because we want to get something from the writing.
In this age of information technology, people are busy in collecting and storing
information– update news of the current world, business information, information on
culture and politics, news of foreign affairs etc. The major sources of these pieces of
information are newspaper, magazines, and internet, and these media require
necessary skills in reading. As the language of computer and international
newspapers and magazines is English, reading skill in ESL and EFL is necessary.
Moreover, learners go overseas with a specific purpose– higher studies, or dealing
with overseas customers, or performing professional jobs well etc. (Nuttall, 1996:
30). Williams (1996: 124) rightly states that “reading for information in English is
one of the most important purposes that the learners may have in learning English.”
Students read books for information also because of the fact that they want answers
of certain questions upon certain issues, and they need to confirm their inferences.
To put it in Doff’s word, “Questions and guesses … make us want to read (because
we want to know answers).” (1997: 171)
1.6.3 Reading for Meaning
It is necessary, and at the same time, important to decide why students are made to
read€ either for developing language or for improving the understanding power of
meaning a text conveys. Nuttall’s (1996: 30) opinion is that, “students… need to
learn how to read for meaning” because, according to her, “language improvement is
a natural by-product of reading”. Shahidullah (1995-96: 210) is of the same opinion

16
that “Reading, basically, is concerned with meaning of a text, which is embedded in
the language of the text.” A text is a ‘physical manifestation’, and reader’s purpose is
‘to construct meaning’ with the data a text supplies. In short, discovering the
intended meaning of a text should be the sole purpose of the teaching of reading
since language skills develop naturally with the development of reading skills.
In a primary sense, meaning of a text is an overall impression of the whole text.
Actually, as Nuttall (pp. 20-22) observes it, meaning starts from the ‘single
morpheme’ of a text, and it gradually develops up to the text as a whole conveying a
full message to the reader. To ‘produce discourse’ in the light of the combination of
meanings of particles (‘single morpheme’, ‘sentences’ ‘context’ etc.) Nuttall has
mentioned four consecutive categories of the meaning. They are:
a) Conceptual meaning: This kind of meaning is embedded in ‘a word’. Every
lexical item embodies a concept€ simple or complex, and “the whole books are
written on complex concepts” (op. cit.). This refers to Saussurean definition of
language as a ‘sign’ system that includes ‘signifier’ and ‘signified’.
b) Propositional meaning: The meaning ‘a sentence’ can have of its own is a
propositional meaning. A single word does not inherit this type of meaning because
“we cannot affirm it, deny it, question it” (op. cit.). For example ‘playing’ as a single
word in isolation may have conceptual but not propositional meaning. If it is used in
a proposition, such as, Boys are playing in the field, it will be possible to deny it (the
sentence or proposition), doubt it, question it and so on. Thus the word (‘playing’)
becomes propositionally meaningful.

17
This is the only category of meaning that can be interpreted without the reference of
the ‘context’.
c) Contextual meaning: Contextual meaning occurs when ‘a sentence’ or
‘proposition’ or even a word is used in a context. The use indicates the writer’s
intention of and reason for using it. The value of its using in a text becomes explicit
from the relationship between it and the other sentences or elements before and after
it in the same text.
For an effective reading it is crucial to interpret contextual meaning.
d) Pragmatic meaning: It is the meaning which “a sentence has only as a part of the
interaction between writer and reader” (op. cit.). It reflects the writer’s feelings,
attitude, purpose, tone and so on. Pragmatic meaning is the product of the unified
whole text, and it offers variations in interpreting the meaning because of the fact
that every reader comes to the text with his/her individual concepts and experiences
that largely affect the meaning of the text. Grellet (1946: 9) states that each reader
“brings his own meaning to what he reads based on what he expects from the text
and his previous knowledge.”
The process of manipulating meaning of a text starts from lexical or conceptual
meaning and it gradually proceeds towards the pragmatic achievement to develop a
unified interpretation. So, it is important for pragmatic readings to understand the
meanings of every part of the text, and then to amalgamate them to produce
successive and coherent unified meaning of the text as a whole. According to
Shahidullah (1995-96: 211), “A text is a piece of communication, parts of which
relate to each other to create a meaningful whole.”

18
1.7 Types of Reading
Reading, according to purpose and utility, can be basically of two categories. They
are Academic reading and Non-academic reading.
1.7.1 Academic Reading
A student has to pass various examinations during his/her whole course of academic
life. Understanding a given passage is the nub for a student to answer any kind of
questions set in the examinations because “understanding a written text means
extracting the required information from it as effectively as possible” (Grellet, 1996:
3). And the understanding of it is possible only when a student reads it effectively
and meaningfully. If the student reads effectively and makes out the entire meaning
of a given text, it will be possible for him/her to answer all types of questions€ gap
filling, multiple choice questions, short-answer questions etc. This is true for all
academic purposes; this is crucially true for the students learning a second or foreign
language. As English is not their mother tongue, a fair and effective reading skill is
required. Sekara (1988: 121) rightly comments, “one of the most important activities,
if not the most important activity, in tertiary education is reading€ reading not for
pleasure but for information that has been researched, organized, and documented in
accordance with the rules of academic discourse.” For effective academic reading, he
has suggested RAP (Reading for Academic Purpose) programme for familiarizing
students with certain aspects such as syntactic sequences and words that are
frequently used in academic discourse. It includes, according to him, “both
understanding the syntax and semantics of academic English and understanding of

19
specific aspects of academic reading.” He has presented a diagram and showed “16
aspects of academic reading”, and it includes finding-
1. Thesis sentence, 2. Main idea, 3. Main idea and supporting details, 4. Reference,
5. Inference/implication, 6. Comparison/contrast, 7. Analogy/simile, 8. Definition, 9.
Nonlinguistic information, 10. Generalization, 11. Classification, 12. Description,
13. Hypothesis, 14. Claim + evidence, 15. Argument and its sequencing, and 16.
Writer’s approach/opinion/intention.
Academic reading is important because it prepares a reader for future and further
reading in her/his individual life. It is the pre-stage of non-academic reading.
Several approaches are recommended for academic reading. The three major
approaches, according to Ransom (1978), are Basal Reading Programme,
Individualized Reading and Management Systems.
1.7.1.1 Basal Reading Programme
A Basal Reading Programme is a ‘developmental’ programme. The main
characteristic of this programme, according to Ransom (1978: 73), is that the same
basic books are recommended for all the readers of a particular reading group. The
programme starts with the pre-reading, and gradually develops towards more
complex criteria of reading.
The benefit the students receive from this programme is that they develop their
reading process systematically. The programme provides the readers with
opportunities to read more and more, and at the same time, controls the arbitrary
increase of vocabulary and its complexity.

20
To make this programme a success Ransom has recommended the following steps to
follow:
1. Introductory “interest perker,” which helps set purposes.
2. Presentation of new vocabulary.
3. Guided silent reading
4. Discussion moving in whatever direction the objectives have suggested.
5. Reading parts for specific purposes as stated.
6. Evaluation.
1.7.1.2 Individualized Reading
In this programme students are advised to select texts or books according to their
own interest and choice. Ransom (1978: 77) states that unlike Basal reading
programme this approach “uses the learner’s personal interests as the basis for
seeking, self-selecting, and pacing the reading of books.” King (1978: 43)
emphasizes most on this reading programme, and declares it ‘the right approach’.
His argument is that a student should read individually according to his/her own
interest and rate since purpose and speed of reading of each student are not the same.
The benefit of this programme is that it enables the students to select texts according
to their own ‘comprehension level and interests’, and they are not forced to read a
particular text that does not go with their mentality and schemata.
Ransom (op. cit.) has suggested some consecutive steps to make the programme
effective. They are:
1. Individual silent reading of library books.

21
2. Individual pupil-teacher conferences in which the teacher gains insights into
the learners’ needs by listening to his oral reading and discussion of a book.
3. Small, flexible skill groups for whom the teacher plans needed directed
reading activities, using additional instructional materials.
4. Much emphasis on various ways of sharing books which have been enjoyed.
5. Keeping of individual reading records.
1.7.1.3 Management Systems
The third main approach to academic reading is management systems. These systems
gear up testing and instruction to specific performance objectives. According to
Ransom (p. 80) most management systems “provide for specific individual learning
activities.” He has suggested two ‘general ways’ through which these activities are
performed. They are (a) Pace-variable management systems and (b) Skill-specific
management systems. These are used for different students in different situations. In
pace-variable management systems, all the readers are supposed to advance through
the same activities, though their speed may differ. On the other hand, skill-specific
systems are applied in some particular ‘areas’ where the students seem to be weak
(and it is determined by suggested tests).
1.7.2 Non-academic Reading
Besides academic reasons, there are various non-academic reasons for reading. In an
academic reading students are bound to read texts because of the syllabus and the
thought of passing the examinations. But non-academic reading is open, and
students/readers get an opportunity to choose from a vast range of books according
to their interest, options for choice and opportunity to spending time. It may, in

22
return, help them to develop their language because wide reading is a ‘highly
effective means’ to extend one’s command over a language (Nuttall, 1996: 30). King
(p. 38) says that non-academic reading enables people ‘to have their own feelings
about it’. As non-academic reading offers readers an opportunity to choose according
to their own taste, it is the proper stage for acquiring adequate information or getting
satisfactory pleasure.
1.7.3 Intensive Reading
This is a process for reading shorter texts in order to extract specific information.
Grellet (1946: 4) terms it “an accuracy activity” that involves reading in details.
Bright and McGregor (1970: 80) remark, “…it is not whole lessons but parts of
lessons that may properly be so divided. In the middle of a chapter, we may stop to
dwell on one word. This is intensive study.”
Teachers may influence intensive reading because he is the part of the process, and it
is largely a class room activity. It is sometimes termed local reading.
The aim of intensive reading, according to Nuttall (1996: 38), is
…to arrive at an understanding, not only of what the text means, but of how the meaning is
produced. The ‘how’ is as important as the ‘what’, for the intensive lesson is intended
primarily to train strategies which the student can go on to use with other texts.
Intensive reading is much effective for the development of the reading skills of
students since “most of the reading skills are trained by studying shortish texts in
detail” (Nuttall, 1996: 38). Barry (2002: 4) argues that intensive reading is more
useful than extensive reading. He has advised that the students make their reading
‘meditative, reflective, and personal’. He goes on to say that “nothing of any interest
can happen in this subject [‘English Studies’] without close reading.” He has also

23
suggested SQ3R method for the students to make intensive reading a success (SQ3R
is introduced by Robinson, 1962, and it stands for Survey, Question, Reading,
Reciting and Reviewing).
1.7.4 Extensive Reading
Davis (1995: 329) defines an extensive reading as-
…a supplementary class library scheme, attached to an English course, in which pupils are
given the time, encouraged, and materials to read pleasurably, at their own level, as many
books as are only competing against themselves.
Williams (1984: 10) describes extensive reading as the “relatively rapid reading of
long texts.” According to Nuttall (1996: 142), extensive reading, is essentially a
private activity, and the reader dwells in his/her private world of reading for his/her
own interest.
Nuttall (op. cit.) has pointed out two reasons for extensive reading. The first reason is
that extensive reading is the ‘easiest and most effective’ way of improving the
reading skills of the students. The second reason is that being an educational tool
extensive reading not only serves a favourite climate for the students but also
provides them with enjoyment. As a result, students feel interested, and they acquire
desired progress in developing their reading skills.
However, the purpose of extensive reading is solely to enjoy a text, and in this
reading programme students need not answer questions on the text they have read.
Moreover, they can select their own books and read a great deal at their own pace. In
order to make extensive reading really enjoyable and fruitful to the students, they
should be encouraged to read easy and interesting books and to stop reading a book
if it is too hard, too easy, or boring (Day, 2004: 8).

24
According to Hafiz and Tudor (1989: 1-2), the goal of extensive reading is “to
‘flood’ learners with large quantities of L2 input with few or possibly no specific
tasks to perform on this material.” Its importance lies in the fact that it helps to
increase students’ vocabulary to a large extent (Nuttall: 62). Nation (1997) supports
it, and explains that extensive reading increases students’ vocabulary knowledge
because in an extensive reading students come across the same words repeatedly, and
can pick up their meanings from the context. Day (2004: 10), the chair of the
Extensive Reading Foundation, states that “Good things happen when EFL students
read extensively.” He explains that extensive reading not only makes the students
fluent readers, but also enables them to learn new words and expand their
understanding of words they knew before. Extensive reading also helps them to write
better, and “their listening and speaking abilities improve.” In short, extensive
reading activities can make student reading a resource for language practice,
vocabulary learning, listening, speaking and writing.
As extensive reading is an open programme for all types of students and their choice
is free, they can read any types of texts they like. All kinds of books, magazines, etc.
especially written for EFL and ESL learners are the most suitable reading materials
for them.
Both intensive and extensive readings are important and necessary for effective
readings, and they are complementary to each other. To be an efficient reader, one
must carry on both these two processes, as Williams (1986: 44) suggests, “for every
hour of intensive reading, a learner should be doing at least another hour of extensive
reading.”

25
Harmer (1986) mentions a number of sub-skills of reading such as predicting,
guessing word meaning, reading for specific information, reading for general
comprehension, scanning, skimming, inferring from texts, interpreting texts,
surveying text organisation, and critically evaluating texts.
Williams (1996: 37) has suggested that a reading lesson should be divided into pre-
reading, while-reading and post-reading stages for effective teaching. Nuttall (1996:
7-11) has suggested that students’ schemata, shared assumptions and co-operative
principles should be upgraded to improve reading skills, and she has also
recommended some strategies to do that. She has prescribed interactive reading for
the students.
In addition to these, some teaching techniques such as DRA (Directed Reading
Activity) by Dechant (1982: 292), ‘Top Ten Principles’ by Williams (1986: 42-45),
Linguistic and Non-linguistic approach by Grellet (1996: 13, 22) have been
introduced and recommended for the classroom teaching of reading.
1.8 Requirements for Effective Reading
During reading, the meaning of a text is achieved and manipulated by the reader
according to his/her purpose of and preparation for the reading. A reader’s
knowledge, experience and schemata play vital role in manipulating the meaning of a
text because these things are influential. Efficiency of a reader largely depends on
the pre-requisite knowledge and sufficient experience about facts and happenings in
real life. Moreover, proper schemata are also important to reach the appropriate
meaning of the text.

26
1.8.1 Knowledge and Experience
Pr-requisite knowledge may accompany a reader when s/he goes to a text, or s/he
may be entirely stranger to the content of the text. According to Rauch et al. (1968),
having pre-experience about a text enables a reader to pursue its meaning effectively.
Their argument is that “A good reader brings a variety of experiences and meanings
to the printed symbol” because “the more vital experiences one has the more
opportunities he has to observe and participate in the many-faceted world about him,
the more meaning he will bring to the printed word.” If the reader brings more
experience related to the textual content with him, s/he can share, support or oppose
the information s/he obtains while reading more successfully; otherwise s/he has to
depend totally on the information the book supplies. Yet this latter attitude can add a
new dimension of knowledge to the reader’s existing experience or knowledge.
However, an efficient reader always brings some prerequisite knowledge with him.
According to Williams, the elements a reader should bring with him/her are-
1. knowledge of the writing system
2. knowledge of the language
3. ability to interpret
4. appropriate knowledge of the world as assumed by the writer
5. a reason for reading that determines his style.
Through the acquired data or information we can compare “what we read with our
own experience; for example, it is interesting to read about another country because
we can compare with our own, or we can imagine ourselves being there” (Doff,
1997: 181).

27
1.8.2 Schemata and Reading Skills
It is to be noted that no writing or text relates every detail. There are certainly some
lacks of information in the writing, and it is assumed that the reader will fill up those
lacks with the assumptions which are shared by both the writer (encoder) and the
reader (decoder). The more the shared assumptions are, the more effective the
reading will be. These assumptions are technically described as schemata (plural of
schema). They are abstract ideas of certain experiences, and affect largely to
interpret a text more precisely. Again, the knowledge people get from experiences is
organized in a variety of ways depending on the individual minds. For this reason,
people have different experiences of the same incident, and consequently, different
interpretations of the same text.
According to Nuttall (1996: 7), the schema “is a mental structure. It is abstract
because it does not relate to any particular experience, although it derives from all
the particular experiences we have had. It is a structure because it is organized; it
includes the relationships between its component parts.”
If a reader possesses sufficient and/or similar schemata of the writer and the text can
activate them properly, he/she will be able to interpret the text successfully and
meaningfully. On the other hand, a reader of weak schemata cannot penetrate the
thought and message of the writer and will remain in a state of darkness and spend
much time groping the meaning of the text. Nuttall (1996: 7) has illustrated this by
an example. The first sentence from the example is, The bus careered along and
ended up in the hedge. In this text of a single sentence, bus schema can be sited to
illustrate the idea. It is to be noted that there is no mention of road in the text, but the

28
reader does not face any difficulty in understanding the elaboration that the bus was
running along ‘a road’. “This means that our road schema is hovering at the back of
our minds in case of need; the road schema for some readers will include
components such as walls, hedges, fences which mark the limit of a road” (Nuttall,
op. cit). However, if the reader’s road schema does not include ‘hedge’ along the
roads, s/he will be in difficulties to understand the meaning of the text, and will,
perhaps, be in a puzzle where the bus actually stopped! Thus, reading makes use of
our existing schemata, and if necessary, modifies it (in the above example, the reader
may check and learn the word, ‘hedge’, which will add knowledge to his/her existing
schemata). Moreover, all the schemata should not, and need not be recalled. In a
‘responsive reader’ only the relevant schemata are activated.
Schemata in a reader are not constant. They are always changing. Existing schemata
may be changed or modified by new experiences€ experiences derived from reading,
or from our daily affairs. To put it in Nuttall’s (p. 8) word, “a schema grows and
changes throughout our lives, for as long as we retain the capacity to learn.”
It has already been stated that schemata of a student play vital role in exploiting and
understanding a text. According to Shahidullah (1995-96: 214), “teaching of reading
concerns mainly with schema activation and schema availability.” Social, cultural,
historical or even mythical or religious schemata are all important to understand a
text properly.

29
1.9 Research Methodology
The study will have two major parts:
(a) library research for a clear idea about the definition of the reading skills
and its components or sub-skills, and also for examining the recent
developments in the approaches and methods of teaching the different
sub-skills of reading.
(b) an empirical research to find out the present situation in Bangladesh– to
find out students’ present level of proficiency in reading skills, the
approaches and methods currently being used for teaching and learning of
reading skills, reading syllabus, materials and tests.
The methods of data collection used for the empirical survey were:
1) Students’ and teachers’ questionnaire survey,
2) Students’ and teachers’ interview,
3) Classroom observation,
4) Test of reading skills,
5) Syllabus, materials and tests evaluation.
1.10 Conclusion
Like other EFL/ESL contexts, it is very important for Bangladesh to produce
graduates of an international standard in today’s globalized world; it is necessary to
improve students’ reading proficiency in English for that. Though it will take time to
bring about changes in the present state of teaching and learning reading skills, it is
not altogether impossible. If recent pedagogical approaches are used, if proper

30
materials and tests are designed, the situation will improve significantly. This study,
therefore, will prove very useful for the country.
The importance of reading in Bangladesh cannot be denied. To make the students fit
nationally and internationally, their reading skills must be of an advanced level. If
reading skills are improved, learners will be able to utilise maximum resources for
acquiring knowledge and information, and it will change the whole educational
scenario of the country. So, the present study on ‘An Evaluation of the Teaching of
Reading Skills in Bangladesh’ is of great importance.

Chapter 2
Theoretical Development in Reading Pedagogy
2.1 Introduction
The teaching of reading has undergone significant changes in the 20th century as a
result of experiments with new approaches to education in general. In the beginning
of the 20th century, the personal interest and needs in reading were ignored. Experts
mused over it, and during the late 1920s and 1930s there was a push for emphasizing
individual needs in instruction. It was not until 1960s and 1970s when some fruitful
thesis came into light. Goodman (1977) and others posited a psycholinguistic view of
reading in which reading is viewed as an interactive process between language and
thought.
We are now in the midst of a paradigm shifting towards an emphasis on language as
communication (Raimes, 1983: 546), and modern world has adopted communicative
approach of teaching language where students have more participation in the
classroom activities than teachers have. But earlier, students had little or no
participation in learning; they were mostly passive in the class. The class was
dominated by the teacher and s/he used the approach and style s/he liked. His/her
rule was the rule, and students were to obey him/her. The teacher taught the learners
according to his/her own way of understanding, and after the lesson he/she asked the
students questions the answer of which he himself knew. But the situation has
changed largely, and classroom approaches have been changed significantly. Now
students are considered active participants in the classroom activities. They are

32
learning actively asking relevant questions, sharing knowledge and schemata among
themselves. Reading approaches and reading pedagogy, being important areas of
EFL and ESL, have also been subjected to change– change in attitude, outlet, and,
overall teaching method.
2.2 Problems Students often Encounter with Reading
It has been observed that students, especially ESL and EFL learners, confront a
variety of difficulties while reading. These difficulties comprise inadequate
vocabulary, lexical inefficiency, structural complexity, language inaccessibility, poor
reading skills, lack of schemata, and so on. Students’ lack of interest is another major
cause of their failure in reading. Reading is, for many of them, “a passive, boring
activity, performed constantly in isolation and perhaps associated with skills which
they feel they do not possess” Greenwood (1998: 5). Dechant (1982: 73) has
expressed the same opinion and stated that achievement in reading is dependent
“upon the pupil’s motivational readiness, and poor reading or reading failure may be
caused by lack of interest.” He (p. 79) has also mentioned ‘personal maladjustment’
as another cause of reading failure and explained that difficulties in adjusting to a
new environment, poor parent-child relationships, lack of encouragement from
home, ‘negative attitudes of parents to learning in general’ etc. ‘may all lead to
failure’.
The most mentionable cause of students’ poor reading is the lack of vocabulary.
Students of intermediate level, or even of higher classes, are very weak in
vocabulary. Almost in every sentence they come across new words. This inadequate
vocabulary makes them stumble at each sentence, and soon they begin to lose their

33
patience with and interest in reading. It not only hinders their smooth reading, but
also paralyses their language learning ability. All the linguists and experts have
expressed the same view that insufficient vocabulary is the main cause of students’
poor reading. While mentioning the causes of the failure of reading Breen (1975)
stated that ‘paucity’ of vocabulary, lack of independent reading, and incapability of
fulfilling the demands of the required reading are the problems of the students.
Long and complex structure of sentences often cause reading barrier for most of
the students. They cannot understand the proper subject-verb relationship in a long or
complex sentence, and it creates constant difficulties for them. Eventually, these
difficulties result in poor and insufficient reading.
Words having multiple meanings are another constant threats to the students. They
come across such words every now and then. Poor readers are often unable to adopt
the right meanings. Thus they create multifaceted problems in their reading and get
bored. These problems in their turn make apprehension of meanings difficult.
Sometimes, they cannot reach any meaning at all. As a result, they develop a
negative impression about the text, or even about their ability to read and abandon
reading.
The similar problem that students face very often is the idiomatic and figurative
meanings of words, phrase, and sentence or even of the whole text. Almost every
literary text is replete with idiomatic and/or figurative expressions. These
expressions add to the readers’ predicament. Many students do not know what the
difference is between connotative and denotative expressions. Since they always
stick to the connotative meanings of a word or text, they fail to make out the proper

34
meanings of the whole text. And after finishing reading (if anyhow they complete it),
they discover that they have spoiled the whole time reading the text. Thus, their
capability of and interest in reading deteriorate gradually.
Words having different syntactical functions and varieties of ‘inflectional endings’
may also cause difficulties for the students in reading a text effectively. For example,
the word best has an ‘adjectival function’. But it becomes noun when it is used in a
sentence such as “your best is not good enough” (Dechant, 1982: 290).
In reading a text (whether native or EFL or ESL), schemata of the readers play
crucial role. Schemata are directly related to the meaningful reading, reading speed
and reading enjoyment. But many students lack sufficient schemata. They cannot
associate the language of the text with their experience and knowledge outside the
text because of their poor schemata. As a result, any gap of information in the text
creates serious problem for them to reach the meaning.
Lack of concentration is another mentionable reason for students’ poor reading
because concentration is an important factor for a good and effective reading. Shaw
(1959: ix) states that comprehension of a text results from reading with
concentration. But students, in most cases, cannot or do not concentrate properly
while reading, or they cannot hold their attention for a long time due to their lack of
practice and patience. The situation results in the frustration and unwillingness, and
prevents them to read further.
Improper classroom activities are also responsible for students’ poor reading. In
the country, students get little or no opportunity to read themselves. Moreover,
classroom procedure is yet traditional in the most intermediate institutions, or even in

35
high schools, though the communicative teaching method was introduced in the
country 4/5 years ago. In the traditional system, students are asked ready questions
on a given passage, and they write down their answers from their memory. Before
coming to class they memorize answers from traditional ‘note books’ or answers
supplied by the home tutors. Thus students are becoming accustomed to memorizing
ready answers without reading, and they are passing the exams knowing nothing of
the text. The result is that not only do the students remain ignorant of the text, but
also their reading skills deteriorate.
There are some other problems, too. Students may have deficiency in visual
identification– may have poor visual discrimination skill, be weak in visual
imagery, and have poor memory for visual sequences. Moreover, they may be poor
in visual recognition, and thus, unable to recall familiar word when necessary
(Dechant, 1982: 436-7).
Deficiency in associating phoneme and grapheme is another reason for students’
poor reading. Dechant (1982: 436-7) explains that sometimes poor reading results
from students’ “inability to relate symbols, to associate the proper phoneme with the
proper shape, or to match a visual sequence with an auditory sequence…. The pupil
has great difficulty acquiring phonic skills.” And obviously, this lack of phonic skills
results in their inability to associate experiences and meanings with symbols.
The problems most EFL learners face while reading is that their ‘knowledge of the
language is incomplete’. This lack creates serious difficulties with some texts
(Williams, 1996: 4). In such situation, what happens is that EFL students unlike
native learners use reading to help them learn that language. As a result, their

36
emphasis and concentration rest upon learning that language, and the target reading
loses its value and interest.
‘Syntactic inference’ is also responsible for students’ poor reading, because, it
causes confusion among the readers. For example, in Bangla, the simple sentence
structure is ‘subject + complement + verb’ whereas, an English sentence structure is
‘subject + verb + complement’. Thus the sentence in English ‘He plays football’ is,
in Bangla ‘He football plays’. This structural difference causes thematic problem for
the students while reading an English text book.
Cultural difference between the text (the author) and the reader is another problem,
especially for the EFL learners. If the author and the reader cannot share a common
cultural assumption, text may seem difficult to the reader. A student who has a
primary knowledge about western, or more specifically, English culture can enjoy an
English text in the true sense. The more a student is familiar with the concerned
culture of a text, the more effective reader s/he will be. But many students in our
country are ignorant of the social custom and culture of English. As a result, in spite
of being able to translate the word or sentence or text, the cannot understand the
implied meaning of the text as a whole.
Some experts think that reading process for all language is much the same
(Goodman, 1973; Alderson, 1984; Coady, 1979. etc). Jolly (1978) states that reading
in a second language is ‘transference’ of first language skills into a second language.
It implies that students having fluent and efficient skills in reading their native texts
are able to read EFL or ESL texts in the same manner. Alderson (op cit) states that if
the students learn “to read properly in their first language, the problems of reading in

37
English would be vastly reduced.” But a number of students here in Bangladesh are
very poor readers even in Bangla (because of lack of inspiration or guidance or
proper environment). Obviously, this inept reading in Bangla has a long-term
negative influence on reading in English. In short, the inability to read in English, to
a large extent, results from their inability to read in Bangla.
Lack of graded materials is another important reason for the failure of reading. In
Bangladesh, graded reading texts written in English are very rare, and in some part
of the country they are totally unavailable. This inadequacy of proper texts or textual
materials affects students’ reading much. Sometimes students are not supplied with
their texts according to their linguistic level. The texts may be below or above their
linguistic level. The appropriate text-type for the students is that it should be one step
above from their present linguistic level.
King (1978: 38) has pointed out some common problems students face while
reading a text. He has mentioned the problems “of eye-fixation, sub vocalization,
limited experience in reading a diversity of texts, the interrelation between reading
and thinking, and the development of sensibility.”
Nuttall (1996: 35) has also pointed out some reasons of the failure of the students’
reading. They are:
– negative expectations
– unsuitable tasks
– the wrong procedures
– expecting to run before they can walk
– the wrong texts.

38
Dechant (1982: 336) has mentioned a number of reasons for students’ failure in
reading a text. He states that they
cannot use dictionary: cannot locate words in a dictionary; cannot use diacritical markings to
determine the correct pronunciation of the word; cannot find the meaning appropriate to the
context; cannot use guide words, accent, and syllabication cues; cannot interpret phonetic
respellings; cannot use cross references; and cannot determine the plural, the part of speech,
or the sense of a word, form the information as it is given.
Moreover, they cannot locate where the appropriate information is, and they are
unable to adjust a proper method or rate of reading according to their linguistic level
and their purposes of reading.
There are some readers whose reading capacity is considerably greater than their
reading achievement. On the other hand, there are some other readers whose ‘reading
performance is substantially below ability level’ (Dechant, 1982: 384). Both these
two types of readers suffer from the same problem that they cannot achieve what
they are supposed to achieve from reading a text. They are either too fast to capture
the meaning of the text or too slow to reach it.
And finally, the teachers’ role in the poor reading of the students is worth
considering. Many teachers of numerous colleges and educational institutions, even
today, stick to the traditional teaching system. In the classroom they ask the students
some selected questions conjoined a particular text. The students, in their turn, get
the answers memorized, and in the class, they just vomit them on the exercise books.
Thus, major parts of Bangladeshi students are the direct preys of the negligence
and/or ignorance of their teachers. As a result, not only their capability but also their
interest in reading is deteriorating day by day. And its consequence is that most
students end their academic life without having least skill in reading even Bangla
books, let alone English ones.

39
2.3 The Sub-skills of Reading
Reading is a major skill that comprises a number of macro or sub-skills. A successful
and efficient reading means a reader is equally expert in all or most of these sub-
skills. Most of the sub-skills are discussed here in brief.
2.3.1 Skimming
Nuttall (1996: 49) has defined skimming as:
glancing rapidly through a text to determine its gist, for example in order to decide whether a
research paper is relevant to our own work …or to keep ourselves superficially informed
about matter that are not of great importance to us.
Grellet (1996: 4) and Urquhart and Weir (1998: 102) are also of the opinion that
skimming is the reading for gist.
Rayner and Pollatsek (1989: 447) have given considerable importance on skimming.
According to them, too many books with a purpose to achieving too much
information confront people. Skimming helps them by saving their times, but people
who are “unable to skim material would find [that] they spend their entire day
reading.” Nuttall (op. cit.) explains that it enables “the readers to select texts, or parts
of texts, that are worth spending time on.” Grellet (1996: 19) thinks that it is “a more
thorough activity” because it “requires an overall view of the text and implies a
definite reading competence.”
About the purpose of skimming Williams (1996: 96-97) seems to be very explicit.
She states that the purpose of skimming is “simply to see what a text is about. …The
reader skims in order to satisfy a very general curiosity about the text, and not to find
the answer to particular questions.” According to Urquhart and Weir (p. 213) the
purposes of skimming are to–
€ establish a general sense of the text.

40
€ quickly establish a ‘macropropositional’ structure as an outline summary.
€ decide the relevance of texts to established needs.
Various reading schemes recommend skimming as a starting process because by
starting with skimming the reader will have a framework to accommodate the whole
text because it is a quick process of reading.
2.3.2 Scanning
It is a surface level process of reading, and mainly ‘reader-driven’. In scanning there
is a rapid inspection of a text with occasional closer inspection. Pugh (1978: 53)
states that scanning is to find a ‘match’ between what the reader seeks and what the
text supplies. In scanning, very little information is processed for long term retention
or even for immediate action.
According to Nuttall (op. cit.), scanning is “glancing rapidly through a text either to
search for a specific piece of information (e.g. a name, a date) or to get an initial
impression of whether the text is suitable for given purpose”, and Grellet (op. cit.)
supports it. Williams (1996: 107) states that scanning is “reading for particular points
of information.” It is a selective reading, and its purpose is to achieve very specific
‘reading goals’.
The main feature of scanning, according to Urquhart et. al. (1998: 103), is that “any
part of the text which does not contain the preselected symbol(s) is dismissed.”
Scanning involves looking for specific words/phrases, figures, names or dates of a
particular event, the capital of a country etc. Jordon (1980) has mentioned a variety
of texts suitable for scanning€ indexes, dictionaries, maps, advertisements, reference
materials etc.

41
2.3.3 Browsing
Browsing, according to Urquhart and Weir (1998: 103), is a “sort of reading where
goals are not well defined, parts of a text may be skipped fairly randomly, and there
is a little attempt to integrate the information into a macrostructure.” Kintsch and van
Dijk (1978) have observed that there are some people who read loosely structured
texts and they have “no clear goals in mind” the outcome of which, as far as the
resulting macrostructure is concerned, ‘is indeterminate’. This process is referred as
browsing.
2.3.4 Search Reading
Unlike skimming, it provides the readers with information to answer set questions.
According to Urquhart et. al. (1998: 103), search reading “is guided by
predetermined topics.” Search reading involves both bottom-up and top-down
processes of reading. The period of ‘closer attention’ in search reading is longer than
that in any other reading strategies. For this reason, it is considered as an appropriate
type of reading for the students as they are to answer questions set after a certain
passage.
According to Urquhart et. al. (1998: 214), search reading includes the following
‘operationalisations’:
€ keeping alert for words in the same or related semantic field
€ using formal knowledge of text structure for locating information
€ using titles and subtitles
€ reading abstracts where appropriate
€ glancing at words and phrases.

42
2.3.5 Careful reading
The defining features of careful reading, according to Urquhart et. al. (1998: 103),
are–
(a) the reader attempts to handle the majority of information in the text, that
is, the process is not selective;
(b) the reader adopts a submissive role, and accepts the writer’s organization,
including what the writer appears to consider the important parts;
(c) the reader attempts to build up a ‘macrostructure’ on the basis of the
majority of the information in the text.
For these excellent features careful reading is thought to be the most effective
reading strategy, and many educationalists and psychologists recommend it most.
2.3.6 Prediction
Prediction is ‘the faculty of predicting or guessing what is to come next, making use
of grammatical, lexical and cultural clue’ (Grellet, 1996: 17). According to Greenall
and Swan (1986: 3) prediction is to know what information is new to the reader and
what information s/he already knows about as s/he goes to read the text. McDonnald
(1983: 54) terms prediction as ‘theory’ and states that it allows readers ‘to be always
ahead of the arrival of surface structure’. Nuttall (1996: 13) explains that prediction
is a kind of sharing of presuppositions of the writer, and a reader who shares these
presuppositions most will be able ‘to think along with the writer and use his own
experience to resolve difficulties’.
Efficient readers always depend on their ability to predict what comes next. They use
minimum clues from the text in order to reach the appropriate meaning of the text.

43
Therefore, a successful reading does not require going through each and every line in
the text. Instead, the readers depend largely on the prediction from “the syntactic and
semantic clues and their previous knowledge” (Hedge, 1985).
As stated earlier, the reader brings his/her own knowledge and experience to the text,
which makes the text easy and smooth for the reader to make out the meaning. The
knowledge or experience that a reader has, helps him/her to predict what the writer is
going to say next. Nuttall (op. cit.) points out that activated schemata which are
ready for use can help the reader to understand the text more easily, and the
importance of prediction lies in the fact that it activates his/her schemata. While
reading the reader calls into mind any relevant experiences and associated
knowledge that s/he already has, and it helps him/her interpret the text more clearly.
Prediction also helps the reader to make sense of sentences. Thus, their ability to
predict what comes next often increases with the development of the reading skills.
Prediction begins with the title of a textbook and continues throughout the whole
process of reading. Sometimes prediction may be wrong, yet it makes the readers
think about the topic and so on, because prediction, according to Nuttall (1996: 119)
need not be ‘successful’ all the time ‘to be useful’.
Nuttall (op. cit.) explains that prediction involves a variety of input– the schemata
about the way stories work, the way texts are constructed, the way people tend to
think, clues etc. For this reason, it is a good activity for integrating many of the
reading skills already discussed.
Prediction focuses reading by limiting the range of things to look for, and thus it
enables the reader to read more efficiently. Developing this skill is to ensure the

44
feeling of a reader that while reading s/he is not overloaded with too much
information. It also ensures the reader’s active involvement with the text.
This skill may be developed by giving the students unified passages to complete or
by going through a text little by little or by stopping after each sentence in order to
predict what is likely to come next (Grellet: 17).
2.3.7 Inferencing
Sometimes, a text suggests something indirectly rather states it directly. It is the
responsibility of the reader to infer this information. So, inferencing is the process of
reconstructing the writer’s unstated presuppositions. Grellet (1996: 14) has defined
inferencing as “… making use of syntactic, logical and cultural clues to discover the
meaning of unknown elements.” It is also the process used by the reader to draw a
certain conclusion from facts, points in an argument etc. supplied by the text
(Nuttall, 1996: 114). Abbott and Wingard (1981) regard inference as a manipulative
thinking skill. While inferring, readers manipulate their thinking power to interpret
the text– not only explicitly but also implicitly.
It should be noted that inferencing is not necessarily of certainty– it is about
probabilities. But these possibilities may gradually turn into certainties when the
reader meets a word more frequently and understands it more explicitly. Inferencing
affects the interpretation of a text to a large extent. It is, therefore, an essential but
‘tricky’ skill (Nuttall, 1996: 114).
Inferencing is a powerful aid for the students to comprehend a text, and it ultimately
helps them to read books more quickly. Moreover, it can make the text more

45
enjoyable because “its problem-solving character appeals to most people and it
challenges students to make use of their intelligence” (Nuttall, 1996: 114).
In order to infer a piece of information of a given text effectively, students may and
should make use of common sense, power of reasoning, knowledge of the world and
relevant schemata.
2.3.8 Previewing
Unlike predicting, previewing is a very specific reading skill. It is a very quick
technique to find out where the required information is likely to be (Grellet, 1996:
17- 18). It involves using the title of a text, the table of contents, the index, the
appendix, the preface of the author or publisher, headings or subtitles of chapters and
paragraphs, information in the back cover, acknowledgement etc.
This skill is useful for the students in many ways. It not only leads the students
towards intended and specific information, but also saves their valuable time. They
can naturally apply this technique in locating an article in a newspaper or in an edited
book, or having a few minutes to get an assumption or idea of a book through the
text on the back cover and the table of contents etc.
2.3.9 Anticipation
Anticipation is the process of forming an idea about the contents of a text and
expecting the intended items from it before starting reading. Grellet (1996) mentions
that anticipation in reading motivates the readers to read. She further states that
readers start reading a book in order to find a number of things in it– specific
information, ideas, answers to a number of questions etc. They expect that the book
will be able to provide them with the intended things. This ‘expectation’ is inherent

46
in the process of reading ‘which is a permanent interrelationship between the reader
and the text’ (Grellet, 1996: 18).
The anticipations or expectations of a reader start in the pr-reading stage and they are
modified and increased in the while-reading phase. And finally these expectations
are established or corrected and modified in the post-reading stage. So, anticipation
is a process that continues throughout reading.
Anticipation is of great importance for the readers. It is the anticipation (about what
will happen next) that urges the students to read a text to the end. While emphasizing
on the importance of anticipation, Watson (1991: 137) states that anticipation should
be practised “in order to aid the readers’ overall understanding, thus allowing the
teacher to concentrate on new items of language.” It also enables students to think
about the content of the text, focus on the new items, relate them to their previous
knowledge, discuss and prepare themselves for reading the expected text.
Anticipation need not be correct or accurate all the time. Sometimes it may be
correct, sometimes it may lead to a wrong interpretation. Whatever the output is, the
process acts as a useful aid for the students.
To ensure better output students need develop this skill. Grellet (1996: 18) has
suggested the following ‘possibilities in the exercises’ to enhance their anticipation:
– Psychological sensitizing aimed at making the students think about the
subject of the text and ask themselves questions.
– Using the title and pictures to talk about the various ways the text may
develop.
– Using the key-words of the text.

47
2.3.10 Presupposition
Presupposition is a guessing power that enables the students to understand what
connections between facts are left untold in a text. Students who are not aware of the
unstated facts may likely to fall in difficulties to deal with the message of the author.
But students who are “aware of the potential problem are halfway to solving it; they
can scrutinize the text for unstated assumptions and try to identify the mismatch that
has produced difficulty” (Nuttall, 1996: 8).
Nuttall (1996: 112) has divided presupposition into two groups:
1. the knowledge and experience that the writer expects the reader to have.
2. the opinions, attitudes, emotions that the writer expects the reader to share,
or at least to understand.
So, the correct interpretation of a text rests mostly on the reader’s sharing the view of
the writer. While following a writer’s train of thought from one sentence to the next,
the readers may find that there is no connection between them. Presupposition helps
the readers to connect them using some tools like inferencing, schemata etc.
2.3.11 Shared Assumptions
According to Nuttall (1996: 6), the reader and the writer should have “certain things
in common if communication is to take place.” The minimum requirement is the
code they share. The writer and the reader should have in common a similar
command over the same language. It sounds ridiculous that a person without
knowing Greek tries to read a text written in Greek.
Vocabulary is also an important area to be shared between the writer and the reader.
A book will be a source of information or enjoyment for a reader only when his/her

48
vocabulary level reaches the writer’s. If the reader’s vocabulary is far smaller than
the writer’s, the text will certainly appear to be a difficult one for him/her.
Shared assumptions include some other intangible things like attitudes, beliefs,
values, clichés of a certain period, norms, culture and customs of a particular society
or group of people, and some unspoken assumptions which are shared by people
brought up in the same society. All these items, if common or identical, may
contribute significantly to the better understanding of a text, and consequently to the
development of the reading skills of the students.
It is now obvious that effective reading occurs only when the writer and the reader
share maximum assumptions. In other words, the writer expects the reader to share
his/her views, and the more the shared assumptions are, the more enjoyable the text
would appear to the readers. In short, the shared assumptions between the writer and
the reader affect the development of the reading skills to a large extent.
2.3.12 Recognizing Text Organization
Recognizing text organization is to know and internalize “how sentences are joined
together to make paragraphs, how paragraphs form the passage, and how this
organization is signaled” (Greenall et. al., 1986: 3). If a reader fails to understand
how a passage is organized s/he will be in difficulties to make out a cohesive sense
of the text. The ability to recognize the textual pattern may enable the students to
predict the likely values of sentences; and this in turn helps them to interpret difficult
texts. Nuttall (1996: 106) states that “if you can identify the principle by which the
text is organized and see how the ideas hang together, it is easier to interpret difficult
sentences.” But the readers who are unable to do this may find the text a puzzling

49
one, and at the end of reading the complete picture or the overall meaning of the text
they discover becomes obscure and unorganized.
A sound ability to recognize text organization has further implication and use. It
enables the students to understand how a writer has selected and used raw materials,
how s/he has organized them and arranged them cohesively, and how s/he has been
able to suit his/her purpose. And this understanding is important to reach the writer’s
unified message.
To train the students to recognize text organization different types of exercises can
be practised. Grellet (1996: 21) has mentioned some of the practices. They are-
– Rejecting irrelevant information.
– Finding the topic sentences and what kind of relation they have to the rest of
the text.
– Discriminating between generalizations and specific statements.
– Completing skeleton outlines of the structure of the text.
Some other higher order sub-skills of reading are:
a. critical evaluation
b. distinguishing facts and opinions
c. recognizing bias
d. understanding attitude, tone and voice of the author and
e. personal responses.

50
2.4 Approaches to Reading
Which approach should be appropriate for a text depends on the size of the text, the
purpose of reading, time allotted etc. Bright and McGregor (p. 65) point some of
these strategies. They are:
(i) how much there is in the passage waiting to be discovered. Not all
passages are worth meticulous attention.
(ii) how much time is available. By no means all the passages worth serious
attention can be tackled.
(iii) how much the class is capable or seeing and how well they respond.
(iv) how much is essential to a minimum worth-while response€ etc.
2.4.1 Top-down Approach
It was proposed by Goodman (1967). The main feature of this process is that “the
reader comes to the text with a previously formed plan, and perhaps, omits chunks of
the text which seem to be irrelevant to the reader’s purpose” (Urquhart and Weir:
42). Nuttall’s (1996: 16) view on top-down approach is:
We draw on our own intelligence and experience€ the predictions we can make, based on the
schemata we have acquired€ to understand the text. … We make conscious use of it when
we try to see the overall purpose of the text, or get a rough idea of the pattern of the writer’s
argument, in order to make a reasoned guess at next step.
Expectations of the reader play ‘a crucial, even dominant, role’ in this process. The
reader brings his/her personal experiences and views with him/her, and those aspects
largely affect the way of interpreting a text. Goodman characterizes this approach as
viewing reading as “precise, sequential identification.”

51
This approach is precisely suggested by most thinkers and researchers because it is
directly related to the reader’s schemata€ his/her personal knowledge and
experiences. Its importance can be stretched from Nuttall (1996: 17):
This enables him to predict the writer’s purpose, the likely trend of the argument and so on,
and then use this framework to interpret difficult parts of the text. The top-down approach
gives a sense of perspective and makes use of all that the reader brings to the text: prior
knowledge, common sense, etc. which have sometimes been undervalued in the reading
class.
2.4.2 Bottom-up Approach
Bottom-up approach was proposed by Gough (1972). It begins with the stimulus, i.e.
the text, or bits of the text. In bottom-up approach, according to Nuttall (1996: 17),
“the reader builds up a meaning from the black marks on the page: recognizing
letters and words, working out sentence structure”. Readers use this process
consciously when they are confused with an initial reading. In this approach, the
reader is entirely dependable on the contextual meaning, and s/he does not need any
background knowledge since it is text-driven.
There is a clear-cut distinction between these two approaches. While bottom-up
process is text-driven, top-down approach uses the meaning brought by the reader,
i.e. it is reader-driven. Parry (1987) has summarized their differences in the
following manner:
some argue that reading is a “bottom-up” process: graphemes are perceived as forming
words, words as forming sentences, and sentences as forming paragraphs and so on (Gough,
1972); others argue that the process is a “top down” one: the reader stars with a general idea,
or schema, of what should be in the text€ this being derived from the previously acquired
knowledge€ and uses this scheme in perceiving and in interpreting graphic cues. (Goodman
1967)
2.4.3 Interactive Reading
Experts argue and explain that none of these approaches (namely, ‘top-down’ and
‘bottom-up’) stands alone for an effective reading. The proper combination of these

52
two€ known as interactive approach€ is actually appropriate, and an efficient reader
uses both these processes and shifts from one approach to another according to the
demand of the reading strategy. Nuttall (1996: 17) comments, “a reader continually
shifts from one focus to another, now adopting a top-down approach to predict the
probable meaning, then moving to the bottom-up approach to check whether that is
really what the writer says.” Carrell (1988: 240-41) seems to be more specific about
it. She explains that efficient and effective second language reading requires both
top-down and bottom-up strategies in different combinations for different purposes.
In this interactive reading a pattern is synthesised based on information “provided
simultaneously from several sources” (Rumelhart, 1980: 135). So, reading is not just
a one side approach. Both the reader and the text have their respective shares in an
interactive process. Carrell and Eisterhold (1983) comment that interaction “occurs
between the reader and the text.”
It is now obvious that a reader cannot reach the proper meaning of a text if s/he
solely depends on what there is in the text, because “text itself does not carry
meaning” (Carrell, 1983). Better understanding of a text depends on both cues
supplied by the text and schemata of the reader. At the same time, a reader has to be
able ‘to relate information from the text to already existing background knowledge’
(Shahidullah, 1996). A text becomes a meaningful discourse only when its graphic
display is reconstructed properly by the reader. The success depends on the skills a
reader possesses and his/her ability to apply them in interpreting a text. So, both top-
down and bottom-up approaches are equally important in an interactive reading.
Shahidullah (op. cit.) has pointed out that

An Evaluation Of The Teaching Of Reading Skills Of English In Bangladesh A Thesis Submitted In Partial Fulfillment Of The Requirements For The Degree Of MA In English

An Evaluation Of The Teaching Of Reading Skills Of English In Bangladesh A Thesis Submitted In Partial Fulfillment Of The Requirements For The Degree Of MA In English

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