Teaching Reading Skills: A Review to

Douglas Brown
Santi Anjar Wati (20177470207), Septian Aep Nugraha (20177470005),

Wiwi Widianingsih (20177470165), Zhilal El Furqaan (20177470130)

Written to fulfill group assignment on the subject of Curriculum

Development (Professor: DR. Gustaman Saragih)
May, 2018
 Teaching Reading Skills: A Review to Douglas Brown

CONTENTS
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 3
Discussions ............................................................................................................................................. 3
Research on Reading a Second Language .......................................................................................... 3
1. Bottom-up and top-down processing ...................................................................................... 3
2. Schema theory and background knowledge ............................................................................ 4
3. Teaching strategic reading ...................................................................................................... 5
4. Extensive reading .................................................................................................................... 6
The Importance of Understanding Genres and Characteristics of Written Language ........................ 6
Micro- and Macroskills of Reading Comprehension .......................................................................... 7
Microskills for reading comprehension .......................................................................................... 8
Macroskills for reading comprehension .......................................................................................... 8
Strategies for Reading Comprehension............................................................................................... 9
Types of Classroom Reading Performance ......................................................................................... 9
Principles for Teaching Reading Skills ............................................................................................. 11
Assessing Reading ............................................................................................................................ 14
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 15
Works Cited .......................................................................................................................................... 16

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 Teaching Reading Skills: A Review to Douglas Brown

INTRODUCTION
Teaching students to become effective readers is an important goal of the compulsory
years of schooling, either reading in their first language, or in English, as a foreign language
that is unavoidable for them to learn. It involves extending student’s vocabularies and
knowledge of the world, developing their knowledge of English grammar and their decoding
skills, developing their reading fluency and extending their ability to comprehend what they
read and view from the literal level to the inferential and critical levels.

In developing a foreign language curriculum, reading is of course an important skill to

give. In order to put it into the syllabus and curriculum, a language teacher for sure needs to
understand the methods and theories behind teaching reading skills. This paper would discuss
this by referring mainly to Chapter 20 of Brown’s book, Teaching by Principles. Besides using
Brown, the discussion will also provide some other researches relating to teaching reading
skills.

The objectives of this paper are:

 to help the language teachers to understand issues and concepts in pedagogical

research related to teaching reading;
 to assist language teachers on how to analyze types of written language, micro-
and macro-skills, and types of classroom reading performance;
 to help language teachers to apply principles of designing reading techniques in
the lesson plan designs;
 to identify strategies for reading comprehension; and
 to recognize some basic principles and formats for assessing reading.

DISCUSSIONS

Research on Reading a Second Language

Brown begins with introducing some topics on reading a second language. From all
topics he discusses, we would provide four major issues that he discusses the most, they are:

1. Bottom-up and top-down processing

Bottom-up strategies incorporate the lower-level reading processes that teach
students to construct meaning from the most basic units of language, including letters, letter
clusters, and words. Students make meaning of a text by building on a foundation of

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 Teaching Reading Skills: A Review to Douglas Brown

analyzing the smallest units of meaning. Bottom-up reading strategies begin with letter-
sound correspondences (the bottom) to achieve comprehension (the top). Bottom-up
processing begins with letters and sounds, building to morpheme and word recognition,
and then gradually moving to grammatical structure identification, sentences, and longer
texts. A phonics approach to teaching reading supports bottom-up processes. Phonics is a
method to facilitate students' access to text to ultimately lead to comprehension.

On the other hand, top-down strategies instruction focuses on activities that

construct meaning rather than on mastering bottom-up skills. Students generate meaning
by employing background knowledge, making predictions, and searching the text to
confirm or reject the predictions that are made. According to supporters of this approach,
comprehension resides in the reader. The reader uses background knowledge, expectations,
assumptions, and questions and engages in pre-reading strategies, such as previewing the
text, predicting, and activating background knowledge.

Which one is the best strategy? Is it bottom-down process or top-down process?

Actually, what is best is to mix both strategies, which is called interactive approach.

The interactive approach is considered the most comprehensive reading process. An

interactive approach to reading combines elements of both bottom-up and top-down
reading processes simultaneously. For example, a reader may begin reading a text using
top-down strategies to comprehend the text, and then shift to bottom-up strategies when he
or she encounters an unfamiliar word. The reader then uses bottom-up strategies to decode
the new word before moving on. Another way to illustrate the interactive approach to
reading is as follows: Recognition of letters (bottom-up processes) leads to recognition of
words, which leads to comprehension (bottom to top). Conversely, context, inferences, and
world knowledge (top-down processes) can influence lower-level processing strategies,
affecting readers' expectations about words and meanings and thus helping readers
recognize words faster (top to bottom).

2. Schema theory and background knowledge

A schema, put simply, is a hierarchical framework within which an individual
organizes their knowledge of a particular subject or topic. This hierarchy of ideas and
concepts extends in all directions, with each level its own schema, and contains all of an
individual’s knowledge and the known relationships between each schema. Thus, there is
a strong relationship between the text itself and the reader’s prior knowledge. Meaning is

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 Teaching Reading Skills: A Review to Douglas Brown

constructed by the reader through the concepts, past interrelationships, and potential
interrelationships of the words contained in the text based on interpretations using the
reader’s pre-existing knowledge.

According to the schema theory of reading, bottom-up processing is suggested by

inputs from the text. As the most basic pieces of information from the text enter the reader’s
information processing systems, they are matched to the best bottom-level schemata
available to the reader which in turn activate higher level schemata propagating up through
the hierarchy (Adams & Collins, 1977). According to this new perspective, while
information is fed in through a bottom-up flow of information, top-down processing tries
to fit incoming information with the high level schemata that are being predicted based on
the aspects of the text already processed (Adams & Collins, 1977). This analysis should
be active at all levels of the hierarchy at the same time (Rumelhart, 1975). The data to
needed to confirm or reject the anticipated schema and relationships between ideas in the
text continually flows in and up through bottom-up processing and when the reader runs
into data that does not fit into any of the existing anticipated schema (novel or unexpected
information) the reader’s attention is drawn. Schematic updates throughout the hierarchy
triggered by the upward propagation of information also trigger top-down processes that
generate predictions and interpretations and attempt to resolve ambiguities. Interestingly,
as extensive as these processes are, they alone are not sufficient for the reader to build a
comprehensive mental model of the text information (Adams & Collins, 1977).

3. Teaching strategic reading

A strategy is a plan selected deliberately by the reader to accomplish a particular
goal or to complete a given task. When students are able to select and use a strategy
automatically, they have achieved independence in using the strategy. Along with the
strategies that expert readers use, they also use a number of comprehension and study skills.
It is clear from research that readers develop the use of strategies and skills by reading and
writing and being given the support they need to grow in these processes (Wells, 1990).

What wells said is coherent to Brown, which stated that “A viable theory of
instructed second language acquisition can hardly be sustainable without a solid component
of strategic competence.” In other words, strategic reading is very important.

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 Teaching Reading Skills: A Review to Douglas Brown

4. Extensive reading
Many research suggests that extensive reading, or free voluntary reading, is
important in improving students’ language proficiency on all four skills. Thus, instructional
programs in reading should teach extensive reading to strengthen intensive reading.

Besides those four major issues, some other issues that can be used in researches are
the topics about:

 fluency and reading rate,

 focus on vocabulary,
 the role of affect and culture, and
 adult literacy trainings.

The Importance of Understanding Genres and Characteristics of Written

Language
Understanding the genres and characteristics of written language is significant for a
language teacher as written language is the basic foundation of an effective approach to teach
reading. Understanding various genres of written language helps a teacher to give schemata to
the students so that students can distinguish the genres, know that to look for within the text,
and develop strategies for extracting the meaning from the text. Brown, on page 363, emphasize
the significance of understanding genres as part of teacher job.

Now, what about the characteristics of written language? Why a language teacher
should show comprehension on them? This is because a teacher should help students to
understand the characteristics of English written language as these characteristics can be
different from those of the students’ native language. Furthermore, the characteristics can also
assist teachers in (a) diagnosing reading difficulties arising from the idiosyncrasies of written
language, (b) pointing techniques toward specific objectives, and (c) reminding students of
some of the advantages of written language over spoken.

What are the characteristics of English written language? Here they are:

1. Permanence. Unlike spoken language, written language is permanent so that a

reader has an opportunity to return to sentence, or even a whole text.
2. Processing time. As a reader has more time to return to the reading again and again,
the processing time of written language may differ to one reader to another reader.

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 Teaching Reading Skills: A Review to Douglas Brown

This is different from spoken language, on which the processing time follows the
rate of delivery.
3. Distance. The written word allows messages to be sent across physical and temporal
distance. Thus, a reader has more task, which is to interpret the written language
that come from other place and other time with only the written words themselves
as the contextual clues. However, in this era of technology, verbal language can
also be sent across physical and temporal distance through audio and video
recordings. Thus, the distance characteristic of written language is fading.
4. Orthography. Spoken language that has various suprasegmental features like stress,
intonation, rhythm, juncture, pauses, volume, or even nonverbal cues. These
features enhance the message of an utterance. However, those features do not exist
in written language. In written words, written symbols, or orthography, stand alone
as the one set of signals the reader must perceive. English orthography is a little
different from how it is spoken. However, according to Brown, “For literate learners
of English, our [English] spelling system presents only minor difficulties.”
5. Complexity. Writing and speech has different mode of complexity. While spoken
language tends to have shorter clauses, written language has longer clauses and
more subordination. Therefore, readers have to readjust their cognitive device to
understand written language. Linguistic differences between speech and writing are
another major causal factor to difficulty.
6. Vocabulary. Written English typically utilizes more complicated vocabulary than
spoken English. Such words can be an obstacle to learners. Nevertheless, Brown
suggests learners to avoid using bilingual dictionary too much as it may hold back
their comprehension. This is because the meaning of many unknown words can be
predicted from their context, and sometimes the overall meaning of a sentence or
paragraph is still clear.
7. Formality. Formality refers to forms that a certain written messages must follow.
This formality is what makes us able to distinguish, for instance, an academic essay
to a love letter. Until a reader gets along with the formal features of a written text,
some hardship in interpretation may come up.

Micro- and Macroskills of Reading Comprehension

Language educators have long used the concepts of four basic language skills:
Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing. These four language skills are sometimes called the

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 Teaching Reading Skills: A Review to Douglas Brown

"macro-skills". This is in contrast to the "micro-skills", which are things like grammar,
vocabulary, pronunciation and spelling. Brown’s list of macro- and microskills of reading
comprehension can help students to become efficient readers. In Brown’s list, the first on the
list is essentially recognizing the alphabet, and automatically understanding how it combines
into words. As he moves down the list, the skills build upon each other, becoming increasingly
based on understanding larger meaning. The list is as follows:

Microskills for reading comprehension

1. Discriminate among the distinctive graphemes and orthographic patterns of
English.
2. Retain chunks of language of different lengths in short-term memory.
3. Process writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose.
4. Recognize a core of words, and interpret word order patterns and their significance.
5. Recognize grammatical word classes (nouns, verbs, etc.), systems (e.g., tense,
agreement, pluralization) patterns, rules, and elliptical forms.
6. Recognize that a particular meaning may be expressed in different grammatical
forms.
7. Recognize cohesive devices in written discourse and their role in signaling the
relationship between and among clauses.

Macroskills for reading comprehension

1. Recognize the rhetorical forms of written discourse and their significance for
interpretation.
2. Recognize the communicative functions of written texts, according to form and
purpose.
3. Infer context that is not explicit by using background knowledge.
4. From described events, ideas, etc., infer links and connections between events,
deduce causes and effects, and detect such relations as main idea, supporting idea,
new information, given information, generalization, and exemplification.
5. Distinguish between literal and implied meanings.
6. Detect culturally specific references and interpret them in a context of the
appropriate cultural schemata.
7. Develop and use a battery of reading strategies, such as scanning and skimming,
detecting discourse markers, guessing the meaning of words from context, and
activating schemata for the interpretation of texts.

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 Teaching Reading Skills: A Review to Douglas Brown

Strategies for Reading Comprehension

Now that we understand the skills we need to develop in reading comprehension, the
next thing to discuss is the strategies in reading comprehension. As English is used mostly as
foreign language here in Indonesia, we assume students are already literate in their native
language. Thus, the focus of reading comprehension in classroom settings will be on the
comprehension, not to improve students’ literacy. In this case, reading comprehension is
primarily a matter of developing appropriate, efficient comprehension strategies. Brown
provides ten strategies on reading comprehension that teachers can apply in their classrooms.
Those strategies are:

1. Identify the purpose in reading

2. Use graphemic rules and patterns to aid in bottom-up decoding
3. Use efficient silent reading techniques for improving fluency
4. Skim the text for main ideas
5. Scan the text for specific information
6. Use semantic mapping or clustering
7. Guess when you aren’t certain
8. Analyze vocabulary
9. Distinguish between literal and implied meanings
10. Capitalize on discourse markers to proceed relationships

It is also important to mention that those strategies can be applied in various teaching
techniques, especially the techniques that increases students talk time as the current curriculum
integrate student centered approach in which student talk time is supposed to be around 80%
during the course of the lesson (Nunan, 1991).

Types of Classroom Reading Performance

In describing the types of classroom reading performance, Brown uses the following
illustration:

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 Teaching Reading Skills: A Review to Douglas Brown

Classroom Reading Performance

oral silent

intensive extensive

linguistics content skimming scanning global

Figure 1: Types of classroom reading performance

We use oral reading especially to beginner and intermediate proficiency as oral reading
can (a) serve as an evaluative check on bottom-up processing skills, (b) double as a
pronunciation check, and (c) serve to add extra student participation if a teacher wants to
highlight a certain short segment of a text. However, oral reading has some disadvantages so
that a teacher needs to make sure that this technique is utilized only to fulfill the goals
mentioned before.

When given too much, oral reading has some disadvantages, which are (a) oral reading
is not a very authentic language activity, (b) while one reads, other students may lose their
attention, and (c) it may have the outward appearance of student participation when in reality
it is only recitation. Therefore, silent reading is better for most of reading activities.

Silent reading can be subcategorized into intensive and extensive reading. Intensive
reading is classroom-oriented activity where students focus more on linguistic or semantic
aspects of a text. Meanwhile, extensive reading is usually carried out outside of class time. The
purpose of extensive reading is more to achieve a general understanding of a longer text.

As mentioned before, extensive reading is important to improve students’ language

skills. One of contemporary researches on the efficacy of extensive reading was conducted by
Willy A. Renandya (2007) that is published in his article, “The Power of Extensive Reading”.
Renandya provides many research findings regarding the efficacy of extensive reading. These
findings reveal that students that conduct extensive reading made significant gain on all tests
of reading and writing (Renandya, 2007). He then concludes that,

“when the traditional textbook and teaching methods produce less than flattering results,
book-based methodology, such as the shared book approach or extensive reading
method in which pupils are given wide access to large quantities of comprehensible

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 Teaching Reading Skills: A Review to Douglas Brown

input, may just be the right antidote for our pupils’ learning problems.” (Renandya,
2007)

Principles for Teaching Reading Skills

What are the principles in teaching reading skills? Brown provide eight principles to
follow when teaching reading skills, which are:

1. In an integrated course, don’t overlook a specific focus on reading skills.

Even though sufficient time of extensive reading is needed, intensive reading
is also important. In class, do not forget to focus on reading skills. Improving
students’ ability on silent reading is also important to develop students’ fluency.
2. Use techniques that intrinsically motivating.
To find techniques that intrinsically motivating, a teacher should start from
choosing a relevant material to students’ interest and needs. Also, the material
should be relevant to the goals. One approach that Brown use as an example of
intrinsically motivating technique in teaching reading is Language Experience
Approach, in which students are involved in creating the reading material.
3. Balance authenticity and readability in choosing texts.
Using authentic material, which is texts that is used in real life, is very
important. Brown suggests that it is better to utilize simple authentic material than
to use simplified material, but if simplification must be done, it is important to
preserve the natural redundancy, humor, wit, and other captivating features of the
original text.
When choosing a text, Brown uses the criteria made by Nutall, which are (1)
suitability of content: materials that students will find interesting, enjoyable,
challenging, and appropriate for their goals; (2) exploitability: a text that is
exploitable for instructional tasks, and that can be integrated to the other language
skills; (3) readability: a text with lexical and structural difficulty that will challenge
students without overwhelming them (Nutall in Brown, 2007).
About readability, teachers nowadays can use online tools that can assess
readability level of a text. These tools use readability scales using various methods
like Flesch-Kincaid grade level, The Coleman-Lieu Index, or Linsear Write
Formula. One tool that can be used for free is the one provided by
http://www.readabilityformulas.com/.
4. Encourage the development of reading strategies

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 Teaching Reading Skills: A Review to Douglas Brown

A good reading technique should encourage students to develop their reading

strategies. These strategies have been discussed before.
5. Include both bottom-up and top-down techniques
It has been discussed before that the best techniques is to use interactive
technique as this technique combine both bottom-up and top-down techniques.
6. Follow the SQ3R sequence
One of the most prominent strategies taught to students to improve reading
comprehension is the SQ3R method, as well as its more recent variations. This
reading strategy was developed in the 1940’s by Francis Robinson (Sherfield,
Montgomery, & Moddy, 2005)The SQ3R is a method of self-regulated reading that
is intended to help students increase their reading proficiency. The goal is to
increase the ability of individual students to be self-directed learners so that they
may continue to acquire expertise in their professional fields (Artis, 2008).
Proficient readers typically share 4 things in common. First, a proficient ready often
understands why they are reading a particular text and thus is informed on how best
to approach the text. Second, a proficient reader is often aware of their own reading
process as they progress through a text. Third, proficient readers tend to track their
comprehension as they go. Lastly, the more proficient the reader the larger the array
of reading methods and strategies that are employed by the reader (Artis, 2008).
Because these four traits reflect top-down processes they are can be reflected in
specific behaviors a reader can actively engage in. The SQ3R reading method was
developed with these four things in mind.
SQ3R stands for survey, question, read, recite, and review. Step one,
“Survey”, consists of the reader skimming through the book or chapter and
identifying the overall text structure and content matter. This step is going to
contribute to the reader constructing an accurate and meaningful representation of
the text-base when they later read through the material. Once the text has been
surveyed and the reader has developed a reasonable understanding of the material
they can proceed to step 2.
“Question”, where the reader uses the knowledge of the text gained during
their survey to develop questions that are intended to be answered through the
reading. The question phase of this strategy will help the reader to engage their prior
knowledge and prime existing knowledge structures for use and restructuring. The
questions a reader develops at this point can help alleviate the need for some of the

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 Teaching Reading Skills: A Review to Douglas Brown

speculation and prediction carried out during normal text processing. This frees up
greater attention for drawing meaningful inferences between prior knowledge and
the new information in the text.
“Reading”, during the reading portion of SQ3R the reader should progress
through the text section by section only moving on once a reasonable level of
understanding has been achieved and any relevant questions from step 2 are
answered. Further, the reader should begin to understand at this point the purpose
of the reading in regards to their goals. It is recommended that the reader keep notes
in the book margins or in a separate notebook as this will help the reader to better
understand the ideas and concepts contained in the text. While the physical act of
reading is largely a bottom-up process, a reader should be utilizing top-down
strategies to drive their attention towards monitoring their own comprehension and
addressing the questions devised earlier. Once the reader has completed the
chapter/section they should explore how much of the text they
understood/comprehended and begin step 4.
“Recite”, during which the reader will recite the answers to the questions
generated during the reading task. It is recommended that students record the
answers to these questions in their notes. Taking thorough notes will make it much
easier for the reader to continue from where they left off in the future and facilitates
the 5th and final step of the method, “Review”, where students can look back over
everything they have just read as well as the questions and answers they generated
and try to determine how much they understood and how much of the reading is
being retained. Throughout the reading, recitation, and review steps of the SQ3R
method the reader will be gradually be constructing a situation model of the text
and will begin integrating this model into their long-term memory. During the final
review step, students should reorganize the new information in a way that makes
the most sense to them (Artis, 2008)
7. Plan on pre-reading, while-reading, and post-reading activities
Always make sure that reading activities are divided into three parts:
a. Before reading: Spend some time introducing a topic, encouraging
skimming, scanning, and activating schemata.
b. While reading: There may be certain facts or rhetorical devices that
students should take note while reading. Having while-reading activity is
important to give students sense of purpose for reading.

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 Teaching Reading Skills: A Review to Douglas Brown

c. After reading: Many activities can be done as post-reading activities. They

can be, for instance, in form of comprehension questions, vocabulary
questions, or examining grammatical structure.
8. Build an assessment aspect into the techniques chosen
As a receptive skill, reading comprehension is unobservable. Therefore, it is
important to accurately assess students’ comprehension and skills development.
What needs to be assessed? Here are some responses that Brown proposes that
indicate comprehension:
a. Doing – the reader responds physically to a command
b. Choosing – the reader selects from alternatives posed orally or in writing
c. Transferring – the reader summarizes orally what is read
d. Answering – the reader answers questions about the passage
e. Condensing – the reader outlines or takes notes on a passage
f. Extending – the reader provides an ending to a story
g. Duplicating – the reader translates the message into the native language
or couples it
h. Modeling – the reader puts together a toy, for example, after reading
directions for assembly
i. Conversing – the reader engages in a conversation that indicates
appropriate processing of information.

Assessing Reading
To assess reading comprehension, a teacher should be specific about which skills that
are being assessed; identify the genre of written communication that is being evaluated; and
choose carefully among the range of possibilities from simply identifying words all the way to
extensive reading. In addition, language teacher should also pay attention to the strategies that
becomes the focus of the reading activities before assessing reading, and the assessment should
represent what approach that is used (either, top-down, bottom-up, or interactive approach).

Brown then provides taxonomy of tasks to be considered in designing a reading test:

1. Perceptive reading (recognition of symbols, letters, words)

 Reading aloud
 Copying (reproduce in writing)
 Multiple-choice recognition (including true-false and fill-in-the-blank)

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 Teaching Reading Skills: A Review to Douglas Brown

 Picture-cued identification
2. Selective reading (focus on morphology, grammar, lexicon)
 Multiple choice grammar/vocabulary tasks
 Contextualized multiple choice (within a short paragraph)
 Sentence-level cloze tasks
 Matching tasks
 Grammar/vocabulary editing tasks (multiple choice)
 Picture-cued tasks (students choose among graphic representations)
 Gap-filling tasks (for example, sentence completion)
3. Interactive reading
 Discourse-level cloze tasks
 Reading + comprehension questions
 Short-answer responses to reading
 Discourse editing tasks (multiple choice)
 Scanning
 Reordering sequences of sentences
 Responding to charts, maps, graphs, diagrams
4. Extensive reading
 Skimming
 Summarizing
 Responding to reading through short essays
 Note-taking, marginal notes, highlighting
 Outlining.

CONCLUSION
Reading comprehension is one of the four language skills that is needed to be taught.
Even though focusing on teaching reading is not wrong, it is encouraged to teach reading as a
skill integrated to the other skills so that the learning will occur more naturally and authentic.
When teaching reading, a teacher should consider what are the goals of the activities and any
strategies and texts chosen should fit those goals. Some things that needs to be reconsidered in
teaching reading is that to make sure that teachers give ample time of extensive reading and to
strengthen students’ silent reading skills beside focusing on intensive reading. This is because

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extensive reading is proven to give better comprehension to students and silent reading helps
students to be more fluent.

WORKS CITED
Adams, M. J., & Collins, A. (1977). A Schema-Theoretic View of Reading. Center for the Study of
Reading: Technical Report (Vol. 32).
Artis, B. A. (2008). Improving Marketing Students' Reading Comprehension with the SQ3R Method.
Journal of Marketing Education, 130-137.
Brown, H. D. (2007). Teaching by Principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (3rd ed.).
New York: Pearson Longman.
Nunan, D. (1991). Language Teaching Methodology: A Textbook For Teachers. London: Prentice Hall.
Renandya, W. A. (2007). The Power of Extensive Reading. RELC Journal, 133-149.
Rumelhart, D. E. (1975). Toward an Interactive Model of Reading. Dalam S. Dornic (Penyunt.),
Attention and Performance VI. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
Sherfield, R. M., Montgomery, R. J., & Moddy, P. G. (2005). Cornerstone: Building on your Best. New
Jersey: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
Wells, G. (1990). Talk about Text: Where literacy is learned and taught. Curriculum Inquiry, 369-405.

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