The article, Learning About Literacy: A 30- Year Journey, by P. David Pearson and Diane Stephens takes us on a journey of literacy through the decades and how it has changed over time through the different perspectives such as linguistic, psycholinguist,cognitive psychology, and sociolinguistic.
In the 1960s reading was considered very simple and straightforward. There was no difference between oral and written language comprehension. Reading was considered a perceptual process versus a language process. The methods of teaching during this time involved phonics and whole- word instruction.
Theorists then started to take interest in the reading process and linguistics came into play. Noam Chomsky believed people were born to “acquire” language skills in the community where they were raised. The article then goes on and discusses the Pyshcolinguistic, cognitive, psychology, and sociolinguistic theories. Goodman talks about a three cue system to make sense of a word: syntactic, semantic, and graphophonemic. These cues were meant to help students increase word identification and comprehension. Then in the 1970s Frank Smith came out and said that reading is not taught, but one learns to read from reading. Smith stated that skilled readers make use of their prior knowledge in order to become better readers. The Schema theory was then developed in the 1980s where we are encouraged to have students use their prior knowledge ( or their memory) to help them learn new reading strategies. It is so important for students to make connections to their own lives in order to better understand a new topic being introduced.
The psyscholinguistic theory had us rethink the relationship between teaching and learning. A quote that really stood out to me while reading this article was ” Instead of asking, “What can I teach this child so that she will eventually become a reader?” we began to ask, ” What can I do to help this child as a reader?” ” This is how teachers should think when teaching their students to read. Every child is a reader, it is a matter of what you as the teacher are going to do to help them succeed as a reader. In my classroom I encourage reading at all parts of our day.
Reading has come such a long way through the years through all of these theories. I am sure in the next few years there will be more research and theories to come. Reading is no longer just memorization of words and translating letters on a printed page. Reading is anything but simple. There are so many different strategies that go in to teaching reading. In my classroom I want my students to be excited about reading. Many of them are just being introduced to books and reading. It is so important to me that my students want to read and do not see reading as being forced upon them. I am going to give my students opportunities to discuss texts with their peers as well as relating the texts we are reading in class to their own lives. I think it is important for students to talk with their peers about what their thoughts are on a certain topic instead of just listening to what the teacher has to say. As I have said before, my goal is for students to love coming to school and love reading. It does not matter if they are the best reader or a struggling reader, I just want them to find joy in reading.
Theory to Practice 