Reading--the grand illusion : how and why people make sense of print / Ken Goodman, Peter H. Fries, Steven L. Strauss.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Goodman, Kenneth S., author.

Fries, Peter Howard, author.

Strauss, Steven L., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Reading.

Language and education.

Physical Description:

xxi, 164 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Routledge, 2016.

Summary:

What is reading? In this groundbreaking book, esteemed researchers Ken Goodman, Peter H. Fries, and Steven L. Strauss explain not only what reading really is but also why common sense makes it seem to be something quite different from that reality. How can this grand illusion be explained? That is the purpose of this book. As the authors show, unraveling the secrets of the grand illusion of reading teaches about far more than reading itself, but also about how remarkable human language is, how the brain uses language to navigate the world, what it means to be human. Each author brings a different perspective, but all share a common view of the reading process. Together they provide a clear and surprising exposition of the reading process, in which they involve readers of this book in exploring the ways they themselves read and make sense of written language while their eyes fixate on fewer than 70 percent of the words in the text. In addition, the authors engage in a cross-disciplinary discussion about how readers use the brain, eyes, and language in reading. The different perspectives provide depth to the authors description of reading. The information presented in this book will be new to many teachers, researchers, teacher educators, and the public alike. The final chapter draws on the understandings from the book to challenge the treatment of reading and writing as school subjects and offers the basis for supporting literacy development as a natural extension of oral language development. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Illusions: What We See and What We Perceive 1

Language: Our Most Human Characteristic 1

Reading Is Language 2

The Illusion of Reading Every Word 3

Limitations of Our Senses and illusions of the Human Brain 4

On Seeing and Knowing 7

References 13

2 The Grand Illusion in Reading 15

Illusions and the Grand illusion 16

Vision and Perception in Reading: Learning and Reading with EMMA 20

Language Patterns and Eye Movements 27

How Does Knowledge of Language Help Us to Understand Reading? 31

References 32

3 Reading with Our Brains 34

Consistency of Our View of Reading with Developing Brain Theory 35

Making Sense Is the Preferred State of the Human Brain 36

Making Sense Is Itself an Illusion 37

A New Paradigm: The Neuroscience of Constructive Psychology 38

What Does It Mean for the Brain to be Focused? 42

It's the Cortex that Makes Sense! 47

Convergence 49

Who Denies Biology? 49

References 56

4 Making Sense: What We Know about Reading 58

Miscue Research: Windows on the Reading Process 58

Reading Is a Process of Making Sense of Print 65

Intuition: Reading as a Psycholinguistic Guessing Game 70

Reading is Cyclical 71

The Need for Real Language 76

So Let Me Review What We Have Learned about Reading 76

References 78

5 Text Features that Help Readers Make Sense 80

But Where Is the Meaning? 80

How Texts Convey Meaning 83

References 102

6 Words on Words and Wording 103

The Wording of Texts: What Counts as a Word? 104

The Wording of a Particular Text 109

Interdependence of Grammar and Word Choice in Wording of Texts 115

Efficiency in Wording 117

How Text Complexity Is Reflected in Miscues 118

So What Makes a Text Comprehensible? 122

The Brain Functions Holistically 123

References 125

7 The Visible Level of Written Language: The Graphophonic 127

Whole to Part and Part to Whole 127

Phonics: The Over-Simplification Illusion 128

Seven, Plus or Minus Two 132

Punctuation 136

Readability 137

References 137

8 Literacy for the Twenty-First Century and Beyond 138

Focus on Learning 138

Learning to Read and Write is Easy 139

A Bold Proposal 140

Achieving in School What Children are Already Achieving Outside of School 146

And a Motto for the Kids: When in Doubt, Figure it Out! 149

Connecting to Culture 149

Time for Language Development 150

The Role of the Teacher 151

Whole Language 153

Manufactured Crisis 154

Revaluing 156

Access is a Key Aspect of All Kinds of Language Development 157

The Future of Literacy 158.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781138999282

1138999288

9781138999299

1138999296

OCLC:

915135726