Developmental reading

Nature and Psychology of Reading

A glimpse on the origin of Reading
The reading of written or printed symbols had its origin in the very remote past. At
first, man used pictures and characters to convey messages and to record events.
William Gray( 1939) discovered from several researches that the art of
interpreting these characters and of teaching others to do so developed
concurrently.
The transition from the use of pictures to the use of letters representing specific
sounds was slow and gradual.
This was true with the North Babylonians who even before Abrahams time, had
slowly and painstakingly passed from pictograph state to alphabet state
( Huey, 1968:1 ). As early as twenty-five centuries before Christ, the Egyptians, too,
analyzed words and syllables and had developed a series of symbols to represent
sounds. At about the same time Crete developed its own system of reading in the
same gradual manner.
Years later, The Anglo-Saxons developed theirs, too. However, it was during the
latter half of nineteenth century through the ingenuity of the businesslike Semites
that sounds and symbols gave rise to the Phoenician alphabet from which
developed in turn, the Greek letters and the Roman alphabet.
The art of reading and writing improved through the years. Consequently, it
became natural that they should acquire a significant place in the education of
advanced and progressive nations.

Definitions of reading
What is Reading?
According to:

Smith and Dechant

It is a key to success in school, to the development of out -of -school

interest, to the enjoyment of leisure time and to personal and social
adjustment. It is a thought process ( psychologist), Giving meaning to
printed pages ( semanticist ),

 interpreting relationships between the sounds of a language and its

written form ( linguist ), An interaction between what is perceived and
culture ( sociologist)
Villamin
It is the key that unlocks the door to the world of enlightenment and
enjoyment and the basic tool for learning in the content field

Strang

It is a visual task, word recognition, reproducing, thinking skill, and a

contributing factor to personality change.

Spache

It is a developmental task.

Gray

It is an interaction between the reader and the written language.

Tinker and McCullough
It is the recognition of printed or written symbols which serves as
stimuli for the recall of meanings built up through past experience, and
the construction of new meanings through manipulation of concepts
already possessed by the reader.

Gephart, et al.

It is an interaction by which meaning encoded in visual stimuli by an

author meaning in the mind of the reader. The interaction always involves
three facets: 1. materials to be read; 2. knowledge possessed by the
reader; and 3. physiological and intellectual activity.
Plato
It is distinguishing the separate letters both by the eye and by the
ear, in order that when you later hear the spoken or see them written, you
will not be confused by their positions.

Thorndike

It is the application of thinking or reasoning skills, as observations,

prediction, verification etc., in analyzing an authors meaning. Reading is
reasoning.

Carroll

It is a two-stage process involving the perception and the

comprehension of written messages.
Francis Bacon
reading maketh a full man
From the foregoing definitions, we can readily conclude that reading is
indeed a complex process of perceiving symbols and relating them to
ones fund of experience.
The Physio-Psychological Nature of reading
Concepts of Reading
1. It is primarily a process of perceiving or recognizing written or printed symbols.
2. It Involves not only the fluent, accurate recognition of the words but the fusion
of the specific meanings represented by the words in a chain of related ideas. (Rate
and Comprehensions )
3. It is a process of reflecting on the significance of the idea presented by the
authors meaning as apprehended by the reader then evaluating critically and
applying them in the solution of problems.
The Physiological Aspects of Reading
1. Visual . The visual of the oculomotor processes are directly associated with the
eye movements.
2. Vocal. Oral reading, because of its nature, involves very definite vocal reactions.
In silent reading, vocalization is minimal.
3. Extraneous Movements. These are the changes in facial expressions,
movements of the head forward and backward, etc.
The Psychological Aspect of Reading

Perception or Recognition of Words.

The three essential aspects of word perception (Guthrie ):

1. the presence of written or printed symbols,
2. attentive adjustment to these symbols, and
3. the arousal of associations that result in recognition of their identity, including
their pronunciations or meanings or both
Vernon ( 1937 ) identified four steps or stages of

perception of words:
1. perception of form or contour
2. perception of certain dominating or specific parts
3. arousal of meaning
4. stimulation of auditory or kinaesthetic imagery
Apprehension of Meaning the ability to understand.
The two basic processes in comprehension are:
1. the arousal of meaningful associations with words and group of words as
stimuli from the retina reach the visual centers of the brain,
2. the fusion of these meanings into a chain of related ideas.The extent of the
richness of the readers meaning vocabulary is very important here.

Reaction to or use of ideas apprehended (Gray)

This involves : drawing inferences, seeing implications, judging the validity of

ideas presented, making judgments concerning the quality, effectiveness, or
completeness of the authors presentations; etc.
Several studies show that comparison of what is involved in
reading merely to:

discover an authors view

judge critically the views presented.

Strangs outline of procedure for the reader to adopt to obtain proof in any point:
1. formulate the assumptions which are to be studied;
2. select, as he reads, the ideas significantly related to the assumptions;
3. search for evidence in support of or opposed to the assumptions and weigh each
bit evidence as he reads;
4. change an original assumption if evidence accumulates against it; and
5. act upon the assumptions for which he has obtained proof.
In connection with the abilities required in scientific thinking, Strang made
use of Judds analysis of mental abilities as follows:

observation

analysis

synthesis

selective recall

imagination

ability to recognize the problem

ability to judge the adequacy of

data

ability to discover essential

relationships

ability to suspend judgment

until evidence is available; and
ability to draw conclusions.