The ability to read extended texts for long periods of time is a hallmark of fluent reading. No other set of reading activities or reading practice can substitute for reading a longer text with reasonable comfort and without needing to stop constantly, and without feeling fatigued or overwhelmed. It actually is an extraordinarily difficult feat to accomplish for a nonfluent reader, and it usually requires that a reader know 98–99 percent of the words in a text (three to six unknown words on a 300-word page). It requires some level of fluency and efficiency in processing words and sentences. It necessitates some awareness of how texts are structured. It assumes that commonly used strategies are carried out as a matter of routine. It also assumes reasonably efficient inferencing, monitoring, and evaluation skills; motivation to persist; and prior experiences of success with extended reading. In all these respects, extended reading is a unique skill and imposes unique task requirements. Because of its fluency requirement and time-constrained processing demands, it is also an ability that develops incrementally over a long period of time (involving implicit learning, Chapter 4).

Chapter 6 emphasized the potential role of L1 transfer effects on L2 reading abilities, with an emphasis on word-recognition issues. This chapter explores the various factors influencing L2 reading development, describing L1–L2 differences in reading development and the impact of L1 transfer on L2 reading. L2 reading development is not simply the result of L1 transfer. In fact, most issues in L2 reading development can be associated more with the development of L2 language proficiency, L2 language exposure, L2 print exposure, and L2 processing-skills development, and these differences are addressed in the first half of the chapter. Nonetheless, L1 transfer has an important role to play, and research on its role has been evolving in the past decade toward a view of “learning to read with languages.”

L2 reading is an ability that combines L2 and L1 reading resources into a dual-language processing system. Cook (1997; Cook & Bassetti, 2005a) describes this interaction of L1 and L2 systems as multicompetence. Koda (2007) refers to crosslinguistic interactions to capture the concept of an L2 reading system in which “the transferred competencies will continue to mature through experience with L2 print input” (p. 18) (see also Bialystok, 2001, 2002).

Most books on reading do not include a chapter on motivation (cf. Anderson, 1999; Pressley, 2006). However, research shows that positive motivation improves comprehension both directly and through greater amounts of extended reading. It should be clear by the end of this chapter that motivation has an important role to play in reading development and that teachers and classroom contexts can have a large impact on student motivation. This chapter will first address definitions and explanations of motivation (never an easy task). It will then review major theories of motivation, research on reading motivation in particular, research on L2 language-learning motivation generally, and research on motivation development in the classroom. It concludes with principles that can be implemented by teachers and curricula in the reading classroom.

Definitions

Addressing definitions for motivation and related concepts is critical for understanding the role of motivation in reading.

This first part comprises five chapters that, together, explain how comprehension works, how it can develop over time, and how various cognitive abilities contribute to reading comprehension. This part draws heavily on research in cognitive psychology and educational psychology, and the explanation of reading comprehension presented relies on research primarily carried out in first language (L1) contexts. The major research findings that explain reading comprehension rest primarily on research with learners reading in English as their L1, although there is also considerable and growing research on L1 reading comprehension in several other Indo-European languages as well as in Hebrew, Japanese, and Chinese.

One consequence of the emphasis on L1 reading-comprehension research is that this part is primarily oriented to reading ability more generally rather than to a specific explanation of second language (L2) reading comprehension. There are, in fact, many differences between L1 and L2 reading, and they are addressed in various ways in Part II of this book. However, the basic comprehension process is one that generalizes across L1 and L2 contexts, even if local processing details might vary across different L1s and across L1 and L2 contexts. Complex comprehension abilities are shared across the human species and these abilities apply to more than reading (e.g., listening comprehension, visual comprehension). So it should not be surprising that basic cognitive processes operate in consistent ways across modalities, across languages, and across multiple languages. This recognition of both the universal cognitive architecture for comprehension and specific variations in its operationalization in different language and multilanguage contexts has already been argued persuasively (Geva & Siegal, 2000; Geva & Wang, 2001; Koda, 2007).

Part III examines in detail the major components of reading that combine to build reading comprehension abilities. These components include (a) syntactic knowledge and processing skills; (b) reading strategies that support comprehension; (c) the integration of reading strategies and higher-level processing to develop the strategic reader; (d) the role of discourse knowledge; and (e) the centrality of vocabulary knowledge. Part I identified component cognitive skills that combine to form reading abilities; these included several skills and resources that either were not solely intended to support reading comprehension (e.g., goal setting, inferencing, working memory) or that directly influenced reading comprehension only at certain stages of development (and less directly at other stages) (e.g., phonological awareness, word-recognition efficiency). In contrast, the specific topics discussed in Part III all strongly influence reading comprehension and are central topics for reading instruction.

The major shift in this part is in the nature of the skills and knowledge resources that form the core of reading-comprehension development – words, grammar, discourse, and strategies – and the integration of these abilities to produce the strategic reader, capable of understanding and using academic texts. Moreover, each of the skills and knowledge resources discussed in Part III is readily teachable. As a result, a major focus of each chapter is to examine what research tells us about effective teaching practices that develop each skill and that improve reading comprehension.

Chapter 10 addresses the most fundamental goal for L2 students: developing main-idea reading comprehension. Whether students are reading a brief two-paragraph text, a two-page text, or a 20-page chapter, they must be able to recognize the main ideas of the text.

Unlike the converging perspectives on the role of lower-level processing to support reading comprehension, the various activities and processes that define higher-level processes are not as uniformly specified in the comprehension literature. However, research over the past 10 years has built a coherent synthesis of how higher-level processes contribute to comprehension. Because there is far more research being carried out on higher-level processes now than 15 years ago (cf. Gernsbacher, 1997; Kintsch, 1998; Long, Johns, & Morris, 2006; Noordman & Vonk, 1999; Perfetti, 1999; Rapp et al., 2007; Zwaan & Rapp, 2006), accumulating evidence gives us some confidence in the overview that follows.

Higher-level processes generally assume that the reader can direct attentional resources to these component skills. Such a requirement is a key feature of higher-level processing. At the same time, many aspects of these higher-level component abilities can, and often are, carried out in automatic mode except when difficulties arise or when specific goals highlight attentional resource needs. For example, reading to learn information for a test will likely lead a reader to attend consciously to linkages among main ideas in a text.

Most efforts to describe the nature of reading abilities and their development, for either first-language or second-language readers, focus heavily on the cognitive aspects of reading – the mechanisms by which an individual carries out fluent reading. In fact, much progress has been made in understanding the cognitive aspects of reading, and reading development cannot be discussed without considering these aspects. However, there is considerable variation across different individuals' reading abilities, and not all of this variation is due solely to individual cognitive abilities and their development. We all learn to read in a variety of contexts, from the time we encounter our first books or are read to as children, to the times when we are reading advanced research material as professional adults. We learn to read within a family unit (influenced by the educational levels, goals, expectations, and support of family members), in various school settings (and their associated goals, resources, expectations, and opportunities), in various classrooms (with differing curricular and instructional approaches), and by interacting with specific teachers and student peers (and their goals, training, expectations, and abilities).

Students are also influenced by the wider social and cultural expectations of political, religious, ethnic, economic, and social institutions. Certainly, popular culture has profound influences on children and young adults learning to read, and neighborhood influences, both formal and informal, cannot be overlooked.

Comprehending a text, or main-idea comprehension, requires the ability to identify main ideas in the text, integrate them into a text model of reading, and develop an appropriate situation model of reader interpretation (see Chapters 2 and 3).Main-idea comprehension also involves a reasonable knowledge of basic grammar, effective comprehension strategies to use with more difficult texts, strategic processing abilities to maintain a high level of comprehension for extended periods of time, an awareness of discourse structure, and a large receptive vocabulary-knowledge base (Pressley, 2002a). In this chapter, the roles of grammar knowledge and comprehension strategies are examined as resources for main-idea comprehension. Together, they provide two of the foundations for assembling text comprehension. Chapters 11, 12, and 13 expand upon this theme, exploring the development of strategic reading, discourse awareness, and vocabulary knowledge.

At one level, it is not possible to directly teach main-idea comprehension. The reader must engage internal cognitive processes and knowledge resources that distill main ideas from the text on the basis of reader goals and task assignments. However, the reader can demonstrate main-idea comprehension on the basis of task outcomes, interactions with others around text information, and various exercises and assessment practices. Moreover, the teacher can “teach comprehension” by establishing an effective learning environment, engaging students directly with the text, and supporting the skills needed to help readers identify main ideas.

In this last chapter, I raise a number of the topics that were not explored intensively in this book. A first set of topics are important for discussions of L2 reading but do not fit easily within the scheme of the current book. These topics include reading and writing relationships, teacher training for more effective reading instruction, early L1 and L2 reading development, and L2 basic adult literacy instruction. A second set of topics involve areas of specialization that extend beyond the area of L2 reading and that require specific types of expertise to develop into full chapters in a book on L2 reading. These topics include reading and neurological research, reading and technology, reading and TV viewing, and reading disabilities. In a very different type of book, all of these topics might have had their own chapters.

In the third section, I address the role of research in supporting reading instruction and the impact of educational and governmental policies on reading instruction. It is obvious that research is needed to examine many instructional practices, their effectiveness under different circumstances and with different groups of students, and their integration within curricular frameworks.

As much has been written about reading and reading instruction as perhaps any issue in education, and attempting to synthesize this large body of theory and research, as well as explore its implications for the pedagogy of reading instruction, is a Herculean task. Bill Grabe, however, is one scholar whose knowledge of the field of first and second language reading theory and instruction is second to none, and in this book he draws on a long and active career as a researcher and applied linguist to survey what is known about the nature of both first and second language reading and examine the implications of this research for reading instruction. In the process he provides a fascinating and broad ranging view of the state of knowledge in reading theory, and draws on this body of knowledge to draw implications for the teaching of second language reading.

Grabe points out that the starting point for our understanding of L2 reading is an understanding of what has been learned from L1 reading research, and that much of the literature of L2 reading instruction is based on applying what has been learned from L1 research. Grabe leads the reader through a wide range of reading theories and reading research, highlighting findings from L1 research that are of most relevance to L2 reading instruction. Atthe same time issues specific to L2 reading are also given due prominence, including differences between L1 andL2 reading, the role of transfer in L2 reading, and the interaction of L1 and L2 reading resources in L2 reading.

Reading assessment has great power to inform researchers, teachers, administrators, and policy makers. Assessment practices can significantly benefit the learning environment or they can inflict great harm. Reading assessment, therefore, needs to be treated with great care, attention, and respect. Teachers, especially, have a responsibility to understand the uses and the impacts of reading assessment and be mindful of the consequences of assessment.

Reading assessments are used for many purposes, but all appropriate uses begin from an understanding of the reading construct, an awareness of the development of reading abilities, and an effort to reflect the construct in assessment tasks. The first five chapters of this book, in effect, represent a reasonable interpretation of the construct of reading ability. Chapters 10 through 15 describe key aspects of the reading development process. The complexity of the construct of reading, as well as its development, also reveals the potential complexity of reading assessment.

Reading assessment can be intimidating and sometimes overwhelming for many teachers and administrators; thus, a first goal of this chapter is to present a straightforward framework that categorizes the many uses and purposes for assessment. A fairly simple, yet thorough framework should allow readers to sort through their own assessment experiences in a way that gives interpretive force to the framework. The chapter then outlines and describes a number of major options under each category in the assessment framework.

When we recognize the complexity of reading, its multiple purposes, and its many properties, it becomes clear that the cognitive processes that operate when we read must also be complex. It is precisely this processing complexity that has led researchers to examine reading in terms of its component skills and knowledge bases. Over the past 25 years, significant progress has been made in understanding how component skills work together to build reading comprehension. These component skills provide a clear picture of the fluent reading process and are also essential for understanding appropriate implications for instruction (Adams, 1990; Koda, 2005; Perfetti, 1999; Perfetti, Landi, & Oakhill, 2005; Pressley, 2006; Rapp et al., 2007; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998; Stanovich, 2000).

In this chapter, we outline lower-level processes, including word recognition, syntactic parsing, and meaning encoding as propositions (more formally, semantic-proposition encoding). We also introduce working memory as the locus of this processing activity since working memory is fundamental to understanding these processes. Describing certain skills as “lower-level” does not mean that they are simple or undemanding; rather, they form a group of skills that have the potential to become strongly automatized, and this automatizing of lower-level skills is a requirement for fluent reading (Anderson, 2000a; Hulstijn, 2001; Koda, 2005; Stanovich, 1990, 2000).

In the next chapter, we outline higher-level processing, including text-model formation (what the text is about), situation-model building (how we decide to interpret the text), inferencing, executive-control processing (how we direct our attention), and strategic processing.

This chapter outlines some of the differences in learning to read in differing L1s. Because different languages vary in their phonological, orthographic, morphological, syntactic, and semantic systems, a given L1 and L2 could be quite different from each other linguistically. Generally speaking, the linguistic differences, or linguistic distance, between any given L1 and L2 will be a factor to consider in L2 reading development. When two languages are more distinct linguistically, there is a greater likelihood (though no guarantees) that there will be greater linguistic processing interference. An examination of reading in different L1s helps to interpret the notion of linguistic distance as a useful concept. Moreover, the exploration of reading development in different languages can help identify the extent to which there are universals of reading development and the extent to which the interaction between a given L1 and L2 will create unique issues for learning and instruction. This issue of different patterns of L1 reading development provides additional perspectives on some of the difficulties that L2 readers might face as they learn to read an L2.

In exploring reading development in different languages, this chapter does not make any claim for comprehensiveness.

Over the past 15 years, there has been an increasing number of important research studies, review chapters, and books on the learning and teaching of vocabulary. A review of many current surveys of L1 and L2 vocabulary reveals a fairly standard set of questions that are posed and then answered. For example, what does it mean to know a word? How many words are there in English? How many words can be learned from the reading context? Should vocabulary be taught directly? How many words can be taught? (Baumann & Kame'enui, 2004; Bogaards & Laufer, 2004; Folse, 2004; Hiebert & Kamil, 2005; Nation, 2001; Schmitt, 2000; Stahl & Nagy, 2006; Wagner, Muse, & Tannenbaum, 2007b). Furthermore, most publications addressing vocabulary learning make strong connections between reading and the learning of written forms of words. There are, of course, good reasons for this connection between vocabulary and reading. This chapter departs somewhat from the format of other chapters in this book – it addresses the questions listed above (and others) in the process highlighting the promising relationship between reading and vocabulary.

The reading–vocabulary relationship

In L1 reading research, many studies demonstrate the strong relationship between vocabulary and reading.

Chapters 2 and 3 provide an outline of how reading comprehension arises out of the efficient combination of lower-level and higher-level processes. The present chapter explores more general cognitive concepts that intersect with reading comprehension. These concepts help explain the effectiveness of various components of reading abilities as they work in combination. This chapter helps explain how fluency and automaticity emerge as incremental outcomes of the implicit learning system, why extensive exposure to print is a crucial goal for reading development (to provide continual implicit learning opportunities and incremental growth of reading abilities), and how reading, and learning from texts, is supported by attentional processing, inferencing, and background knowledge of many types. These concepts and underlying cognitive processing systems are not solely involved in reading-comprehension processing; rather, they are key to all aspects of learning (including all aspects of language learning). Each of the following concepts and cognitive systems is critical for understanding the central role of cognition in reading comprehension:

1. Implicit and explicit learning

2. Frequency, associative learning, co-occurrence, and emergence

3. Attention, noticing, and consciousness

4. Inferencing

5. The role of context in L2 reading

6. The role of background knowledge in L2 reading

The importance of these cognitive concepts for reading cannot be overestimated. They constitute the foundations of learning theory for all cognitive and educational psychology. They provide the basis not only for how reading comprehension works, but also for how it develops.

Over the first 15 chapters, many implications for instruction have been suggested. They reflect research results and what we now understand about the nature of reading abilities and how they develop. One conclusion to draw from these chapters is that reading comprehension and its development are very complex. Added to this complexity is the variability of instructional possibilities, teacher orientations, and student engagement. One of the major issues facing teachers, teacher trainers, curriculum developers, administrators, and materials writers is how to determine the most efficient and effective instructional approach for reading improvement that also achieves institutional goals. In this chapter, we explore briefly major implications for reading instruction; these include (a) specific suggestions for carrying out reading instruction that draws on research findings and (b) ways to build coherent curricular approaches that maximize learning.

Implications for instruction from research

Overall, the combination of research on L1 and L2 reading suggests that there are a number of important implications for L2 reading instruction. Most fundamentally, reading comprehension requires the 12 skills and knowledge resources identified in Table 16.1.