Reading skills

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Proportion of literacy worldwide based on data from the CIA World Fact Book (2007 map)

Reading skills ( English reading literacy , and reading skills or reading comprehension) is the ability to single words , sentences and whole texts too fluid reading and textual context to understand. In addition to writing and arithmetic, reading skills are one of the basic skills that should be acquired during primary school and developed by attending secondary schools.

The OECD defines “reading competence” as the ability “ to understand , use and reflect on written texts in order to achieve one's own goals, develop one's own knowledge and potential, and participate in social life.”

Reading competence depends, among other things, on the reading speed and thus to a large extent on the short storage capacity ( short-term memory ) and the working memory of the person reading. Further prerequisites for reading competence are prior knowledge, the ability to access lexicals, the availability of vocabulary , motivation and attitudes to reading, as well as knowledge of text characteristics, reading strategies and basic cognitive skills.

Levels of reading literacy

The grading is based on the ability to solve tasks of varying degrees of difficulty. The level of difficulty of a task is u. a. depends on the complexity of the text, the students' familiarity with the topic, the clarity of references to the relevant information and the number and conspicuousness of elements that could distract from the relevant information. The distinction is made in the three categories

  1. "Determine information",
  2. "Text-related interpretation" and
  3. "Reflect and evaluate" instead.

The number of levels and their assignment to different reading sub-skills depends on the underlying model and varies between different tests or educational studies. It is an attempt to make psychometric parameters easier to understand and is therefore only an aid to interpretation. Which level of competence a person is assigned to depends solely on the raw score achieved and does not provide any information about whether he or she actually performs the tasks of a certain level of competence coped with or not. The following illustration is based on the conception of the competence levels in the PISA study from 2000. However, these levels were expanded in the study from 2009, for example, in order to take account of a changed model concept. The IGLU study, for example, is also based on a different stage model, so that the results of both studies cannot be compared directly:

Competence level I

Elementary level → students are able to:

  1. to locate explicitly specified information if there is no competing information in the text (determine information);
  2. Recognize the main thought or intention of the author in a text on a familiar topic, the main thought being relatively noticeable because it appears at the beginning of the text or is repeated (text-based interpretation);
  3. to establish simple connections between information from the text and general everyday knowledge, whereby the reader is expressly instructed to consider relevant factors in the task and in the text (reflecting and evaluating).

Competency level II

Establishing simple links → For example, students are able to:

  1. to localize one or more pieces of information in the text that have to be inferred from the text and that meet several requirements. The text is complicated by a selection of competing information (determining information);
  2. recognize the main idea and further understand the relationships and the grasping of meanings in the text on the basis of conclusions (textual interpretation);
  3. to compare several connections between text and knowledge that goes beyond the text and to refer to them with personal experiences and attitudes (reflecting and evaluating).

Competence level III

Integration of text elements and conclusions → Students are able to:

  1. Identify information that fulfills various conditions, some relationships between this information having to be recognized and conspicuous competing information being present (determining information);
  2. to recognize the main idea of ​​a text, to understand a relationship or to understand the meaning of a word or sentence, even if several parts of the text have to be taken into account and integrated (text-related interpretation);
  3. Establishing connections between information and comparing and explaining information or evaluating certain features of a text, even if a precise understanding of the text in relation to familiar everyday knowledge or a reference to less common knowledge is required (reflecting and evaluating).

Competence level IV

Detailed understanding of complex texts → For example, students are able to:

  1. locate multiple embedded pieces of information (get information);
  2. Understand / apply categories in an unknown text and interpret language nuances in parts of the text that take the text into account as a unit (text-related interpretation);
  3. to formulate critically or to set up hypotheses about text information with the aid of formal / general knowledge and to understand long / complex texts texts (reflecting and evaluating).

Competence level V

Complete flexible use of unknown and complex texts, expert level → For example, students are able to:

  1. to locate and organize various, deeply embedded information, even if the content and form of the text are unfamiliar and it must be indirectly determined which information is relevant for the task (determining information);
  2. to understand a text with an unfamiliar topic and format completely and in detail (text-based interpretation);
  3. To critically evaluate a text with reference to specialized knowledge or to formulate hypotheses about information in the text, even if the relevant concepts contradict expectations (reflecting and evaluating).

backgrounds

The boy who doesn't read books

In recent years, doubts have arisen about the literacy of many young people. Some drop out of school with poor reading skills and, in some cases, gradually return to being functionally illiterate . Reading literacy testing was a central part of the international PISA study , which examined the reading literacy of students from different school systems .

Reading skills are the basis for acquiring additional skills, because in many specialist areas, knowledge, e.g. B. be “selected” in specialist books . Reading skills can be described as one of the most important key skills .

Sometimes the shifts in media consumption, especially among younger people (such as their increasing affinity for the Internet), are blamed for actual or perceived weaknesses in reading and writing. It is highly controversial whether the decline in newspaper readers in the lower age groups is causing the assumed deficits.

Paper-based vs. digital reading

A meta-analysis summarized the research between 2000 and 2017 on the influence of the medium on reading. She compared studies on reading comprehension for comparable texts on paper and on digital devices with a total of over 171,000 participants. The results showed an advantage of paper-based reading over digital reading.

The analyzes revealed three additional influencing factors:

  1. Time frame: The paper-based reading advantage worsened with time-limited reading compared to time-unrestricted reading.
  2. Text genre: The paper-based reading advantage was consistent in studies with informational texts or a mixture of informational and narrative texts, but not in studies that only use narrative texts.
  3. Academic Year: The benefit of paper-based reading has increased over the years.

Reading skills and life opportunities

Being able to read is a central part of today's cultural age. Inadequate reading skills also result in other weaknesses. Anyone who reads poorly will find it difficult to grasp arithmetic problems and to grasp scientific questions. Only a few make up the deficits found at the beginning of puberty in later years. To be able to read well means to have learned fluent and meaningful reading.

In Austria, less than one percent are “genuinely” illiterate; three to four percent, on the other hand, are considered to be “functionally” illiterate. Your knowledge and skills are insufficient to be able to deal with everyday written language or arithmetic tasks independently.

History of reading literacy

In ancient times and also in the Middle Ages, the ability to read (and write) was the exception rather than the rule. Even kings could sometimes not read (and write) despite training from court masters . For this there were the clerics and the job description of the writer who carried out such tasks for those unfamiliar with reading and writing.

A comparatively high reading competence existed in the people of Israel . The Five Books of Moses instructed parents to teach their children (and especially the boys) to read (and read aloud) the “Word of God”.

After the invention of printing by Johannes Gutenberg in Central Europe, reading skills were boosted by the mass distribution of the Luther Bible and other publications by Martin Luther during the Reformation in the 16th century.

The introduction of Sunday school in many regional and free churches in Germany in the 19th century for the purpose of religious instruction and Bible study was also a great step forward for the reading skills of the German population.

Finally, the introduction of compulsory schooling in modern times greatly promoted reading skills among the population, as did the establishment of public libraries.

Even today, in developing countries, where the level of literacy is very low, there is still the profession of writer. B. assists with correspondence with authorities.

Classification of texts according to difficulty

In the United States school system , relevant student readings (especially children's and youth books) are classified according to the Lexile system. This ensures that students with underdeveloped reading skills can read simple texts, while advanced readers can read more demanding texts.

See also

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: Reading skills  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ from: PISA 2000. p. 23.
  2. ↑ Expertise - promoting reading skills. Education reform Volume 17. Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), 2005, p. 12 , accessed on May 14, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Levels of reading competence according to PISA on the Thuringia education server ( Memento of the original from December 21, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lernkompetenz.th.schule.de
  4. ↑ Konrad Lischka and Christian Stöcker: Reading Competence: How Germany's Young People Are Talked Stupid (Spiegel Online, April 22, 2008 - "The 'Initiative Printpresse' 'wants to save the daily newspaper on paper. With the support of the Federal Government, it calls for a return to the printed matter - and explains in passing Today's youth for stupid and lazy to read. Writing is experiencing a real boom on the internet. ”- see National Initiative Print Media - Newspapers and Magazines in Democracy  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatic marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , German Federal Government, April 15, 2008, PDF, 10 p., 62.1 kB).@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.bundesregierung.de  
  5. ↑ Pablo Delgado, Cristina Vargas, Rakefet Ackerman, Ladislao Salmerón: Don't throw away your printed books: A meta-analysis on the effects of reading media on reading comprehension . In: Educational Research Review . tape 25 , November 2018, p. 23–38 , doi : 10.1016 / j.edurev.2018.09.003 ( elsevier.com [accessed July 3, 2019]).
  6. ↑ Lexile. Retrieved February 7, 2019 .