Lesson 2: Metacognitive Reading

Content Schema, Formal Schema, Linguistic Schema

What are the 3 Schemas?

Schema

It is a reader’s background knowledge. It is all the information a person knows — the people you know, places you have been, experiences you have had, books you have read

Content Schema

It is the background knowledge of an essay or the topic it relates to (Carrell, 1988). It involves many things, such as topic familiarity, cultural knowledge, conventions and previous experience of the domain.

Formal Schema

It is the background knowledge of the formal, rhetorical organizational structures of different types of texts (Carrell and Eisterhold, 1983, p. 71). It refers to the knowledge of the ways in which different genres are presented, with reference to Richards et al. (2000, p. 405)

Linguistic Schema

It is the knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. It plays a basic role in a comprehensive understanding of the text.

Eskey (1988, p. 94)

They claim that “good readers are both decoders and interpreters of texts, their decoding skills become more automatic but no less important as their reading skill develops”.

Skimming, Scanning, Intensive Reading, Extensive Reading

What are the 4 Different Types of Reading Techniques?

Skimming

"gist reading"; It means going through the text to grasp the main idea. The reader doesn't pronounce each and every word of the text but focuses their attention on the main theme or the core of the text. It is achieved by reading text that is considered to be relevant.

Scanning

It requires higher understanding of word recognition compared to skimming. Here, the reader quickly scuttles across sentences to get to a particular piece of information. It involves the technique of rejecting or ignoring irrelevant information from the text to locate a specific piece of information.

Intensive Reading

This is far more time-consuming than skimming and scanning. It involves close reading that aims at the accuracy of comprehension. Here, the reader has to understand, the meaning of each and every word.

Extensive Reading

It lays more emphasis on fluency and less on accuracy. It usually involves reading for pleasure and is more of an out-of-classroom activity. It is highly unlikely for readers to take up the ______ of text they do not like.

Grabe (2009)

According to ______, reading extensively usually requires that a reader knows 98-99% of the words in a text, some level of fluency processing words and sentences, the knowledge about text structure.