Chapter 12

Bruning recognizes three different models that describe the reading process: Data-driven, conceptually driven, and interactive processes. As a side note, I'm glad he continues to use computer metaphors!

The data-driven model describes how reading is a mechanical process that can be studied by following a reader's eye movements. Instead of reading word by word, you focus on one or two letters then move on to the next group of letters until you focus on another letter group (it's called the saccade). Meaning is gathered by matching patterns of letters and patterns of words (and sentence patterns) to already known patterns of meaning. It's a very linear process.

The conceptually driven model flips the data-driven model around: instead of patterns driving meaning, knowledge drives meaning. One's schema (knowledge and expectations of the text) drives reading comprehension. Basically, if you have no knowledge of a concept or object, how would you expect to read or comprehend a word that describes said concept or object?! Poor reading is more likely a result of a lack of knowledge (world knowledge is described later in the chapter) than an inability to piece sequential patterns together.

The third model, construction-integration, takes a middle of the road approach, and as a result, it's a much more reasonable model to defend. It takes the pattern recognition of the data-driven model and the application of knowledge in the conceptually driven model, and combines them into macro and micro structures. Microstructures refer to the word by word and sentence by sentence meaning while macrostructures refer to, as Bruning says, "the gist" of the text. We then construct the meaning of the text and then integrate that meaning into our long term knowledge: it's a recursive process that feeds upon itself. This would explain why extensive reading and regurgitating (which is described in the next chapter on writing) are so important to the cognitive development of children and adults.

Besides my observation on what this chapter means, but how does the chapter apply to me? As I mentioned earlier, my teachers didn't really teach many reading strategies after the fourth grade. Now, I'm not blaming them for my reading skills, but I have come to a realization recently: the slower I read, the less I comprehend the overall meaning of the text. As I read slower (at least as I interpret it through the text), my working memory works harder to retain the words I've just read and so "clock cycles" dedicated to overall meaning decline. The faster I read, the less I enjoy it, but I do get more meaning out of it: I understand it better. Last semester, we were reading Dewey's "Democracy and Education" and I found myself being able to discuss chapters, that I read in a fast manner (not quite skimming but not reading word for word), with a much better understanding of what Dewey was trying to say (instead of focusing on exactly what he said). Now I have some confirmation as why this is so...