Approaching academic reading

Reading has been regarded not only as a cognitive activity but also as a social process which provides students with the necessary input to start writing in academic contexts (Ferris & Hedgcock, 1998). Therefore, a close integration of reading and writing could be effective in the academic discourse community. In order to explain and explore the reading-writing connection in a second or foreign language, Bloor (1985) developed four different approaches to academic reading: the psychological, linguistic, content-oriented and pedagogically-oriented approaches which can be connected to real-life examples (as cited in Jordan, 1997).
In the psychological approach, students work with the processes involved in reading through simple word recognition and interpretation (Bloor, 1985). Contextual guessing is a technique that reflects this approach since learners are involved in working out the meaning of unfamiliar words by looking at the surrounding words or situation. Making inferences also has to do with the psychological approach since students work on the process of reading between the lines to understand what is meant but not stated in a text.
As regards the linguistic approach, Bloor (1985) explains that learners are involved in grammar practice activities as attention is given to the words and sentences of a text. For instance, when teachers correct a composition or students make peer-correction, they read a text analyzing the grammatical structure of all sentences. A further example could be when students are asked to discover rules themselves by focusing on the words and ideas of a given text.
Concerning the content-oriented approach, students are provided with a specific purpose for reading which may motivate them to read if it is of their interest (Bloor, 1985). A real-life example is Facebook, a social website where many people read about their friends’ personal experiences and interests in order to be connected with them. Recipes are also concrete examples of this approach since we read them in order to prepare and cook food, that is, for a special purpose.
According to Bloor (1985), students use self-access materials at their own paces in the pedagogical-oriented approach. The magazine we may read while waiting for an appointment is a simple illustration of this approach. We usually discover that it contains an article that interests us, so we skim it because we do not have time to read it in detail. Another real-life example is when we quickly look through articles on the internet to ascertain whether they contain information on the topic we are researching.
To sum up, academic reading can be approached in different ways when teaching writing in academic purposes. Bloor (1985) provides us with four alternative approaches which can be easily applied to real-life situations inside and outside the classroom. Indeed, the complete integration of the four approaches defined by Bloor (1985) can be of main concern for the teaching of academic writing.


References

Jordan, R. R. (1997). English for academic purposes: A guide and resource book for teachers. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Ferris, D. and Hedgcock, J. S. (1998). Teaching ESL composition: Purpose, process, and practice. London, UK: Lawrence Erlbaum.