Reading for plain sense
In order to help our students to deal with heavy texts, we can:
 Ask questions to check on understanding
 When a difficulty is evident, identify the problem
 Analyze the reasons
 Make students aware of the problem
 Guide them to find solutions
 Encourage them to do this on their own
Text attack skill 1 – Understanding syntax
In the case of complex sentences – ask questions regarding meaning. If there is a problem:
* Have students re-read the text sentence by sentence, making sure they understand each one.
* Analyze / think aloud; summarize; get help from advanced students.
* Dealing with complex sentences:
 Simplify sentences: identify the cohesive elements (pronouns, determiners, articles,
comparatives, etc.) and find out what the referent is by asking questions.
 Check on coordinating conjunctions to clarify which items are joined.
 Explain that nominalization can be interpreted as a clause
 Find the head noun in a sentence and clarify that it is modified by all the words around it.
 Identify the verb in a sentence and ask “who/what does what?”
 In sentences with participle, infinitive or preposition phrases, also ask “who/what does what?
Text attack skill 2 – Recognizing and interpreting cohesive devices
* Cohesion: the part of grammar that reflects the coherence of the writer’s though and helps the
reader to make the right connection between ideas.
* Cohesive devices provide coherence of thoughts and make connections between ideas. They
directly affect the signification of a sentence. Ex: pro-forms, ellipsis, lexical cohesion and discourse
markers.
1. Pro-forms: pronouns and comparatives and their corresponding referents. They avoid
repetition, but are empty of meaning.
a. Ss must recognize that the referent is the problem (when they can’t tell what it refers
to)
b. Anaphoric reference: looking backwards in the text / Cataphoric reference: looking
forwards
2. Ellipsis: something left unsaid. The reader’s common sense should supply the omitted
information. It avoids redundancy. Ss must recognize that something is missing (there are
no signals of alert) and search the text to retrieve the information.
3. Lexical cohesion: to interpret the relationship between a lexical item and other parts of
the discourse.
Ex: synonym, antonym, metaphor, (2 more), etc.
a. Same difficulty: to recognize that 2 or more different expressions co-refer (have the
same referent)
b. Text-structuring words: not empty of meaning, but the reader needs to it elsewhere in
the text, sometimes using background knowledge he’s expected to share. Ex: the
issue will be resolved.
c. Pin-down words: they carry underlying propositional meaning. To understand the text,
the reader needs to pin-down such meaning (find the unstated subject of the
proposition). Ex: nominalization.
Text attack skill 3: interpreting discourse markers
Discourse markers:
 Help the reader to work out the meaning of difficult texts.
 Show the relationship between sentences, sentences and the whole text, and the writer and the
message.
 Indicate the functional value of the sentence
1. Markers that signal the sequence of events: then, first, at once, next, etc.
a. ONLY group to contribute to the significance of the text. They answer when (not
explicitly) by reference to other events mentioned in the text.
2. Markers that signal discourse organization: in conclusion, that is to say, for example, in
short, etc.
a. They tell what the writer is doing in a particular sentence by indicating its relationship
with other parts of the text.
b. Sequencing, re-expressing, specifying, referring, resuming, exemplifying, summarizing,
and focusing.
c. Meta-statement: statement about the discourse rather than part of it, the writer refers
to his own writing, he is interacting with the reader. Ex: I would like to illustrate some point
by…
3. Markers that signal the writer’s point of view: moreover, similarly, however, in fact, etc.
a. They tell the relationships the writer perceives between the facts or ideas he writes
about: the relative importance he attaches to each (his attitude).
b. Introducing, comparing, contradicting, causal, condition, degree of truth, judgment,
dismissing, etc.