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Read the World Before Reading the
Word
by
Dr. William T. Fagan
Paul Freire, who died last year, was a world-wide educator from
Brazil. In teaching his fellow Brazilians to read and write, he
emphasized that it was necessary to read the world before reading the
word (the printed page). He said that literacy should start with what
is meaningful to peoples' lives. For that reason, he would start
discussing problems that the people faced and from this discussion he
would write the words that he felt were important for them to know.
EVERYDAY EXAMPLES
If a Newfoundlander or Labradorian read the sentence, "The
fisherpeople on the northeast coast will experience difficult times
when TAGS is discontinued" he/she will have no difficulty
understanding it because it contains words that relate to a real world
problem in Newfoundland and Labrador. If a person from Saskatchewan
were to try and read this, it is unlikely that much of it would be
understood because it is not meaningful to the world of someone from
Saskatchewan.
We face many other examples day after day that only some of us can
readily understand because we have the necessary world knowledge.
Leafs Burned on Power Play. However, the Leafs may also be
missing a regular today. Defenceman Greg Smyth was given a match
penalty Saturday during a first period melee.
A hockey fan would have little difficulty understanding this
sentence from a recent sports column in a newspaper. But a person with
no world knowledge of hockey will have problems with simple words like
burned, power play, regular, match, and period.
In another column on finance, the following appeared.
Finance Minister Paul Martin, at his meeting with provincial
colleagues, finally gave them the green light to begin work On
restructuring their tax system.
In exchange, he obtained a commitment that any provinces that
move to the proposed tax system will drop all existing surtaxes,
though they will be able to recoup any revenue loss through the
introduction of new tax brackets.
An accountant or business person will have no difficulty
understanding this but a lot of ordinary citizens (and learners) may
because they don't have the necessary world knowledge.
SOLUTIONS
- We must realize that our knowledge of the world is limited and,
therefore, so is our ability to read and understand. I can't
understand a mechanics manual because I have limited world knowledge
in that area. We must realize the limits of our world knowledge.
Rather than always blaming the author, we must either be selective
in what we read or acquire the necessary world knowledge. People
rarely read a newspaper from the first word to the last. For
example, they select what they read in terms of their interests
which are based on world knowledge.
- Literacy programs should build on world knowledge - on what is
meaningful to them. There is no meaning in print. Print (writing) is
only a code which allows someone to construct or develop meaning.
The simple word "help" is a code made up of four letters.
Once we recognize this word, a whole array of meanings rush into our
memories. No two people may have the same meanings but there will be
overlap. The meanings are in the person's world, the person's
memories.
- If it is necessary for learners to read something and the
learners don't have the world knowledge, then this knowledge must be
developed before they try and recognize words. Freire said we must
read (know) the world before reading the word. Research by Thomas
Sticht, a leading expert from the United States on workplace
literacy, showed that we must take into account a person's knowledge
of an occupation in assessing reading levels. His research showed
that when knowledge of the occupation is taken into account, workers
reading levels can be increased by as much as five grade levels.
That is, a person who would score grade 6 on general reading
material would score grade 11 on material based on work knowledge.
This also explains why many fisherpersons with low levels of
literacy had no difficulty mastering the directions for radar and
its uses when it was introduced as a necessary part of fishing.
- We should be cautious in using readability formulae in assessing
the difficulty of printed material. Such formulae usually only
measure such factors as sentence length and "hard" or "unusual"
words. They don't take into account the reader's world knowledge.
Words like professional fisherperson, downsizing, outmigration,
sustainability would rate very high on a readability formula,
perhaps at a grade 12 level, but to most Newfoundlanders and
Labradorians these are everyday words.
SUMMARY
Becoming literate is a combination of having world knowledge and print
knowledge (word recognition). There is no point in recognizing
(saying) words unless a learner has the necessary world knowledge to
make sense of it. Knowledge of the world must come first. Words are
only the code which, when recognized, unlock this world knowledge and
enable the learner (or any reader) to understand. This is as true for
children as it is for adults.
REFERENCE
Sticht, Thomas. "Adult Literacy Education". In E. Rothkopf
(Editor), Review of Research in Education (pages 59-96).
Washington, DC: American Education Research Association, 1988/89.
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