Chapter 5: Role of the Reader's Schema in Comprehension and Chapter 6: Schema Activation and Schema Acquisition

THE WHOLE IS GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PART

Chapter 5: Role of the Reader’s schema in Comprehension, Learning, and Memory by Richard C. Anderson

Anderson is an expert I n schema and reading—promotes with research and evidence that reading for pleasure produces stronger and better readers—and created the argumentation method of applying what one has read to support a stand.

 (Schema is described as the whole is greater than its parts.)

Schema of an egg—so making a web is as if one is creating a schema

The chapter is in support of a reader’s schema, or organized knowledge of the world, providing much of the basis for comprehending, learning, and remembering the ideas in stories and texts (p. 97).

A SCHEMA-THEORETIC INTERPRETATION OF COMPREHENSION

Readers comprehend what they read in the context of what they already know. A reader needs to have a schema in which to place what is read in order to understand what is being read (99-100).

Readers bring their own unique schemas to whatever they read. Schema depend upon a person’s gender, age, sex, race, religion, nationality, occupation, personal history.  Comprehension then happens when a reader’s schema is activated or constructed so as to allow for understanding. This is in contrast to the older view of comprehension that states that when one reads one understands the words, then the phrases, then the sentences, then the paragraph, then the chapter, etc….  That  is why the parts are less than the whole.

SCHEMA-BASED PROCESSES IN LEARNING AND REMEMBERING

Schema theory-a theory that explains comprehension of text in terms of activation and construction of prior knowledge and experiences.

According to schema theory, reading involves more or less simultaneous analysis at many different levels (p. 101). One must analyze what is read at the graphophonemic (Refers to the relationship between the orthography (symbols) and phonology (sounds) of a language; syntactic; pragmatic; and interpretive.)  That understanding of what is read is just a bottom up or data driven process that one reads the words and then understands them does not account for how the reader interprets or uses their schema or top down or hypothesis driven. There are six functions of schemata that have been proposed.  

 

1.      Ideational scaffolding—framework / niche or slot provided by schema for categorization of information.

2.       A schema allows selective allocation of attention.   

3.      A schema enables inferential elaboration

4.      A schema allows for orderly searches of memory (when people recite an unrelated list v. when the list makes sense

5.      A schema facilitates editing and summarizing  

6.      A schema permits inferential reconstruction  

EVIDENCE FOR SCHEMA THEORY

Schema theory predicts that texts read that are important in an acquired schema are more likely to be remembered

Loaded school material

Given a list of grocery of items or these same items ordered at a restaurant, the restaurant items were remembered with more accuracy because the restaurant being a more confined schema   

Also giving readers a purpose such as a role when reading something through helped with remembering items that related to their given role (home description used by a burglar or by a person buying a home) 

IMPLICATIONS OF SCHEMA THEORY FOR DESIGN OF MATERIALS AND CLASSROOM INSTRUCTION

Learners need to be reminded of what they know that will relate to their readers

Background knowledge should be built in classroom when needed

Textbooks should have lessons and activities that activate background info and to integrate it into what they are learning

Directed Reading-Thinking activity (PREDICTIONS HELP STUDENTS REMEMBER WHAT THEY READ)

Having an understandable highlighted text structure is also effective

 

Maybe the conclusion can be made to never take background knowledge for granted.  Knowledge is built on knowledge .  I remember a student of mine that was fascinated with the Holocaust. She read a lot about it and when she was taking a history course she came to me and asked me if the Holocaust had taken place during WWII. When I answered yes she had an aha moment as all her acquired knowledge about the Holocaust fit better into the schema of WWII. After that I created activities to build background knowledge. 

Chapter 6: Schema Activation and Schema Acquisition: Comments on Richard C. Anerson’s Remarks by John D Brandsford

Focus is on what are the differences between activating schema and acquiring schema? And the second focus is on what are the major implications of schema for their for teachers and their teacher's teaching.

Schema activation –accessing the appropriate background knowledge in order to comprehend a text

Anderson thinks that one must activate their schema to comprehend and remember and if one doesn’t it is because their schema or schemata is not sufficient.

Schema do 6 things---provide a basis for assimilating text info; make inferential elaborations that fill in gaps in messages; allocate attention to important text elements; search memory in an orderly fashion; formulate a summary of information; and make inferences that can enable one to reconstruct original message even though one has forgotten some details.  

Schema Construction—acquiring new knowledge and skills based on comprehension of text.

Advanced organizers are used KWLs (word lists of categories or word sorts?)

Make a prediction about where the learner will have a knowledge gap and prepare them for it. 

Meaningful learning (Ausubel, 1963, 1968) and advanced organizers, but how is it different if one is dealing with schema activation or schema creation?

Significance

Precise Elaborations

Why are the facts important? If the importance or relevance of the text can’t be shown it will make the facts arbitrary and the reason for learning will not be there.  

Adaptation- The need to establish a meaningful relationship between words to remember and their ideas

New ideas need to have a significance or elaboration assigned to them to help one remember the information.

   

While reading, Reading Lolita in Tehran (Nafisi,  2003)  I am first trying to relate it to my schema and background knowledge. I know a little bit about Iran from books I've read Persepolis: A Story of Childhood (Satrapi ,  2003), All the Shahs Men, (Kinzer , 2003), and from the news I know that the US and Britain deposed a democratically elected leader and put the shah of Iran in his place. While the shah proved to be pro-western culturally and politically he was also a brutal dictator. When the revolution came, to the surprise of the west and the Iranian educated elite, the revolution focused on conservative Islamic law that proved to be just as oppressive, but differently so, than the shah.  Woman's rights in particular were changed and limited. Reading Nafisi's book makes that last point clearer to me. They must wear a head covering concealing their hair, they must cover their whole body, they may not wear makeup, nail polish, drink, listen to western music, read western literature, or act too western as they will be persecuted. Getting a copy of Lolita (Nabokov, 1955) was difficult as it was banned in Iran.  Slowly  the world of Azar Nafisi and her class is coming to life for me. Her apartment , her family, her career, her class. My schema is activated and being added to.