Reading Skill: Formation, Diagnostics, and Functioning (original) (raw)

2020, Voprosy Psychologii (Russia)

The article is divided into three sections. The first briefly examines the classical concept of the formation of the reading skill in ontogenesis, proposed by T.G. Egorov in the 50s of the last century and found its confirmation and development (albeit in most cases without references to its author) in a number of modern studies by domestic and foreign authors. The second section analyzes some foreign ideas about the structure of the reading skill and the methods used there for diagnosing the structural components of this skill. The third section describes a functional model of a developed reading skill, in which both "technical" operations of actualizing the meanings of words included in the text and semantic processes that ensure reading comprehen-sion interact. In contrast to traditional methods of diagnosing the level of meaning formation (understanding), which are used after the completion of reading the text, the proposed model focuses on the dynamics of the current reading process. This dynamics is recorded using the word-by-word reading technique, in which the reader sees only one word; аfter reading it, he presses the button, after which the next word in the text appears, etc. Registering button clicks while working with text allows you to get a dynamic reading profile (DRP) in the form of a dis-tribution of time intervals between clicks. Three ranges of these intervals are identified, which reflect the work of different levels of reading skill - the semantization of visible words with the fixation of their meanings, the accumulation of several meanings in working memory, and the formation of semantic fragments on their basis. The selected parameters of DRP reflect the in-dividual level of mastering the reading skill, as well as the dependence of its functioning on the genre and linguistic characteristics of the text material. Currently, the laboratory of experi-mental psychology of the State University "Dubna" is researching the diagnostic capabilities of the method of word-by-word reading in teaching students a foreign language. Key words: reading skill, semantisation, meaning formation, dynamic reading profile, word-by-word reading technique.