In this blog post, we will examine the influence of background knowledge and critical thinking skills, which play an important role in reading comprehension.
Before the emergence of reader-centered reading education theory, the prevailing view was that readers were passive beings who discovered the meaning contained in a text. This traditional reading education theory regarded readers as simply deciphering the meaning of a text and believed that understanding a text depended solely on the text itself. From this perspective, the meaning of writing is fixed, and readers are thought to passively accept that meaning.
However, reader-centered reading education theory defines reading as an act in which readers construct meaning by interacting with writing using their own experiences and knowledge. The experiences and knowledge used to construct meaning are called “background knowledge,” which can be broadly divided into two types. Content background knowledge is the experience and knowledge that readers already have in relation to the topic or theme of the text, while form background knowledge is the experience and knowledge related to the structure and expression of the text, such as its structure and discourse conventions. This background knowledge plays an important role in the reader’s reading experience and helps them to understand and interpret the content of the text in greater depth.
According to reader-centered reading education theory, readers who are effective at constructing meaning in writing utilize their background knowledge before reading to predict the content and structure of the text. This allows them to form an ideal information structure in their minds, making it easier to accept new information when reading and to selectively accept only information that is relevant to their reading purpose. While reading, they utilize their background knowledge to easily understand the content of the text and infer information that is not directly mentioned in the text. Readers may revise their background knowledge based on the new information they have acquired in this process, or store the new information in their memory to use as background knowledge when reading other texts in the future. After reading the entire text, readers use their background knowledge to reorganize the information in a logical manner, and the reorganized information is remembered for a long time. Through this process, readers go beyond simply reading the text and experience the process of integrating and expanding the content of the text into their own knowledge system.
Reader-centered reading education theorists have studied ways to effectively utilize background knowledge, and one of the most representative methods is to organize the content associated with the text. After recalling all the knowledge and experiences related to the topic or theme of the text, readers group them into related categories and organize them into a hierarchy of higher and lower concepts. By organizing their knowledge in advance, readers can better understand the text and accurately structure its content. This method helps readers understand and remember texts more systematically.
Meanwhile, reader-centered reading education theorists initially believed that even when reading the same text, readers construct different meanings because they have different amounts of background knowledge. Therefore, they studied ways to improve readers’ reading skills by increasing their background knowledge. However, they found that in actual reading situations, background knowledge can sometimes hinder accurate reading comprehension. This is because when readers have too much background knowledge or apply it inappropriately, they risk distorting or misinterpreting the content of the text. Therefore, reader-centered reading education theorists conducted research on other factors that affect reading skills besides the amount of background knowledge.
This research concluded that readers’ critical thinking and metacognitive abilities play an important role. Readers should not simply accept the content of a text, but should also be able to evaluate its authenticity and reliability, monitor their own understanding, and adjust their strategies when necessary. These abilities are essential for readers to understand texts more actively and effectively.
