如何提高閱讀理解能力

By Daniel T.Willingham

在機不離手的時代，我們似乎每天都在閱讀，但是你真的理解你所讀到的東西嗎？人人都會閱讀，能夠理解才算得上是好的讀者。有人認為手機助長了閱讀惡習，每時每刻的碎片化瀏覽導致人們在閱讀“嚴肅”文章時不能透徹理解其中包含的信息。當然，詞匯量是閱讀理解的基礎，除此之外，本文作者認為，最關鍵的是要擁有廣泛的知識，而這一點卻常常被人們忽視。手機并不是問題的根源，錯誤的教學習慣才是造成閱讀理解能力差的罪魁禍首。

Americans are not good readers. Many blame the ubiquity1 of digital media. Were too busy on Snapchat to read， or perhaps internet skimming has made us incapable of reading serious prose.2 But Americans trouble with reading predates3 digital technologies. The problem is not bad reading habits engendered by smartphones， but bad education habits engendered by a misunderstanding of how the mind reads.4

Just how bad is our reading problem？ The last National Assessment of Adult Literacy from 2003 is a bit dated， but it offers a picture of Americans ability to read in everyday situations： using an almanac to find a particular fact， for example， or explaining the meaning of a metaphor used in a story.5 Of those who finished high school but did not continue their education，13 percent could not perform simple tasks like these. When things got more complex—in comparing two newspaper editorials with different interpretations of scientific evidence or examining a table to evaluate credit card offers—95 percent failed.6

Many of these poor readers can sound out words from print， so in that sense， they can read. Yet they are functionally illiterate7—they comprehend very little of what they can sound out. So what does comprehension require？ Broad vocabulary， obviously. Equally important， but more subtle， is the role played by factual knowledge.

All prose has factual gaps that must be filled by the reader. Consider“I promised not to play with it， but Mom still wouldnt let me bring my Rubiks Cube8 to the library.” The author has omitted9 three facts vital to comprehension： you must be quiet in a library； Rubiks Cubes make noise； kids dont resist tempting toys very well. If you dont know these facts， you might understand the literal meaning of the sentence， but youll miss why Mom forbade the toy in the library.

Knowledge also provides context. For example， the literal meaning of last years celebrated fake-news headline， “Pope Francis Shocks World， Endorses Donald Trump for President，” is unambiguous—no gap-filling is needed.10 But the sentence carries a different implication if you know anything about the public （and private） positions of the men involved， or youre aware that no pope has ever endorsed a presidential candidate.

You might think， then， that authors should include all the information needed to understand what they write. Just tell us that libraries are quiet. But those details would make prose long and tedious11 for readers who already know the information. “Write for your audience” means， in part， gambling on what they know.

These examples help us understand why readers might decode12 well but score poorly on a test； they lack the knowledge the writer assumed in the audience. But if a text concerned a familiar topic， habitually poor readers ought to read like good readers.

In one experiment， third graders—some identified by a reading test as good readers， some as poor—were asked to read a passage about soccer. The poor readers who knew a lot about soccer were three times as likely to make accurate inferences about the passage as the good readers who didnt know much about the game.13

That implies that students who score well on reading tests are those with broad knowledge； they usually know at least a little about the topics of the passages on the test. One experiment tested 11th gradersgeneral knowledge with questions from science （“pneumonia affects which part of the body？”）， history （“which American president resigned because of the Watergate scandal？”）， as well as the arts， civics，14 geography， athletics and literature. Scores on this general knowledge test were highly associated with reading test scores.

Current education practices show that reading comprehension is misunderstood. Its treated like a general skill that can be applied with equal success to all texts.15 Rather， comprehension is intimately intertwined with16 knowledge. That suggests three significant changes in schooling.

First， it points to decreasing the time spent on literacy instruction in early grades. Third-graders spend 56 percent of their time on literacy activities but 6 percent each on science and social studies. This disproportionate emphasis on literacy backfires in later grades， when childrens lack of subject matter knowledge impedes comprehension.17 Another positive step would be to use highinformation texts in early elementary grades. Historically， they have been light in content.

Second， understanding the importance of knowledge to reading ought to make us think differently about year-end standardized tests. If a child has studied New Zealand， she ought to be good at reading and thinking about passages on New Zealand. Why test her reading with a passage about spiders， or the Titanic？ If topics are random， the test weights knowledge learned outside the classroom—knowledge that wealthy children have greater opportunity to pick up.18

Third， the systematic building of knowledge must be a priority in curriculum design. The Common Core Standards for reading specify nearly nothing by way of content that children are supposed to know—the document valorizes reading skills.19 State officials should go beyond the Common Core Standards by writing content-rich grade-level standards and supporting district personnel20 in writing curriculums to help students meet the standards.

Dont blame the internet， or smartphones， or fake news for Americans poor reading. Blame ignorance. Turning the tide21 will require profound changes in how reading is taught， in standardized testing and in school curriculums. Underlying all these changes must be a better understanding of how the mind comprehends what it reads.22

1. ubiquity： 無處不在，普遍性。

2. Snapchat： 由斯坦福大學兩位學生開發(fā)的一款“閱后即焚”照片分享應用；prose：散文，文章。

3. predate： 發(fā)生于……之前，先于……出現。

4. 這個問題不是由智能手機引起的不良閱讀習慣，而是由于對大腦閱讀方式的錯誤理解而造成的不良教育習慣。engender：造成，導致。

5. literacy： 讀寫能力；almanac：年鑒，歷書；metaphor： 隱喻，暗喻。

6. 當遇到更復雜的情況——比較對科學證據有著不同解析的兩篇報紙社論，或是審查表格來評估信用卡報價——95%的人都做不到。

7. illiterate： 不會讀寫的，文盲的。

8. Rubiks Cube： 魔方。

9. omit： 省略，忽略。

10. Pope Francis： 指教宗方濟各（1936— ），他是天主教第266任教宗，本名豪爾赫·馬里奧·貝爾格里奧（Jorge Mario Bergoglio），是第一位耶穌會教宗，也是第一位拉丁美洲教宗；endorse： 贊同，支持；unambiguous： 清楚的，明確的。

11. tedious： 枯燥乏味的，冗長的。

12. decode： 解讀。

13. 特別了解足球但閱讀能力差的測試者，能夠根據文章做出準確判斷的可能性是不太了解足球的優(yōu)秀閱讀者的三倍。

14. pneumonia： 肺炎；resign： 辭職；Watergate scandal：水門事件，是20世紀70年代發(fā)生在美國的一場震驚世界的政治丑聞。1972年民主黨全國委員會位于華盛頓特區(qū)的水門綜合大廈發(fā)現被人侵入，時任總統(tǒng)理查德·尼克松及內閣試圖掩蓋事件真相。直至竊聽陰謀被發(fā)現，尼克松仍然阻撓國會調查，最終導致憲政危機。尼克松于1974年宣布辭去總統(tǒng)職務；civics： 公民學，市政學。

15. 閱讀理解能力被視為一種普遍技能，可以成功應用于所有文本中。

16. be intertwined with： 纏繞，與……緊密相連。

17. disproportionate： 不成比例的，不相稱的；backfire： 產生事與愿違的結果；impede： 阻礙，妨礙。

18. 如果題目是隨機的，那么這個測試看重的則是學生在課外學到的知識——家庭富裕的孩子有更多機會學到這些知識。

19. 閱讀的共同核心標準基本沒提到孩子應該從閱讀內容中了解哪些知識，而是更加看重閱讀技能。Common Core Standards，即Common Core State Standards，“共同核心州立標準”，它是美國的一套教學標準，詳細定義了K-12（幼兒園到高中）的各年級在英語語言藝術、數學課程中的學習內容；valorize： 賦予……（更高）價值。

20. personnel： 人事部門。

21. turn the tide： 扭轉形勢。

22. 而改變這些的根本在于必須要了解大腦是如何理解它所讀到的內容的。underlie： 作為……的基礎。