Ryan Fries’ response to Eckert’s, Bridging the Pedagogical Gap, Literacy...Reading Theories

Ryan Fries’ response to Eckert’s, Bridging the Pedagogical Gap

In this article, Eckert makes a distinction between two interpretations of reading.

First, is the theoretical reading or performing a reading of a text. This is the noun form of the word reading and brings with it connotations of literacy in the form of critical analysis. That is to say a reading of the text should comprise of advanced reading strategies to interpret nuanced meaning, symbolism, foreshadowing, and other skills required in secondary and postsecondary educational settings. Eckert argues, that students are able but are often ill-prepared to analyze literary works in such a manner and opt to leave such explanations to teachers.

In its verb form reading is, “[…]relegated to a lower, less scholarly, cognitive activity in which the reader has little agency in constructing meaning from text.”(112) This form does not encompass a critical interpretive approach to reading comprehension but is the action in itself. Eckert is concerned with the significance of the former. However, she argues that they are not separate entities entirely and that when taken from a pedagogical approach of “intersection” between the two, especially at the elementary level and continually thereon, literary interpretation “not only builds on students’ prior knowledge of textual situations but also encourages them to expand their repertoire of reading strategies[…]”(113)

Eckert specifically accredits scholars Iser and Goodman in the field of literacy theory. Iser’s approach considers the reader’s expectations in relation to words written in the text and as a result there exists an aspect of individual comprehension unique to each reader. Goodman’s approach may seem familiar because it deals with miscues in the reader’s predictions of a text. We often see this approach to literary theory in secondary education, when students are asked mid-text to predict what will happen next. Goodman argues that their answers reflect, “not what the eye has seen but what the brain has generated for the mouth to report.”(115)