English is one of the most studied and used languages worldwide. The process of acquiring reading is a complex task that involves mastering a set of strategies aimed at assimilating written information by the reader. Different studies have shown that the process of understanding reading in the mother tongue has certain similarities with this same learning in English because in both situations semantic and contextual information is used, but there are also several authors who point out that there are distinctions between reading models in a first and second language. This chapter delves into these relationships, which focus on analysing the variables that most influence the learning of comprehensive capacity in Spanish and English. A quasi-experimental design of comparison between groups with pre-test and post-test measurements was used. The study involved 120 students aged between 8 and 9. The results indicate that there are a number of factors that are related in learning to read in Spanish and English.
TopIntroduction
The development of an adequate capacity to understand written language is one of the fundamental educational objectives and a necessary condition to achieve success in today's society. It is currently considered essential that all students acquire the necessary skills to access information and transform it into knowledge. In order for reading to offer us these benefits, it is necessary to initially master the decoding process and then move on to the personal construction of the text. Reading is not an activity based on the decoding of signs and graphics, it involves the reader developing a set of cognitive and metacognitive strategies that allow them to assimilate the content of the text. The process of decoding requires a broad knowledge of vocabulary, in addition to the control of a series of techniques and strategies, which are those that favour the understanding of the text. One of the great difficulties that occur to integrate the meaning of the written message lies in the decoding, not only due to the lack of knowledge of the lexicon but also because the process put into practice to extract the content of the text is limited to the simple performance of a process of deciphering by establishing direct interrelationships between the words.
Reading comprehension constitutes a process of extraction and construction of information based on the reader's experiences and knowledge, through the message offered by the written text (Ronsenblatt, 1978, Gutiérrez, 2016). In this sense, the construction of the textual representation is a dynamic process and dependent on the reciprocal relationship between the conditions of the text, the context and the reader. In the comprehensive process, the information is contrasted with the reader's prior knowledge, which allows the comprehension and acquisition of new knowledge through reading (Zapata, 2011, Gutiérrez-Fresneda, 2018a). Understanding involves learning from the text itself through the active action of the reader who has to extract the written information and integrate it into their cognitive structures (Gernsbacher and Kaschak, 2013).
The study of comprehensive capacity has been addressed throughout history in different ways. Until the 60s-70s it was considered to be a simple process of decoding and that understanding was an automatic process. This idea gradually lost support as it was ascertained that there were many students who read correctly, but did not understand the text.
Along these same lines, Perfetti (1986) distinguished two components in reading: lexical access, or recognition of words, and reading comprehension, identifying a basic level relative to the extraction of the meaning of propositions and a higher level oriented to the text integration.
As from the 80s, and from a more cognitive perspective, the complexity of reading comprehension has been accepted. Anderson and Pearson (1984) define it as the process by which the reader constructs a meaning in their interaction with the text. This then originated the development of numerous investigations to try to find explanations to the complexity of the reading process.
It is known that reading is much more than a simple process of decoding and involves an active process of construction of meanings product of text-reader interaction (Hall, 1989). According to Solé (2006) reading is an activity that needs to understand and interpret the text with different intentions depending on the reader's objectives which requires a series of textual knowledge, the control of decoding skills and strategies to actively process the sense and the meanings of the text. These strategies are high-level procedures that involve goals, planning actions to achieve them and a permanent evaluation to adjust or change said actions.
As a result of the studies carried out in the last decades, different levels of understanding have been established, so Pérez Zorrilla (2005) differentiates five which are valid today, such as: literal, reorganization of information, inferential, critical and that of appreciation.