Schemata Theory and the Implication
for Teaching Reading Comprehension
A reader, however, sometimes gets difficulty to correctly understand the intended message. This situation may arise at least because of three reasons (Rumelhart in Spiro et al, 1980: 47-48): (1) the reader may not have the appropriate schemata; (2) the reader may have the appropriate schemata, but the clues provided by the author are not sufficient to suggest them; and (3) the reader may find a consistent interpretation of the text but may not find the one intended by the author of the text.
Due to the fact that schemata are important in reading comprehension, this paper is devoted to a brief discussion on schemata theory and the implication for teaching reading comprehension. The discussion will include a brief review on the process of reading and the function of schemata in understanding written discourses.
On the other hand, reading is a bridge between the known and the unknown. It is an interaction between the new information found in the text and the information already stored in the reader's knowledge bank. To comprehend incoming information, he must have in his cognitive structure pre-established concepts about the incoming information. In other words, he must already know something--some conceptual knowledge--that he can relate to new information before he can comprehend it (Swaby, 1989:187).
Comprehension, thus, implicitly has two tasks, forming concept and interrelating concepts (Swaby, 1989: 187). The first task in comprehension is forming the concept of the incoming information. If a reader reading about an island, for example, he must already have some concept of island such as land, water and land surrounded by water. Without a concept of "islandness", he cannot appropriately comprehend the reading material about an island well.
The second task is to interrelate the concepts. It is not enough to have individual concepts. A reader needs to know how the concepts relate to one another. In processing incoming information, he needs to know how that information relates to concepts pre-established in his cognitive framework. The ability to interrelate concepts permits the use of existing information to develop, enrich, expand, and complement new information, leading to greater comprehension.
Rumelhart (1980) defines schema as data structure for representing the generic concepts stored in memory. According to him, there are schemata representing our knowledge about all concepts underlying objects, situations, events, sequences of events, actions, sequences of actions. In line with this, Van Dijk (Brown and Yule, 1983: 247) states that schemata are to be higher-level complex structure which function as 'identical scaffolding' in organization and interpretation of experience.
Van Dijk identifies two versions of schemata: the strong version and the weak one. According to him, in the strong version, schemata are considered deterministic to predispose the experiencer to interpret his experience in a fixed way. We can think of racial prejudice as the manifestation of some fixed way of thinking about newly encountered individuals who are assigned undesirable attribute and motives on the basis of an existing schemata for members of the race. There may be also deterministic schema which we use when are about to encounter certain types of discourse. According to Van Dijk, the weak version states that schemata can be seen as the organized background knowledge which leads to expect or predict aspects in our interpretation of discourse.
Rumelhart also states that schemata can embed one within another. A schema is a net work of subschemata, each of which carries out its task of evaluating its goodness of fit whenever activated. These subschemata represent a different constituent of the concept being represented. For example, a 'face' schema consists of a set subschemata: the mouth, the nose, the ear and the eye. These subschemata, in turn, consist of a configuration of constituents. The 'eye' schema, for instance, consists of a configuration of subschemata: iris, eyelashes, and eyebrow. These schemata then consist of subschemata as procedures consist of a net work of subprocedures.
Schemata represent knowledge at all levels of abstraction. A schema may be about events and objects of any sort--from ideologies and cultural truths to knowledge about what constructs an appropriate sentence in our language, to knowledge about the meaning of a particular word, to knowledge about what patterns of excitations are associated with letters of alphabet. They are schemata to represent all levels of our experience at all levels of abstractions.
Schemata are active processes. A schema is capable of evaluating the quality of their own fit to the available data. It is like a procedure whose function is to determine whether, and to what degree, it accounts for the pattern of observations. This includes, among others, associating its variables to the appropriate aspects of its environment that is binding its variables.
In addition to the above characteristics, schemata are idiosyncratic (Samuel and Eisenberg in Pirrozzolo and Wittract, 1981:46). For any particular situation, people will have schemata that are based on their experiences. One person's experiences will be different from another's in both variability and extent. For example, the more a person performs an activity, the more specific will be the details stored in the schema, and the easier it will be to gain access to the schema from memory. A person with a lot of experience in an activity in which many things may vary, would be more likely to build up a very flexible schema.
Another important characteristics of schema is that, a schema is not constructed in isolation of what else is known. Any type of knowledge we already have can affect the building and restructuring of schemata.
Content schema is related to the content domain of the text. It refers to reader's knowledge about the topic or subject matter of the target text. Studies show that readers comprehend more of a text if (a) they are familiar with topic from experience; (b) they have read some thing about the topic before, and (c) they know in advance what reading concerns. According to Carrel and Eisterhold (1983), one of the most obvious reasons that a particular content schema fails to exist for a reader is that this kind of schema is culturally specific and is not part of a particular reader's cultural background.
While formal schema is knowledge related to the formal, rhetorical organizational structures of different types of texts. Several studies have shown that stories have a schematic structure and that readers are sensitive to it and use it in processing and recalling the events of stories.
A writer does not express detailed information in the text. This type of information is assumed by the writer to exist in some form in the reader's mind. This means that we must make inferences when we read. That is, we must make use of information that is not given and we must retrieve this information from our memory. It is thus our schemata that provide information not given by a text. For instance, if we are given the information that a person went to a restaurant, paid the bill and left, we will infer that a number of other things took place in this episode. We will infer that this person ordered food, had it served, and ate the food. This information has come from memory and has been stored in some organized fashion. This organization is in the form of restaurant schema (Samuel and Eisenberg, in Pirozzolo and Wittrack, 1981: 47).
The writer develops his ideas in such a way to form a unified text. He tries to clarify the main ideas using addition information or supporting details. Therefore, the significance in the printed text is not the same. A reader has to be able to recognize which information is important and which is trivial. According to Anderson and Pearson (1984: 237), the schema to which the text is being assimilated, already-processed text information, and an analysis of task demands provide a gauge for judging the importance of the upcoming text elements. As it is encountered each a text element is processed to some minimal level and then graded for importance. Extra attention is devoted to elements that surpass a criterion for importance. Because of the extra attention they receive, important elements are learned; and because they are learned better, these text elements are also remembered better.
To sum up, the schemata a reader has are crucial in reading comprehension. They help a reader in making prediction, making inference, and allocating attention to important text elements.
Schemata theory suggests three sources of text complexity: the language (linguistics), text structure (formal), and semantic/topic (content). The teacher therefore should be very careful in selecting reading materials. They should not contain too many unfamiliar words and complex sentences. The materials selected should include: descriptive, expository, argumentative and narrative (literary) texts. In addition, the text should be on somewhat familiar topics that have new information so that interest is maintained.
In order that the materials selected appropriate, before selecting teaching materials, the teacher should identify the students' prior knowledge or schemata. It can be done by analyzing the students' general characteristics and entry behavior which include: their age, interest, achievement level, cultural and social background, and abilities.
Baker and Brown (in Flood, 1985: 32-33) stress that the ability to grasp the logical organization of the text is firmly rooted in the reader's prior knowledge of the world. If a reader does not have the relevant background information, it may be difficult, even it might be impossible for him to detect the logical organization of the text being read. It must also be noted that although one has relevant background knowledge, if he cannot activate it and relate it to the new incoming knowledge from the text being read, he may get difficulty comprehending the given text.
The implication of this theory is that the first step in teaching reading comprehension is identifying the student's background. Do they have sufficient prior knowledge relevant to the given text? This can be done by asking the students whether they are familiar with the topic to be read or not. If they say they have not been familiar with the topic, the task of the teacher is providing necessary background knowledge. If they have got sufficient relevant background knowledge, the task of the teacher is helping them activate their prior knowledge and relate it to the new incoming information.
1. Providing Background Knowledge
When the students have not had adequate conceptual background knowledge, the first task of the teacher is helping the students establish background knowledge related to the text to be read. This can be done among others by establishing parallels between the major concept of the text and the students' experiences. For example, when the teacher is going to present a passage about 'Thanksgiving', the teacher can relate it to a party which the students have been familiar with, like syukuran or selamatan done after the harvest time. After they have got the concept of what syukuran is, he then can relate it to the concept of 'Thanksgiving'.
2. Activating Students' Prior Knowledge
There are several ways that can be used to activate the students' prior knowledge, among of which are as follows: establishing reading purposes, prequestioning, webbing, and previewing.
2.1. Providing Reading Purposes
The purpose of reading a reader has in mind is one of the sources of schemata-activation in reading comprehension. It helps a reader select and activate the appropriate prior knowledge to which he can attach the new information found in the text. Providing reading purposes or objectives before the students start to read is therefore a good technique used to activate the students' prior knowledge.
Reading purposes can also be a bridge between the students' schemata and the new incoming knowledge. According to Harris and Smith (1986: 24) a reading purpose arranges the perception, association, and organization of the reader's mind. Thus it plays an important role in determining the specific meaning extracted and kinds of associations, analysis, and judgements made. Reading purposes can be either made by a reader himself or provided by outside sources, such as reading instructor (reading teacher).
Providing students with objectives before they read is one way to set purposes for reading, and it is no other than assigning tasks to accomplish. For example, when a student is assigned to find a conclusion of a passage, first he has to recall his linguistic schema to select the most productive cues in the text. He also has to use his knowledge of the text structure to determine where the information can be found. Then he utilizes his knowledge of the content area or subject matter to predict what the right information is, or what the writer says in the text. Thus reading purposes trigger the reader to functionally activate their linguistic schema, formal schema as well as content schema simultaneously to be used to obtain the expected information.
2.2. Prequestioning
Prequestioning is another way to help students activate their prior knowledge. The questions can be provided by the teacher or can be generated by the students themselves. These questions can trigger their prior knowledge. The questions can be about the title, the first sentence, the theme, or picture about the passage to be read. Through questioning, students establish reading purposes for themselves and ask questions whose answers are needed to understand the text.
2.3. Webbing
Another way to help students recall prior knowledge and form relationship is to use webbing. When it is used, first the teacher writes a topic or term on the board, students offer terms or phrases that may be related, and lines are drawn connecting those that are associated with each other. The next step is categorizing. Here the students are helped to organize this seemingly random collection of terms into categories. The students can suggest names for the categories. For example, when the teacher is teaching a passage about Museum. The things to be categorized may be museum workers, jobs in the museums, and names of museums.
When the reading has been completed, the teacher leads the students in reinspecting the web, adding to the appropriate categories items from the article they (students) have not mentioned, and marking those not appearing in the article to look up in another source.
2.4 Previewing
Another way to help students activate and organize the students' prior knowledge is to help them quickly preview a reading selection and predict what kinds of information they may find. When students preview a reading selection, they do not begin to read it, but rather they scan each page (or part of the passage), looking at illustrations and text features such as boldface print and headings. The time allowed for this is very short so that they can get an overall general idea of the content, just enough to begin to predict about specifics. Depending on the length of the selection, two minutes or less are usually sufficient. Previewing is effective with both fiction and non fiction.
Since schemata play the key role in reading comprehension, schemata theory should guide reading teachers in selecting teaching materials (reading materials) and managing classroom activities. There are several ways that can be used to help students activate that prior knowledge. The purpose of reading a reader has in mind is one type of the sources of schemata-activation. Prequestioning, webbing, and previewing are also effective techniques that can be used in activating prior knowledge.
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Introduction
The purpose of reading is to comprehend the intended message expressed in the text. As a reader progresses through a text he builds up meaning. Meaning, however, does not reside solely in words, sentences or even longer texts (Wallace, 1986: 32). Simply knowing the structures and vocabulary contained in the text is not enough. The text itself does not convey meaning (Carrel and Eisterhold, 19983). A text only provides clues that enable readers to construct meaning from the existing knowledge. The important element in reading is the reader's ability to fit the new information in reading selection to his existing prior knowledge.The Reading Process
Reading is an interactive process. On the one hand, it is an interaction between the writer of the text and the reader. The writer projects his knowledge, language, thought and meaning in the text. Using his knowledge, language, thought, and his view of the world, a reader tries to interpret what the writer has expressed in the written text. If the creation of the writer is limited by what he knows, so is the interpretation of the reader. So on the one hand, the writing reflects the writer's schema of language, background experience, knowledge, values, points of view and his particular view. On the other hand, the reader's comprehension reflects his schema of language, background knowledge, values, experience, and his own world view. Because of the obvious differences between the writer's world view and the reader's world view, reading is never an exact process. In other words, perfect comprehension can never be achieved (Nuttal, 1982:5).The Nature of Schemata
The term schemata, according to Downing and Leong (1982: 14) was previously introduced by Kant (1781), Piaget (1926) and Bartlett (1932) to denote knowledge structure. According to Bartlett, a schema was an abstract textual structure that a reader make use of to understand a given text (Wolf, 1987): 309). According to Dansereau (in Segal, et.al., 1985: 231), the central proportion of schema theory is that prior knowledge and text's characteristics (titles, headings, and other immediately preceding material) interact to influence the interpretation and subsequent recall of new information. The prior knowledge of the reader is seen to be organized as a set of schemata, and the characteristics of material are thought to activate or inhibit particular sets of schemata.The Characteristics of Schemata
According to Rumelhart (In Spiro, et al, 1980: 35-41), a schema has variables that can be associated with different aspects of the environment on different instantion of the schema. The schema of "buy", for example, has the following variables: the purchasers, the seller, the merchandise, the money and the bargaining. The purchaser is a person who possesses a medium of exchange: money. The seller is a person who possesses the object sold: merchandise. The bargaining is the interaction between the seller and the purchaser in exchange for quantity of money.Types of Schemata
According to James (in Devine et.al., 1987:178), there are three types of schemata that play a part in the act of reading. They are linguistic schema, content schema and formal schema. The linguistic schema is knowledge of the letters and their corresponding sounds, both alone and in clusters: a reader's familiarity with the frequency of various letter clusters, and the ability to predict, through the knowledge of syntax, the word or words that follow. Too many unfamiliar words and syntax complexity in a passage can render it comprehensible (Krashen and Terrel, 1983: 132-133). Research with second language acquirers shows that word unfamiliarity and syntax complexity make contribution to reading difficulty.The Function of Schemata in Reading Comprehension
Making prediction is an important aspect in the process of reading. According to Yetta M. Goodman et al (1980:5) when we read we do not make predictions on the basis of every punctuation mark, letter, word or sentence. Instead, we select certain aspects available in language. We select the fewest, most productive cues significant to predict what the writer says (Clark and Silberstein, 1979). The weighting and significance to individual cues depend on the reader's experience, world view and language information. Thus our understanding of the world around us helps predict what the writer means as we use the syntactic and semantic system of the language.The Implication for Teaching Reading Comprehension
The task of a reading teacher may be twofold: selecting teaching materials and managing classroom activities. Schemata theory may provide a good guide for a reading teacher in carrying out these tasks.Selecting Teaching Materials
It has been previously mentioned that schemata a reader has play an important role in reading comprehension. The ease and extent of comprehension is related to the degree to which there is a match between the incoming information from the text and the knowledge and information stored in the reader's long-term memory. A difficulty may arise when there is a mismatch between the reader's knowledge and the new information from the text. A reader may not be able to correctly understand the intended message found in the text when he does not have enough schemata appropriate to the incoming information, be it linguistic schema, formal schema, and/or content schema. In other words, a reader may get difficulty in comprehending a text which is beyond his schemata. The reading materials selected therefore should be the ones which are within the reader's schemata. They must be at an appropriate level of complexity (Krashen and Terrel, 1984: 132).Teaching Procedure
Schemata theory postulates that efficient comprehension requires the ability to relate the textual material to the reader's existing or prior knowledge. The prior knowledge and the text's characteristics interact to influence the interpretation and subsequence recall of the information.Conclusion
Schemata play an important role in reading comprehension. When they are activated, they function as guiding structures which help a reader in making prediction, making inferences, allocating attention. In order that schemata become functionally effective, they must be activated during reading and meaningfully related to new information found in the text.References
Baker L. and Brown, A. L. 1985. Cognitive Monitoring in Reading Comprehension. In Flood, James (ed). Understanding Reading Comprehension. Delaware: International Reading Association Inc., 21-44.
Agustinus Ngadiman, lecturer at the Faculty of Letters, Universitas 17 Agustus 1945 Surabaya.