THE MYTH OF EASY READING
Keith L. Raitz
University of Louisville
A book is like a mirror:
When a monkey looks in, no apostle looks out.Lichtenberg
The myth of easy reading is embedded in our language, in the ways we talk about reading. It is not surprising, therefore, that the myth frequently shows up in the theories of reading specialists or that it is perpetuated in many school reading programs. That easy reading is a myth is suggested by the fact that so few students ever learn to read well as a result of their schooling — that is, beyond the level of semi-literacy. In this paper, I explore the easy-reading myth as a cause of poor reading, the inability of many students to comprehend all but the simplest kinds of writing.
“Reading for comprehension” is generally accepted as the goal of early school reading programs. I want to argue, however, that comprehension is not a goal, or purpose, of reading and certainly not the purpose. It is, rather, part of what it means to read. When we say that a person is reading, we may mean that the person is merely identifying symbols, either aloud or silently. Examples are the kindergarten child saying without understanding the meaning of words in a book, or an adult who is able to “sound out” a sentence in Spanish without understanding what it means. Reading as identifying is contrasted with reading as comprehending the meaning of symbols. In this latter sense, “reading without comprehending the meaning” is a contradiction in terms, and “reading for comprehension” is redundant. When trying to read, one is trying to comprehend. And, although the attempt may be unsuccessful (“I just couldn’t read it”), it seems clear that the word “reading” does not apply to our efforts unless we comprehend, at least in some minimal sense, the meaning of the symbols we confront. The fact that one may comprehend more or less well, of course, accounts for the vagueness of the notion of reading. But here is the important point. Saying that reading means comprehending symbols is quite different from saying that comprehension is the purpose of reading or even the purpose of reading. Similarly, discovering is not the purpose of finding, getting someplace is not the purpose of arriving, and consuming liquid is not the purpose of drinking. And, to take the last example, the fact that one may have many purposes for drinking does not alter the conceptual fact that drinking means consuming liquid.1
The nature of the relationship between identifying and comprehending the meaning of symbols has been debated by reading theorists for some time now. It may be the case that children must learn (through phonics instruction, for example) to identify textual symbols aloud and, in so doing, convert them into aural symbols whose meaning the children already understand. According to this view, identification gradually becomes an autonomic process (i.e., something children accomplish without consciously attending to it) as they apprehend meaning directly from textual symbols. There are many debates concerning this account of learning to read. Many children may come to school with such experience and linguistic ability that phonics instruction is unnecessary, boring, and, ultimately, counterproductive in that it dampens their enthusiasm for learning to read. And many other children may not catch on to phonics instruction because they come to school lacking the necessary experience and linguistic ability — deficiencies that cannot be corrected by remedial phonics instruction. Despite the continuing debate, however, it seems safe to say that this general account of learning to read is the account that underlies most early school reading programs. I mention it here because it may help to make some sense of the claim that reading is for comprehension. This claim could mean that the purpose of reading (as identifying textual symbols) is to comprehend the meaning of textual symbols. This amounts to saying that the purpose of reading is reading, but the ambiguity of “reading” prevents redundancy or tautology. Later, I will return to this account of learning to read, an account that may contribute to the belief that, once one has mastered the skills of identification, comprehending becomes a relatively simple matter of “receiving” or “taking in” whatever message is “in” a text. But, first, I want to consider another instance of confusing the meaning with the purpose of reading.
Some reading theorists, who believe, as do I, that reading is not such an easy business, also reject the account of reading as receiving the message of an author contained in a text. For example, Deanne Bogdan and Stanley Straw, the editors of Beyond Communication: Reading Comprehension and Criticism, propose an “actualization model” of reading, according to which the “central purposes of reading are internal to and generated by” readers, who seek “to realize their own potential and meaning within their own unique circumstances.”2 Their actualization model characterizes reading as an activity in which the reader “makes” meaning instead of “receiving” or “apprehending” it ready-made from authors or texts. Their negative thesis is of interest here. They argue that reading is not merely and not primarily the final stage of a communication process initiated by an author who uses a text to convey his or her meaning to a reader. To understand reading in terms of such a communication process, they say, is to limit the reader’s task to fulfilling the terms of a “communication contract” with an author: the author’s purpose (sending a message) determines the reader’s purpose (receiving the message as sent). Thus, in terms of this contract, reading is defined as at least some minimal reception of the author’s intended message — i.e., comprehension of the author’s meaning as contained in the text. Bogdan and Straw go beyond communication by rejecting this communication contract and, with it, the assumption that the reader’s purpose is fixed by the author’s.
The motive of this attack on the communication contract is a desire to undermine the authority of author and text as a way of overthrowing “the hegemonies of the past and the autocracies of author and text” and reconceptualizing reading in a way that is “emancipatory in its emphasis on empowerment and choice.”3 It seems to me, however, that Bogdan and Straw may be teetering on the edge of the pit, if they have not fallen into it, that awaits anyone who confuses the meaning with the purpose of reading. That is, they seem to maintain that receiving an author’s message (comprehending) is a purpose of reading and that traditional conceptions of reading have led us to believe that it is the purpose. They grant that comprehension is one purpose a reader might have, but only one among many other possible purposes. But, if comprehending a text is one purpose a reader might have, it is, of course, a purpose a reader might not have. Following this line of reasoning seems to lead Bogdan and Straw to question traditional conceptions of reading and the communication contract upon which they are based, a contract that apparently identifies comprehension as the purpose of reading. Thus, the communication contract appears to neglect or discount other purposes that readers may also have, purposes that seem just as legitimate as comprehension. In order to assert the validity of readers’ purposes, therefore, it seems necessary to reject traditional accounts of reading and to go beyond communication by rejecting the “contract” that denies the legitimacy of all readers’ purposes, save comprehension. However, if my argument thus far is correct, the communication contract is relevant to the meaning of reading and has nothing necessarily to do with the purposes of readers. Reading means comprehending, and reading/comprehending may be directed by any number of different purposes, e.g., enjoying a story, learning a scientific theory, gathering information, baking a cake from a recipe, and so on.
I believe Bogdan and Straw are right when they maintain that a communication contract underlies traditional conceptions of reading. For example, it seems to underlie the conception of reading we find in early school reading programs, namely, the idea that, by learning to identify symbols, children will learn to comprehend the meaning of these symbols and, thus, be prepared to receive messages from texts. But I believe that both early school reading programs and the editors of Beyond Communication misrepresent the terms of the contract. Reading is comprehending an author’s text, but it is not as easy as contracting for delivery of a load of lumber and then being on hand to receive it. Or, to use a more appropriate analogy, reading as comprehending is not as easy as turning on a water tap in our homes with perfect confidence that the water company will live up to its end of the bargain to supply the water.
Suppose we were to think of authors as sources of meaning, of their books as conduits through which meaning flows, and of readers as consumers who drink in the meaning supplied by authors. Comprehending a text would be as easy as turning on the faucet, although, perhaps, authors and books would be no more interesting than water companies and plumbing fixtures. According to Michael Reddy, we do tend to think of language as a kind of conduit through which an author’s thoughts and feelings flow to a reader. Citing some 140 metaphorical expressions, Reddy argues that the semantic structures of our language tell us a particular story about how language functions: authors put their meaning (thoughts and feelings) into words; the words themselves contain meaning; and readers get meaning by extracting it from words. We are led by the conduit metaphor to believe that good writers are those who fill their words with meaning, and bad writers are those whose words are impenetrable or empty of meaning. Furthermore, Reddy observes, the semantic structures of English make it easier to blame writers for communication failures. “After all,” he says, if authors package meaning in words,
receiving and unwrapping a package is so passive and so simple — what can go wrong? A package can be difficult or impossible to open. But, if it is undamaged, and successfully opened, who can fail to find the right things in it?4If readers pay attention to the text, the conduit metaphor seems to tell us, there is little excuse for not “finding” the meaning that is there in the words.
Reddy’s conduit metaphor is quite consistent with the school account of learning to read as identification and comprehension. Identification is the unwrapping, which leads “inevitably” to comprehension, that is, to finding the message words contain. And this metaphorical terminology is marvelously consistent with what goes on in many schools. Children are taught to read (or to pre-read) as soon as they enter school because reading, the most important of the school arts, is necessary to unwrap and find the right things in textbooks, workbooks, teachers’ communications, tests, and so on. Throughout school, reading is really believed to be for comprehension. There are textbooks in science, math, and history to be unwrapped so that children can find the right things in them, namely, the things the teacher knows that students are led to believe can be found in the books. And, as students often complain, the only reason for finding these things seems to be to “give them back” to teachers, who check to see if they are the right things. Many children, of course, don’t find the right things in books; and, doubtlessly, many others don’t care for what they do find, probably because they know they have to give it back anyway. It is puzzling that some children, who seem to have the requisite perceptual and neurological equipment, cannot learn how to unwrap textual packages and find what lies within, especially when they are handed the easiest kinds of packages to unwrap. It is puzzling, too, that the unwrapping abilities that many children clearly possessed in the second grade seem to deteriorate by the time they get to the fourth or fifth grade. I have noticed that even some of my graduate students are not particularly adept at opening the packages listed on my course syllabi. Many of these students assure me, however, that these packages are impenetrable, that there is nothing in them, or, at least, that they (the students) cannot get anything out of them. With rare exceptions, the implication is that the books I select for my courses are the products of bad writers, either because these writers did not put anything into their books or because they made it too difficult to get anything out of them.
Surely, there is something to Reddy’s argument that the semantic structures of our language lead us to accept the account of reading and comprehending that he refers to as the conduit metaphor. I am convinced that it is the conduit metaphor and not the communication contract underlying language that the editors of Beyond Communication would like to exorcise in the name of reader empowerment. My argument is that we cannot abrogate the communication contract by making comprehension merely another purpose of reading because comprehension is not a purpose of reading. When we read, we must comprehend something, and I cannot imagine what that something could be if it is not a text written by some author. It is the conduit metaphor, a particular account of the communicative function of language, that distorts our understanding of comprehension. If we believe that reading should empower readers, we need a better understanding of what it means to comprehend a text.
According to Reddy, the conduit metaphor leads us to believe that authors somehow put their thoughts and feelings into words — into an external “idea space” where these thoughts and feelings are reified. Here they exist apart from human minds unless or until they pass into the mind of a reader. Putting thoughts and feelings into words is generally considered to be a difficult task requiring considerable skill and, perhaps, creativity. Therefore, the conduit metaphor tells us that writers are primarily responsible for communicative successes and failures. The reader, however, must merely be at the receiving end of the conduit, and, thus, Reddy says, reading is believed to be an activity involving “success without effort.” He argues that this is a distorted view of reading and that reading should be understood instead as an activity requiring readers to expend a good deal of energy.
Here, I can only outline the essential features of Reddy’s account of reading. He assumes a radical subjectivity on the part of author and reader, each of whom has a distinctive “repertoire” of thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and so on, as a result of individual circumstances and prior experience. The author cannot literally put thoughts into words (or anywhere else, for that matter); thoughts and the other contents of mental repertoires lack the intersubjective reality of lamps, tables, or other things that can be put into literal packages. But what an author can do, according to Reddy, is provide the reader with a “set of instructions” that can be used by the reader to “reconstruct” the author’s thoughts. The instructions, or text, preserves the extremely complex relationships, or “patterns of organization,” of the author’s thoughts. Reddy does not intend merely to exchange one metaphor for another. He argues that, if we understand reading as reconstructing an author’s meaning, we will be closer to the truth of the matter, and we will be able to avoid the distortions of the conduit metaphor. It does seem that reading is more like reconstructing an author’s meaning from a set of instructions than receiving, grasping, or extracting thoughts from a text. We often speak of “making sense of a text,” and unpacking this phrase does not commit us to reified thoughts that somehow exist inside written language.
This brief explication hardly does justice to Reddy’s account, but, even in such an abbreviated form, his explanation is quite an improvement on the conduit metaphor, which tends to trivialize reading. The account of reading as reconstructing an author’s meaning by making sense of a text gives us an entirely different perspective. Reading is neither as simple nor as passive as the conduit metaphor suggests. To reconstruct an author’s meaning, readers must possess sophisticated abilities and well-stocked minds that would not be necessary if reading were simply a matter of standing at the end of a pipeline. The assumption of radical subjectivity means that readers’ minds will never match those of the authors they read, although communication would be impossible if authors and readers did not have many thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and experiences in common. Nevertheless, the gulf between authors and readers — especially if it is a large one — requires readers to work hard to make sense of texts. As Reddy points out, comprehension of texts is not easy or automatic. As his account of reading suggests, it is just the opposite.
Partial miscommunication, or divergence of readings from a single text, are not aberrations. They are tendencies inherent in the system, which can only be counteracted by continuous effort and by large amounts of verbal interaction.5
Apparently, there is good news and bad news in Reddy’s conception of reading as reconstructing meaning. The bad news is that, contrary to the story told by the conduit metaphor, trying to comprehend, or reconstruct, meaning can be an exceedingly difficult task, especially if the reader’s mental repertoire is substantially different from the author’s. But this is not necessarily bad. If children are led to believe that reading is an activity involving success without effort, they will have little reason to take responsibility for trying to comprehend difficult reading matter. When they become college students, for example, they will tend to blame authors for impenetrable texts. (“Why can’t these authors just say what they mean?”) Or — another possibility — they will tend to harbor feelings of self-doubt and suspicions of personal inadequacy when they find themselves unable to get any meaning out of what they read. However, if children are confronted with the truth that reading can be an activity requiring considerable effort, they will have more reason to approach difficult texts with realistic expectations and to take justifiable pride when their efforts to comprehend are successful.
The good news in Reddy’s account of reading is that meaning-making is not solely a task to be accomplished by individual readers. Meaning-making is the work of an individual reader, but, in a larger sense, it is also an essential part of the communal activity of inquiry. The reader’s private efforts to comprehend are the counterpart of the “large amounts of verbal interaction” of the sort that constitutes the public efforts of social inquiry. Not just any verbal interaction counts as social inquiry, of course. Typically, an elementary school teacher asks children questions to check their comprehension of stories. But this activity and the other typical activities of early school reading programs can hardly be called inquiry inasmuch as meaning as well as truth have been ascertained in advance of discussion by the teacher or the teacher’s guide. Here is a verbal exchange I recently overheard in a first-grade class:
Teacher: Why is the cow called “Blue Bell”?This points to another problem. A basic assumption of inquiry is that there is something worth inquiring about. In seven years of observing reading instruction in some 30 schools, I have yet to run across in the stories children are asked to read any vagueness, ambiguity, metaphor, irony, or any of the many other features of language that challenge and reward readers, features that make meaning-making necessary. It is presumptuous to assume that young children cannot or should not grapple with these features of language, which are ever present in the language that surrounds us all. For example, imagine the puzzlement of a child who is told that she has her father’s nose or that her arm feels strange because it has gone to sleep. Children must grapple with all manner of puzzling language such as this if they are to make sense of what adults say. To learn about metaphor is to learn about an important tool that is used to make meaning. To learn about ambiguity is to discover a common source of confusion in the instructions writers provide to reconstruct their meaning. Yet these and other tools and sources of misunderstanding are absent from the reading material used to teach children to read. And, as a result, typical forms of reading instruction neither engage children in inquiry nor prepare them for it.
Jason: Because she’s wearing a blue bell?
Teacher: Right! That’s very good, Jason!
The tools of meaning-making are sophisticated tools, and the instructions for using them can be confusing. Readers need to pay attention to these tools, to care for them, and to use them carefully when they try to carry out the instructions authors provide to reconstruct meaning. Reading can be hard, and, when it is, we would do well to enlist the help of our fellow meaning-makers. If these conclusions are warranted, then the myth of easy reading and the instructional programs that perpetuate this myth are disempowering in the sense of being mis-educative. As many other myths embedded in our language and many other institutional practices we take for granted, the myth and practices I have examined in this paper tend to limit, rather than expand, the range of meaningful thought and action. And the expansion of meaningful experience is the primary purpose of teaching children to read. To the extent we achieve this purpose, we will be more likely to enable children to achieve their own purposes as mature readers and as educated persons.
For a response to
this essay, see Bogdan and
Cunningham.
1 For an excellent analysis of the meaning of reading, see M. Wiener and C. Cromer, “Reading and Reading Difficulty: A Conceptual Analysis,” Harvard Educational Review 37 (1967): 620-43.
2 Beyond Communication: Reading Comprehension and Criticism, eds. Deanne Bogdan and Stanley Straw (Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Boynton/Cook Publishers, 1990), 3; emphasis in the original.
3 Ibid., 8.
4 M. Reddy, “The Conduit Metaphor — A Case of Frame Conflict in Our Language about Language,” in Metaphor and Thought, ed. A. Ortony (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 289. Reddy’s article is concerned generally with language and communication. I interpret his discussion here as it applies specifically to reading.
5 Ibid., 295.