Critical Reading - Critical Thinking and College Reading.

CRITICAL READING CRITICAL THINKING AND COLLEGE READING John Follman University of South Florida U,S, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION & WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY. Underlying assumptions, enhancement procedures, and problems associated with the enhancement of critical reading were discussed. Empirical evidence was cited to demonstrate that critical reading could be defined. Critical reading was defined as overlapping substantially with critical thinking, sharing with critical thinking a very large verbal component particularly vocabulary as well as reasoning and classifying activities'. Documentation was provided to show that critical reading is desired educational objective and also that critical reading can be developed. Approaches to enhance students, critical reading critical thinking ability were cited: development of vocabulary ability; propaganda analysis; practice with verbal evidence, scientific method, reasoning; practice in inferring beyond literal meaning; analysis of affective and value language; and games. Typical problems associated with the enhancement of critical reading critical thinking were cited: inadequate vocabulary ability; reaction evoked by questioning, critical reading critical thinking of traditional a Follman Abstract p.2. attitudes and values; lack of suitable materials; measurement and evaluation; effectiveness of different enhancement approaches; transfer. Finally systematic, explicated critical reading enhancement and investigation efforts were recommended. CRITICAL READING CRITICAL THINKIDIG AND COLLEGE READING John Follman University of South Florida My charge in preparing this paper was to discuss critical reading and college reading. In discussing any construct such as critical reading it is necessary to explicate the underlying assumptions. In this treatise three assumptions will be discussed. The first assumption is that we know what critical reading is or else that we can define it. The second assumption is that it is desirable for students to read critically. The third assumption is that critical reading can be taught, enhanced, improved, facilitated, in one or more ways. We will initially discuss the first assumption, the definition of critical reading. There has been a plethora of opinion, theoretical articles in which critical reading has been defined. These definitions range from critical reading defined as one variable to critical reading defined as a composite of variables. The consequence of this surfeit of definitions is the considerable confusion that surrounds the concept, as King, Ellinger, and Wolf noted.1 Smith2likewise stated that critical .eading is the area in reading skills in which confusion is most apparent. The basic reason for the confusion concerning the definition of critical reading is the lack of research. The problem of the definition of critical reading is currently under systematic investigation by the writer and colleagues. The objective of this research program is to attempt to determine the definition of critical reading through inferences from correlations and factor structure of critical reading, critical thinking, reading, language and other ability and achievement tests on two levels, fifth grade and twelfth grade. Preliminary findings (Follman, Lowe, Johnson and Bullock;3Follman, Lowe, Johnson, and Miller;4 Follman, Lowe, and Wiley;5Follman, Wiley, Lowe, and Miller6) indicate evidence for the existence of the construct of critical reading; evidence of considerable overlap between critical reading and critical thinking, evidence of large overlap between critical reading critical thinking and language ability particularly vocabulary, and also reasoning, classifying, etc. These findings are consistent to a considerable extent with the findings of Wolf7who factor analyzed. a