Redefining the experience of reading Many of us think of reading as being a silent and inward act of mental interpretation, where the reader sits still, scans a page and absorbs information, yet recent studies suggest it’s important to also consider how we use the body. Dr Sarah Bro Trasmundi is conducting a cognitive ethnography study into how students read. The current theoretical
models of reading are primarily built on the idea that all of us have an encoding and decoding system within the brain, which enables us to understand and interpret the meaning of a text. However, recent pilot studies suggest that this doesn’t cover the full picture of how we read, a topic at the heart of Dr Trasmundi’s research. “We believe that we need to investigate reading very differently and see how the body is involved in the process of reading,” she outlines. This means looking at reading as an embodied activity, where different factors need to be considered in terms of assessing the effectiveness of an individual’s approach to reading. “People may organise their environment and use their body in a particular way in reading, so we need to investigate how the body has an impact,” explains Dr Trasmundi. “This is both in terms of how we scaffold the activity, and also how we make sense of it and experience the whole action of reading.”
The study focuses on how reading on paper differs from reading on screen.
What is reading? This research is built on the idea that cognition is distributed rather than being a purely internal and brain-bound phenomenon. While traditionally reading has been understood as a silent, mental process used to interpret ‘text’, Dr Trasmundi says this is just one of the actions involved in reading. “We use hands to fetch the text, fingers to turn the pages or touch the keyboard, the voice to bring forth aesthetic and rhythmic flow and, as we experience the results, we write notes, we draw, imagine sounds, use visible expression and give structure to information. Therefore, much of what we do is future-oriented,” she says. These strategies can help people to focus on challenging or difficult parts of the text, whether it’s on paper or in digital form, and prevent their attention from wandering. “The easy way out when you get to a difficult passage of text is to do something else, but when people read aloud, they are unable to think of other things. So this form of reading helps you to focus your attention,” continues Dr Trasmundi. “We can see that in difficult passages some people rely much more on
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Pictures taken during vivid discussions in the core research group.
A student organises his working space before he starts reading.
the materials available and become more creative. They may start to use a ruler, to take more notes, or to read aloud.” Evidence suggests that those individuals who do become more animated and embodied when reading a challenging passage are more effective at dealing with it than those who remain more passive, a topic central to Dr Trasmundi’s research. Based at the University of Southern Denmark, Dr Trasmundi is conducting a research study which brings together researchers from languages and cognitive sciences to investigate reading processes among social education students using cognitive ethnography methods. “One thing we are doing is video recording students when they read. So we can see when they become frustrated and find it difficult to move on,” she outlines. One important aim in the study is to identify what precedes this. “What characterises phases in the reading where students find it difficult? What happens as they struggle?” continues Dr Trasmundi. “We also have physiological measures together with the video recordings. By using physiological measures we can determine the correlation between observational changes in the student’s reading behavior and physiological alterations. So, we investigate how a student’s display of emotional changes such as frustration, relief or laughter is interdependent with physiological alterations, and how such results relate to the function of the overall reading process.” From a recent pilot study Dr Trasmundi conducted, it is clear that the students find it easier to manipulate printed texts than digital ones. Empirically, this was observed as a more tool-based and richer embodied engagement with printed texts, which points towards how students can learn to read more effectively. “We need insight into how rich embodiment can be used as a strategy – for instance to overcome obstacles during reading – as well as informed information about when different media are appropriate for various reading tasks,” argues Dr Trasmundi. The literature is scarce when it comes to explaining how and when students apply different embodied strategies – such as
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voicing, drawing, note-taking, touching, gesturing, underlining etc. – to give the text a different materiality or ‘life’ and what function this has for the reading experience and learning outcome respectively. Also, Dr Trasmundi mentions that negative reading experiences are more likely to occur when a student is narrowly focused on gaining information from the text rather than engaging with it more creatively. This idea of reading as a kind of constrained activity, as a means of getting the information required to pass an exam for example, is another topic of interest to Dr Trasmundi. “We need to better understand how students constrain their reading due to a very narrow understanding of what it is and how they are supposed to read,” she says. As students progress through the education system exam pressure increases, and students need to learn material from books if they want to be successful, yet this does not preclude students from engaging creatively with books. “There’s a balance to be struck there,” argues Dr Trasmundi. “Students may think that there is one right way to read – to find the meaning in a text and be able to memorise as much as possible. However, the best students are actually able to do more than just understanding the meaning of a text on a very literal level.”
How do University College Students Read? Project Objectives
In the ACE-Lab the reading group continuously discusses and evaluates the incoming data and results.
Reading practices This is an important issue in terms of the project’s wider agenda, with the aim being to help students establish more efficient reading practices, while this research could also hold relevance to teaching right down to primary level. Young children generally love stories and learning to read, yet this enjoyment gradually seeps away as they get older. “Something goes wrong there, when we take away creativity in reading practices. For example, there was a study looking at a 5-year old child who had started to read and was doing well. 6 years later it seemed like he had got worse - there were pauses and mistakes when he read,” says Dr Trasmundi. “However, when this was investigated in more depth, it was found that this was because he was anticipating what the story was about, using his real-life experience. These mistakes may occur because they are being
Is there a phase in reading where students find it difficult? What happens as they struggle? We have physiological measures together with the video recordings. So we can correlate physiological data with video observations. The students will be observed over the course of a year during the study, with researchers looking to investigate whether students adapt their strategies to deal with reading challenges in different contexts. This involves following students during preparatory, background reading, in groups where they discuss texts with their peers, and then in class as well. This work holds important implications in terms of reducing the high drop-out rate among social education students, an issue of which Dr Trasmundi is well aware. “It is a problem if we lose someone from their studies because they are unable to establish efficient reading practices. This may be not because they lack talent or interest in a certain theme or topic, but because we have expectations about what they should do when they read,” she continues. “The problem is more due to our misunderstanding of what reading is, rather than their talent or actual reading skills.”
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creative and trying to work with the text and may have less to do with their actual reading skills.” A teacher may correct a student in this situation, with the aim of encouraging them to focus on accurate reading aloud, which could have a negative impact on the child’s enjoyment. While encoding and decoding information are of course central to reading, Dr Trasmundi believes that it’s important to also consider the creative processes going on beyond that. “It’s really important that we integrate that knowledge into the theory and models of language and reading,” she stresses. A second aim is to build a deeper understanding of why particular groups of people struggle with reading. “What’s really going on there? Is reading always a struggle? It’s about understanding what’s going on, and using those results to identify how we can improve education,” continues Dr Trasmundi. “How can we inform teachers, help them understand what reading is about in more detail, and how they should organise their lessons?”
Many students read passively and fail to construct accurate comprehension without the guidance of a purpose or goal for reading. This an important factor behind the stubbornly high drop-out rate in University, with around 30 percent of all BA students dropping out of their studies. The project aims to help address this problem by building a rigorous and reliable evidence base. Physiological measures will be combined with video observation in a longitudinal cognitive, ethnographic study to explore the process and outcomes of reading from an embodied and ecological perspective
Project Funding
Independent Research Fund Denmark: 2.833.000DKR. /app. € 380.000
Project Partners
• Prof. Anne Mangen, University of Stavanger; • Prof Christian Benne, University of Copenhagen; • Prof Jürgen Streeck, University of Austin, Texas; • Prof. Stephen Cowley, University of Southern Denmark • Bettina Buch, University College Absalon.
Contact Details
Project Coordinator, Sarah Bro Trasmundi Associate Professor, PhD Director, Advanced Cognitive Ethnography Lab Director, Centre of Human Interactivity Department of Language and Communication University of Southern Denmark Campusvej 55 5230 Odense M T: +45 65 50 45 42 E: sarbro@sdu.dk W: www.sdu.dk W: sdu.dk/en/ace-lab Sarah Bro Trasmundi
Sarah Bro Trasmundi is Associate Professor in the Department of Language and Communication at the University of Southern Denmark. Her main research interests are cognitive ethnography, distributed cognition and distributed language.
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