ABSTRACT
The compensatory model illustrated in Chapter 2 is constructed, broadly speaking, around three key components that appear repeatedly in the studies of the second-language reading process outlined in Chapter 3. The task of this chapter is to present the case that these key components should be present, therefore, in the instruction of second-language reading and should provide an organizational basis for upper-register literacy learning as well as assessment. To reiterate, the component that seems to contribute the most to second-language readers’ performances is language knowledge; the second largest research-based component is first-language literacy; the third component, about which far less is known is other, which must surely entail factors such as background knowledge and motivation. To understand the notion of compensation is to grasp the critical point that these factors are not independent of one another; in fact, they are even more than dependent, they are inextricably intertwined because they are used by readers simultaneously in a compensatory fashion. One factor does not operate without the other in second-language reading contexts. Given this state of affairs, this chapter embraces three tasks. First, it interrogates how scholars who write about the teaching and learning of second-language reading account for and/or acknowledge these factors. In that discussion, it questions how and, for that matter, whether teachers can be cognizant of the second-language reading process and teach the components, while not tearing them apart, and whether they can bring readers to understand how to engage their natural compensatory tendencies profitably. Second, the chapter probes how second-language readers employ the variables in a compensatory fashion and how they might learn to use these factors in a more sophisticated fashion as they reach toward independence. Finally, it offers illustrations of instructional sequences that use first-language literacy to help learners strive toward the upper reaches of comprehension.
