What did you do as you read this sentence? I am certain that you are primarily conscious of a mental picture of Peter and Bridget. But before you could form this picture, you performed a variety of other actions. You recognized the individual words, and you assigned some form of meaning to each one. You did this accurately and very quickly. In addition to constructing an image of Peter and Bridget, you probably made some inferences, predicting perhaps that the waiting room was in a doctor’s office or maybe a bus station. How could you do this? You have some prior knowledge of waiting rooms, and you used this to make this prediction. You may have also predicted that you are reading a story. If the first sentence had been “There are a variety of ways in which viruses differ from cells,” you would have predicted a nonfiction passage. You can do this because you have a sense of text structure and of how narratives differ from expository selections. You no doubt have questions. How old were Peter and Bridget? Why was he leading her? What could happen next? These questions lead you to read on to find answers.
He realized that she was extremely nervous, so he gently
suggested that she sit down.
You did the same things with this sentence, but in addition, you connected it to the first sentence. Good readers synthesize information as they read. Perhaps the fact that Bridget was nervous confirmed your prediction that they were in a doctor’s office. If you had originally thought that they were in the waiting room of a bus station, perhaps the word nervous led you to think of another possibility, such as a dentist’s office. You have added to your visual image, and I suspect you are feeling quite positive toward Peter and his gentle ways. Developing emotions toward a character or situation is an important component of the reading process.
Bridget ignored him and began to pace frantically
You have more questions than you did before, and you are using your prior knowledge and the clues in the text to predict possible answers. You are monitoring your comprehension. You are aware of your questions. You know what you are unsure of. Why did Bridget ignore Peter? Could they have had an argument? She was nervous, and nervous people might pace, but why was her pacing so frantic? You are probably considering several possible reasons—and, I might add, enjoying the suspense. Why do we stay up way past bedtime reading a book? It is because we have many questions about what will happen, and we want to find the answers. Otherwise, we know that sleep will elude us!
The other patients watched her warily, and several also
began pacing.
Perhaps one of your inferences was confirmed. The setting was a doctor’s or dentist’s office. As a good reader, you matched your knowledge of waiting rooms to the clue patients and arrived at an answer. Perhaps you are unsure of the exact meaning of warily. What did you do? I doubt that you reached for a dictionary. Caught up with the story action, you probably used the context of the story to assign a temporary meaning, such as carefully or suspiciously. You then read on, eager to find out what will happen next.
As a scream rang out from the inner office, Peter angrily forced
Bridget to sit down.
The plot has thickened! Do you like the angry Peter quite as much as the gentle Peter? Who was screaming and why? What did this scream have to do with Bridget? You are not conscious of identifying words and assigning meanings. You are caught up with what is happening! You are very aware of what you understand and of the questions you have. You want answers! You are probably
even impatient with my comments, which are interrupting the account of Peter and Bridget. So let’s move on.
Bridget moved closer to Peter, who leaned down and tenderly
scratched her ears.
Were you surprised? And if you were, wasn’t it fun? Had you considered the possibility that Bridget was a dog? Had a vet’s office even entered your list of waiting room possibilities? If you are a dog owner, I’ll bet the facts that Peter led Bridget into the room and that the other patients copied her pacing were powerful clues. Let’s summarize. What did you do as you read these few short sentences? First, you identified individual words. Most (if not all) were familiar to you, and you did not need to match letters and sounds. The words were what we call sight words—words that are recognized immediately without analysis. Warily may have been unfamiliar, but as a good reader, you were able to sound it out and pronounce it even though you had never seen it in print before. You assigned appropriate meanings to the words you identified. You connected the things you knew about waiting rooms, patients, and ear scratching with the information in the text. You made inferences and predictions based on your knowledge and the clues in the text. You asked questions and located their answers. You constructed visual images. You monitored your own comprehension or lack of it. In short, you were extremely active, and your sole focus was upon constructing meaning and finding out what was going on.
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