Summary Assignment

Ridgway Tony (2003). Literacy and Foreign Language Reading.

Reading in a Foreign Language, Volume 15, No. 2, October 2003, 1539-0578

The article of “Literacy and Foreign Language Reading” by Tony Ridgway stated that the objective of the article is to give a guidance to the teacher of foreign language reading a technique of coping with familiar occurrences in the reading class, such as the use of improper strategy in dealing with a text by many students even those with high level of language proficiency. The thesis of the essays is that the progress of the literacy in a certain community will be prevented by some assumptions on literacy which favour more on cognitive elements better than socio-cultural consideration. Styles and attitude in reading is the issue addressed in “Literacy and Foreign Language Reading” by Tony Ridgway with the subheading of literacy or literacies. The author delve into the recent progress of mass literacy globally, the dissimilar concepts of literacy which occur within and between cultures, and he also argues that those two things will influence on how people approach a text. In this paper the author concluded that literacy consists of several skill set including (1) skills, the ability to do something well; (2) strategies, a plan designed to achieve something; (3) styles, a distinctive way of doing something; and (4) attitudes, a certain way of thinking or behaviour toward literacy. Furthermore, the writer also explains that there are other aspects which may affect people's literacy level such as their cognitive elements as well as their cultural diversity. Thus, he further elaborates that cultural environment and family upbringing will have a certain impact on someone level of literacy and these may influence on how people read a text completely.