Critical Review of the Models of Reading Comprehension with a Focus on Situation Models

Abstract

Research directed at unveiling the complexities of reading skill burgeoned in conjunction with the advancements in the field of psycholinguistics. Tremendous effort has been made to make sense of the complex process of the underlying multi-faceted mechanisms of inference generation during reading. In this respect, the situation models have recently gained ground. In studies focused on reading skill, situation models are of top priority, because they illuminate the interactions among different components including the process of information network activation, strategic and conscious-based inference as well as the textual and meta-textual representations in the readers’ memory. This paper reviews prevalent reading models with a focus on the critical analysis of three foundational situation models including, Event-Indexing, Construction-Integration and StructureBuilding models of comprehension. Unlike the previous research, the orientation of this paper toward situation models is based on their use in second language reading, which is simplified in tune and comprehensive in content. Its implications are beneficial for the wide spectrum of SLA theorists, teachers and students for the reading skill purposes.