por The interpretive skills or reading skills are those that allow recognizing and understanding the most important ideas contained in a text. In this sense, they are the skills that help to understand the meaning of a text as a complex structure full of different meanings.
Interpretive skills make it possible to identify and recognize various situations, problems, propositions, graphics, maps, diagrams, and arguments contained in a text.
All this with the aim of being able to understand its meaning and establish a position for or against what is proposed in the text. In other words, interpretive skills allow a reconstruction of a text in a particular and general way.
The interpretative ones are part of the three communicative competences, among which are also the comprehensive and the propositive ones.
The interpretation process is done through language and the way in which the reader understands reality. Therefore, interpretation cannot be understood as a decoding process, but as a complex event of mental events used to reconstruct an event and understand the information derived from it.
Finally, the interpretative competences grant the possibility of producing new content, derived from what was understood from the read and interpreted text.
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What is interpretation?
The term interpretation, according to Aleksandr Luria (one of the first authors of neurolinguistics), plays a fundamental role in the cognitive processes of the human being. It is also the way in which higher psychic processes are regulated in the human brain.
The interpretation is done through language, and this is the reflection of the individual vision that each person has of the world. In this sense, the interpretation through the use of language determines the way we perceive and understand reality.
Thus, when the meaning of the word is modified, its linguistic sign is lost and the way in which the reader understands its context. For this reason, Luria indicates that reading cannot be a simple act of decoding signs, but rather a complex event in which the meaning of what is read is reconstructed.
The reader always interrelates the sentences with each other, going through different communicative skills. In this way, the reader manages to understand the meaning of a discourse going from the global to the particular.
This interpretive process is a dynamic process where words acquire meaning according to the mental structure of the reader.
Types of communication skills
Linguistically, three types of communicative competences have been defined. Each type comprises a complex level of communication, which develops in a non-linear way according to the potential and previous knowledge of each subject.
Comprehensive or argumentative skills
Comprehensive communication skills are those that care about what is said. In this way, they try to find meaning in any speech. They look for the argument within it.
interpretive skills
Unlike comprehensive competencies, interpretative competencies seek to understand the reason for the discourse. In this way, it answers the question “what for?”, with the aim of understanding the intention of what is said.
In turn, this communicative competence uses the essence of interpretation to propose new concepts, realities, and ideas.
These new constructions are born from the reader’s understanding and his ability to know the different systems, rules, and codes (verbal, cultural, and social) existing within his context.
purposeful competencies
Propositional competencies speak of the social, cultural and ideological elements that are part of the discourse.
They are in charge of answering the question “why?”, being a way of seeking to establish relationships between different discourses and contexts. This type of communicative competences are located at the metasemantic and intertextual level.
Functioning of interpretive or reading skills
The starting point of the interpretative competences is the posing of questions that allow us to understand the meaning of a text.
Some authors like Van Dijk affirm that a text can be reduced to a smaller number of propositions without losing its meaning. On the other hand, the interpretation of a text depends entirely on the reader, since it is he who is in charge of understanding its meaning.
The understanding of said meaning is linked to the mental representation that a person makes of the concepts, influenced by their previous experiences.
This mental structure makes it possible to understand the meaning of words even when they are misspelled. This is because the interpretive process is complex, and is linked to different structures of thought.
Qualities
Interpretive competence allows the reader to understand the meaning of words and to relate and integrate them with their prior knowledge.
Another quality of this competence is that when applied, it allows the reader to produce new ideas and arguments, advancing in the creation of knowledge and understanding of related topics.
It allows the critical and autonomous analysis of a discourse, in order to find meaning and a later use.
The school
Today, schools give greater importance to interpretive skills, since they show less interest in memorizing content and a greater interest in understanding its meaning.
Reading comprehension has acquired a new importance that allows the strengthening of other mental skills, developing logic and linguistic sensitivity.
Therefore, in order for any student to be competent at an interpretive level, they must first understand what interpretive competences consist of, and thus, later analyze the content of a text.
At the school level, interpretive competence is related to the semiotic and cognitive abilities of the reader.
These capacities allow the student to read, understand, find meaning in what has been read, and intellectually use those of the content that may be useful to produce another text, graph, map, among others.
types of readers
Bad: only identifies specific information from the text.
Regular: identifies more complex information, makes simple inferences, is capable of integrating information that is segmented, and establishes relationships between all parties.
Good: identifies implicit information present in the texts, capturing different nuances and evaluating them critically. He is able to formulate hypotheses.
References
(October 16, 2010). reading skills. Obtained from INTERPRETATIVE COMPETENCES: equipo3diplomadoiava.blogspot.com.
Manrique, JF (2014). DEVELOPMENT OF INTERPRETIVE COMPETENCE IN STUDENTS. Bogota, DC: FREE UNIVERSITY.
thinking, E. (2017). the thinker. Retrieved from The interpretative competences: educacion.elpensante.com.
Quindio, C.d. (October 28, 2013). Chronicle of Quindio. Obtained from Development of argumentative and propositive interpretative competences: cronicadelquindio.com
Rastier, F. (2005). interpretive semantics. Paris: Twenty-First Century.