EN 1102: Advanced Reading Skills I
Nature and purposes of reading
· What is Reading:
Give two or three definitions
- “What the brain does in ‘reading’ is to make sense
of a particular piece of written language in the light of prior knowledge and
current intentions and expectations of the reader” (Frank Smith 1982.
Understanding Reading)
- Interactive process in which the reader constructs
meaning from a particular piece of writing.
· What do good
readers do when they read?
Get actively involved with the text to understand
words, syntax, content (intended message)
· What is necessary
for good reading?
To understand
that:
- Reading efficiently means tackling everyday tasks
with a clear purpose.
- Need to adjust reading strategy to suit the purpose
- Different reading tasks require different degrees
of attention and understanding
- There is a close relationship between reading and
other skills and therefore reading should be integrated with writing, speaking
and listening.
· Get students to
list the purposes of reading and the type of texts
- To learn,
- To function in society
- To satisfy personal interests
Reading skills: scanning and skimming: develop
speed reading
· Scanning- read
rapidly to locate specific information.
· Text types:
reading an index, telephone directory, a dictionary to find a word, a name, a
number. reading notes, messages, letters, news items etc. to find some specific
information, provide opportunities to scan different text types
· Skimming: reading
to obtain the general, overall idea / gist of the whole text
- Make students aware of the parts of the text which
contain the most important information and that they should read only those
- Read the introductory and concluding paragraphs,
the first and the last sentences of the paragraphs in between. Pick up the key
words such as dates, names, wile moving their eyes down the page
- Imposing time limits and comparing the time
required by various students will be a rapid reading technique.
Literal comprehension: understanding directly
stated information
· Techniques: fact
questions based directly on the text
- True/false statements
- Completion
- Multiple choice questions
· Text types:
brochures, information manuals, letters, news reports, etc.
Oral reading in meaningful units
· Provide activities
to:
- Read aloud with understanding and expression,
correct phrasing
- Read to an audience and maintain eye contact
- Adjust reading rate to specific purposes and
materials
· Types of
activities:
- Sharing a selection with others (e.g., a poem in a
magazine / a story)
- Dramatic oral reading: part of a story / drama etc.
Reading skills: word attack skills
· Deducing meaning
of unfamiliar words using context clues
- Using other words such as synonyms and antonyms in
the same sentence or paragraph
- Using the meaning of the sentence as a whole e.g.
The Indians cut their canoes out of tree trunks by using an adze. The meaning
of adze can be deduced from the meaning of the whole sentence.
- Using structural and morphological information
- Guessing the word class
- Understanding the way how suffixes and prefixes are
used to build words
Text attack skills: interpreting grammatical
cohesive devices-reference, substitution, elliptical expressions
· What is
Cohesion? What are cohesive devices?
Cohesion helps a text to hang together. (Combine
well). It expresses the continuity that exists between a part of a text and
another part. Cohesive devices help in achieving cohesion. They are of two main
types – grammatical and lexical.
· Grammatical
cohesive devices:
- Reference: identifying the meaning of proforms such
as it, he, our, these, those, which are used to avoid repetition
- Substitution: e.g. I have a red pen, but Nimal has
a blue one.
Show the difference between substitution and
reference.
- Ellipsis: leaving out a word/words from a sentence
which the reader can understand from the surrounding text: e.g. They came
although they were asked not to.(not to come)
(Ref. Nuttall page
90-92)
