READING SKILLS

Purpose of reading.

Reading is one of most important academic tasks faced by students; it is equally

important in the professional working world.

Reading consists of two processes:

i. Word recognition
ii. Comprehension
The purpose of reading is to make sense out of what you read.

Besides reading academic texts and professional documents, we require to read

several other kinds of texts for the various purpose mentioned here:

i. Enhancing reading ability.

ii. Knowing about what is happening around.
iii. Enhancing general awareness on the developments in science, technology,
education, business, sports, entertainment, etc.
iv. Expanding vocabulary.
v. Developing writing skills.
vi. Deriving pleasure.
vii. Developing overall personality.
viii. Understanding and appreciating various styles of writing.
Reading is not passive activity. It is interactive in which reader brings his background
knowledge, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, experience with the text and other
strategies to the text in front of him. Perceiving a written text in order to understand its
content is called Silent Reading.

Saying a written text aloud is referred as Oral Reading. This can be done with or
without an understanding of the contents.

Types of reading

We read different texts for different purposes. There are two types of reading according
to the purpose of reading:

a. Intensive reading
b. Extensive reading

a. Intensive Reading:
i. Intensive reading is reading carried out for a complete or comprehensive
understanding of the text by focusing on vocabulary, sentence structure and
also the coherence among the various parts of text. It may also be called
 academic reading.
ii. Intensive reading involves several skills like predicting the content,
understanding the gist, scanning, identifying the topic sentence and its role in
each paragraph of the text, transferring of information, understanding discourse
coherence, and sequencing of sentences.
Example: When we read a textbook on Civil Engineering, we may sincerely try to grasp
the meaning of almost all words. We may also have to retain the grasped information
in our memory over a period of time for answering question in examinations,
performing practical sessions.

b. Extensive Reading:
i. Extensive reading is a type of reading that is carried out for an overall or a
general understanding of the text without aiming for 100% comprehension.
ii. When you are involved in extensive reading, you may not focus on vocabulary,
syntax, etc. but you may try to differentiate between the core and supporting
ideas.
Example: We read a newspaper article to get information and facts quickly, read a
novel for pleasure, read a notice to get information.

Reasons for poor comprehension and how comprehension skill can be

improved

Reading comprehension refers to the ability to understand information presented in

written form.

This skill usually involves in understanding textbooks assignments, articles in

newspapers and journals, various business documents, reading passages given in
competitive examinations,
One’s level of reading comprehension skills will affect even one’s interpretation of
directions, such as ‘what to do’ and ‘when to do’ that appear on certain documents
such as instruction manuals, puzzles, etc.

Reasons for Poor Comprehension:

The reason for lack of understanding could be situational, depending on the type of
reading matter, the subject of the material, and your mental or physical state.

Not all failures in all contexts can be attributed to the same factor. For example, inability
to understand a chemistry text may be due to vocabulary problems or unfamiliar
technical jargon, while failure to comprehend a mathematical text may be conceptual,
or lack of understanding of the fundamental concepts.

The main reasons for poor reading comprehension are:

 i. Inability to understand a word.
ii. Inability to understand a sentence.
iii. Inability to understand how sentences relate to one another.
iv. Inability to understand how the information fits together in meaningful way.
v. Lack of interest or concentration.
Improving Comprehension Skills:

Improved reading comprehension skills can positively impact many aspects of student
academic performance. Performance in exam and quizzes could greatly improve as
students become more proficient and effective reader.

The following are some of the ways in which comprehension skills can be improved:

i. Read a variety of materials. Do not limit yourself to textbooks.

ii. Read a fairly long portion of the material. It would be difficult to assess reading
comprehension based on one or two paragraphs. Try to read an entire section
or chapter instead.
iii. Circle unknown or unfamiliar words as you read.
iv. After reading, recall as much of the information as possible. Jot down points if
you like. Then check the accuracy and completeness of your recollections. If
the main ideas are presented in a particular order, see if you can recall the
structure.
v. Consider how interesting the subject matter is and how much you already know
about the subject.
vi. Answer questions about the material after reading it.

These strategies may help you in achieving the following purposes:

i. To enhance understanding of the content in text.
ii. To improve understanding of how information is organized in a text.
iii. To improve attention and concentration while reading.
iv. To make reading a more active process.
v. To increase personal involvement in the reading material.
vi. To promote critical thinking and evaluation of reading material.
vii. To enhance registration and recall of text information in one’s memory.

Techniques of good comprehension.

I. Skimming and Scanning

a. Skimming
Skimming is used to quickly identify the main ideas of a text.
For example: when you read the newspaper, you are probably not reading it word-by-
word, instead you are scanning the text.

Skimming is done at the speed of three to four times faster than normal reading. People
often skim when they have lots of material to read in a limited amount of time.

Use Skimming when you want to see if an article may be of interest in your research.

Steps for skimming technique:

i. Read the title.

ii. Read the introduction or the first paragraph.
iii. Read the first sentence of every other paragraph.
iv. Read any headings and sub-headings.
v. Notice any pictures, charts or graphs.
vi. Notice any italicized or boldface words or phrases.
vii. Read the summary or last Paragraph.

Scanning

Scanning is a technique you often use when looking up a word in a telephone book or
dictionary. You search for key words or ideas.

In most cases, you know what you are looking for, so you are concentrating on finding
a particular answer.

Scanning involves moving your eyes quickly down the page seeking specific words
and phrases.

Scanning is also used when you first find a resource to determine whether it will answer
your questions. Once you have scanned the document, you might go back and skim
it.

Steps for scanning technique:

i. State the specific information you are looking for.

ii. Try to anticipate how the answer will appear and which clues you might use to
locate the answer. For example, if you were looking for a certain date, you
would quickly read the paragraph looking only for numbers.
iii. Use headings and any other aids that will help you to identify which sections
might contain the information you are looking for.
iv. Selectively read and skip through sections of the passage.

II. Non-verbal Signals

The meaning of a text is not only conveyed by means of words. All texts also contain
non- verbal signs.
Non-verbal signs may include certain style features, such as different fonts, bold print,
understanding, or italics.

The meaning of these style features can vary from one text to another. In one text
italics may be used to emphasize a word, in another text italics can be used for
subtitles.
Layout features such as heading, title, subheadings, photographs, captions, division
into paragraphs, figures, graphs, bar charts, etc., are also non-verbal signals.

III. Structure of the Text

An important aspect of reading is prediction. The better you can predict what you are
going to read, the faster and more effective you will read. The prediction process
begins with the title.

Most texts start with title and sometimes subtitle. After that comes the introduction and
the body, followed by a conclusion or summary.

IV. Structure of Paragraphs

In many well-written texts the reader will get a good idea of the contents by reading
just the first sentences of each paragraph.

A typical paragraph consists of three parts.

i. The first part is the topic sentence (also called thesis sentence or key sentence
) which contains the new aspect of the subject of the text.
ii. The second part of the paragraph contains sentences which develop support
for the topic sentence. These may contain arguments, explanations, details,
examples, and other supporting evidence.
iii. The third part of the paragraph is often a summary of the paragraph or a linking
sentence to the next paragraph.

V. Punctuation
Punctuation partly based on grammar. For example, commas are often used to
separate clauses. If you understand the meaning and usage of punctuation marks, it
will be easier to understand the grammatical structures.

VI. Author’s Viewpoint (Inference)

In reading a text you make inferences or assumptions about the position of the author.
Is the author neutral or does he have an opinion?

The author often shows his or her opinion either by adding certain phrases or by adding
a value to a word. Author can add words to show approval or disapproval (like luckily
or unfortunately), to show their surprise, regret or other emotions (like surprisingly, to
shock, unexpectedly, regrettably, pity, desirable, to be disappointed), to indicate the
level of certainty (like certain, obviously, undoubtedly, naturally, always, often, likely,
probably, maybe, hardly, rarely and never).

VII. Reader Anticipation

Even readers, who have a wide and flexible vocabulary, will encounter words whose
meaning they don’t know.

You may have often come across a not-too-familiar word whose meaning you were
able to guess accurately. This is possible if you understand the relationships between
words in meaning and form.

You can develop this skill by following a method:

i. Determine the word class, i.e. a verb, a noun, an adjective, an adverb, etc.
ii. Determine its function in the sentence, i.e. how it is related to other words in
the sentence.
iii. Analysis the contextual clues, i.e. the context in which we find this word positive
or negative; what the context tells us about the word.
iv. Is there any relation between this word and a word that is familiar to you?
v. Try and derive the eventual meaning of the word.

VIII. Summarizing
It is very difficult to remember the complete contents of long texts. For that reason it is
often advisable to make notes of essential information in the text. The result is a short
outline of the text containing all its important aspects.

The average length of a good summary is about one-third of the original text.

The following steps can be taken when summarizing a text:

i. Familiarize yourself with the material o Select important information.

ii. Paraphrase the information.
iii. Insert links between sentences and paragraphs.
iv. Adjust the length of the summary.