READING SKILLS:
Meaning: Reading is a basic life skill. It is a cornerstone for a child’s success in school, and, indeed, throughout life. Without the ability to read well, opportunities for personal fulfillment and job success inevitably will be lost. –Becoming a Nation of Readers: The Report of the Commission on Reading
Definition : Richard Anderson and the Commission on Reading define reading as the process of constructing meaning from written texts.
Skilled reading is:
- constructive: learning to reason about written material using knowledge from everyday life and from disciplined fields of study;
- fluent: mastery of basic processes to the point where they are automatic so that attention is freed for the analysis of meaning;
- strategic: controlling one’s reading in relation to one’s purpose, the nature of the material and whether one is comprehending;
- motivated: able to sustain attention and learning that written material can be interesting and informative; and
- a lifelong pursuit: continuous practices, development, and refinement.
Objectives of Reading Skills:
Reading will activate and reinforce other skills
- Reading develops critical thinking skills.
- Reading cultivates the love for reading, and develops oral and silent reading skills.
- Reading helps us how to connect the ideas and concepts to real life experience.
- It helps to expand vocabulary and learn new vocabulary in context.
- Reading develops the ability to summarize both the main idea and specific details from a reading passage.
ADVANTAGES OF READING:
A book is our best friend. In our society we have friends and foes. Even the so-called friends can cheat us in times. However, books are our never-failing friends. Just like a good friend, it gives us company during idle time. A good book guides us in our lives.
Books are the voices of wisdom, past and present. The knowledge stored up in them invites us and gives us joy.
We read books not only for instructions but also for entertainment. It is the most harmless occupation for using time in a productive manner. The bookshelves are the standing source of joy to all book-lovers. To an educated man there is no pleasure comparable to the pleasures of reading books. Books provide us with varieties of entertainment. Some give us loud laughter, some a smile and some only an unexpressed joy.
Books help us forget for a while the cares and anxieties of daily life. Those who can read books are lucky indeed. A reader of books forgets his worries for the time being and finds pleasure from it. Money cannot buy peace of mind. Power cannot heal our sorrows. Books can, when all other fail.
A book is the windows to the outside world. The books on traveling can take us into the jungles of Africa, to the desert of Sahara, to the top of Everest or to the ice-fields of the Arctic. And all the while we can relax in bed or on armchair.
A book can put us in the time-machine. It can take us the great minds of the past and the present. Books on antiquity bring vividly to us the world of the past. We go back in thought to the dim, old days of the past.
Books can broaden our mind and gladden our heart. We see into the secrets of life and universe in the books on science, religion and literature. We love books for all these reasons.
Knowledge itself is also a great source of pleasure. Books on expeditions and adventures fire our imagination. Detective stories give us thrills and keep us absorbed. From all these we derive both pleasure and surprise.
However, there are numerous books and we need choice of books. We do not have enough time and energy to read all these books. We know, good books ennoble our minds, while bad books pollute it. Our time is precious; we cannot waste it by reading trash. So, we should read those books which may be our best companions, which can enlarge our vision and make our life more meaningful.
Strategies/tips for reading improvement:
1. Read about things that interest you. If you are interested in what you are reading about, the words will come alive, and you will be motivated to understand. You will feel satisfaction in accomplishing a task that you enjoy, and which you consider meaningful. The more you read, the better you will become at reading. Just get started and it will become a habit, as long as you are interested in what you are reading.
2. Read material that is at your level, or just a little difficult for you. Read material that you find easy to read, or just a little challenging. Looking up many unknown words in a conventional dictionary is tedious, and the results of the dictionary search quickly forgotten. It is better to stay within your comfort zone and keep reading. Soon you will be able to take on more difficult content.
3. Learn to read in depth, stay on the same subject for a while. If you are familiar with the subject you are reading about, you will understand better. Do not just read short articles. Commit to books. Stay with one author for at least one book. If the subject matter is new to you, you should even try to read a few different books or articles about the same subject, before you move on. This way you will meet the same vocabulary and ideas often, helping you to learn. You will also be able to get deeper into the subject and your reading confidence will grow.
4. If you have trouble reading, listen first. Many great works of literature were written to be read out loud. Learn to appreciate the art of the narrator. Listen to audio books or audio files of the material that you are reading. This will help make difficult content seem more familiar. If you can hear the new words and phrases that you are reading, you will have an easier time understanding and remembering them. Hearing the rhythm of someone reading a text will help your own reading.
5. Let your imagination get involved. Good readers get engrossed in their reading and let it trigger their imagination. Learn to enjoy your reading without asking too many questions or analyzing too much. It will just spoil the sensual enjoyment of the reading experience. You do not need to predict or analyze. Just enjoy and look forward to absorbing the information, ideas and thoughts expressed by the writer.
6. Don’t worry about what you don’t understand. Most of your reading should be for pleasure. You can enjoy reading without understanding all of what you read. You may even understand some things in your own personal way. Neither you nor a teacher needs to “monitor” your understanding. Learn to enjoy reading, even while feeling that you do not fully understand or remember what you have read.
7. Recognize that the key is to read a lot. You may develop a system for keeping track of new words that you encounter in your reading, using lists, or Flash Cards, or other memory systems available on the Internet or elsewhere. However, the main growth in your vocabulary and reading skill will come just from reading as much as you can. So learn to enjoy reading and read a lot. Keep reading, and you will become a better reader.
Unfortunately not all reading is just for pleasure. When you are reading a textbook or manual, or report or other material that have to read for school or work, you may need to underline, take notes, and read some parts over again, in order to retain what you are reading. However, if you have developed the habit of reading for pleasure, you will find that the cognitive techniques you need will come naturally, and that you will understand a lot better than before.
BARRIERS OF READING:
- Lack of grammatical and linguistic competence:
Many people cannot read effectively because they fail to decrypt grammatical and lexical units of language in the text. They lack the ability to differentiate and recognize the words, sentences, expressions, used in the text. It hampers the process of reading. The reader may stop reading further if he fails to understand the text grammatically.
- Lack of motivation:
Reading for information and knowledge requires motivation and discipline. Many people think reading as boring and time consuming task. Lack of proper motivation and goal may create barrier to reading.
- Lack of concentration:
If the reader lacks concentration while reading, he just will turn pages after pages without much comprehension. Reading is psycholinguistic process. It requires careful attention of the reader.
- Proper light and ventilation:
A reader has to struggle a lot to read in dim light or dark rooms. If proper ventilation is not there in the reading room, reader may feel suffocated or tired.
- Size of the book:
Normally, people prefer reading small size articles and texts. If the book contains volumes of pages, it decreases the interest of the reader.
- Articulating the words and sentences loudly:
Many readers have habit to articulate loudly or murmur the words in the text. They buzz each word which creates a barrier to speed reading.
- Putting finger, pen or any object on the words and sentences while reading:
Many people put their finger or pen on the text while reading. They move the finger or object from word to word which lowers down the process of reading.
- Narrow eye span:
Many readers read the text into independent eye shift between each and every word. They have narrow eye span. It not only decreases the speed of reading but also affects the comprehension. Shorter the eye span, slower the speed and comprehension. Readers require proper training and techniques to expand their eye span.
Stages in Reading a text
It is important to break down the reading process into the following stages:
Before reading get an overview of the text:
- skim the table of contents, headings and subheadings
- read the introduction and conclusion
- scan the relevant sections to locate where your topic is discussed
During reading closely follow the development of the ideas in the text:
- read actively – write in the margins, highlight phrases, take note of important points
- don’t forget to examine diagrams and figures as they are information-dense
- read critically – ask yourself questions; for example, Is the argument logical? Is it biased? Is there enough evidence to support the author’s conclusions?
After reading think over what you have read. Make a brief summary of the main ideas and concepts in the text.
English Study Material 