Keys to Better Reading

Introduction

Activities To Improve Your Reading

Strategies For Reading

Tasks

References

INTRODUCTION

In this series of handouts, we provide opportunities and activities to help you improve different aspects of your English language skills. The purpose of this handout is to give you some hints for better reading. The following activities will help you improve your writing both in your daily life and on campus.

If you want to read better, you have to read more.

I. ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE YOUR READING

• Open your eyes- Try to boost your awareness of the reading you do all around you. Pay attention to English on billboards, advertisements, leaflets, food packages, etc.

• Identify your reading problems by writing a summary- Find a short newspaper article which interests you and read it once quickly to get the main ideas. Then cover it up and try to write a brief summary of the main points. Finally, compare the summary with the article to see how many main points you have got. If you find the result unsatisfactory, try to identify your problem. Do you have problems with sentence structures, vocabulary, etc ? If you can identify your reading problem, focus on it.

• Time your reading- Look for the main ideas of an article for a limited time. Don’t bother about the details. This is a method to enhance your speed of reading. Keep a log of the amount of time it takes. If the time decreases, then you should be getting more information more quickly.

• Make cloze exercises- Make a cloze exercise, either for yourself or a friend. Photocopy the text and use correction fluid to white out some words. You can focus on any aspect of language you wish, for example, nouns, verbs, prepositions, or whatever you find difficult. Fill in the blanks. Check your answer with the original texts. Think about the words you used and the words in the original text. This method can enhance your awareness of  using different terms in different contexts.

• Read the Chinese version in advance- Read texts in Chinese first before you read the English texts. After getting the main ideas from Chinese materials, reading the English ones becomes easier. You will realise how some Chinese expressions are expressed in English.

• Follow the instructions for various reading materials- Try to follow the instructions of manuals or guidebooks for any electrical appliance, e.g. computer, mini hi-fi, recording machines. Does the machine perform the function you wish? If not, try to decide what went wrong in your reading. Alternatively, you can read a cook book and test your comprehension by preparing the food correctly.

• Guess meaning from context - While reading, people are usually discouraged by unfamiliar words or phrases. An inefficient reader looks up every unknown word/phrase in a dictionary but an efficient one doesn’t. Why ? Because the efficient reader guesses meaning from the context of the text. When you come across new words from an article, don’t check the dictionary immediately! Try to guess the meaning of the words first. A more interesting way of doing this is to try to get one or two friends to read the same article. If there are any common unknown words/phrases, compete with your friends to guess the correct meaning. Look the words/phrases up in the dictionary for the correct definition. The one who gets the closest meaning wins.

• Keep a resource bank of similar reading items- You can divide items into several categories such as finance, education, accidents, fashion or housing. Add new articles according to these categories. Arrange them nicely in a book. Frequently read the materials and you will develop a large vocabulary on a particular item. Alternatively, you can find some listening materials, videos and television programmes, on the same or similar topics and compare them with the written topics. Your knowledge of words/phrases/grammatical structures will consolidate if you can see the same language several times in different contexts.

• Read for pleasure- Research has shown that reading consistently for pleasure boosts comprehension and vocabulary. Try popular books, comics, books about the films you have seen. It is NOT necessary to understand every word, just keep reading.

• Read with a grammar focus- Look at a reading passage and see how the grammatical structures are used. Try to classify them under different headings like relative clauses, present tense, passive voice etc. Being able to identify different grammatical structures of a passage boosts your reading speed. If you have trouble classifying the grammatical structures, you may have to consult a grammar book or teacher.

• Create your own comprehension questions- Often you have a lot of materials to read but you do not have a specific task to test your understanding. If this is the case, write your own comprehension questions to an article to test a friend. You and your friend can take turns preparing comprehension questions for other articles. Don’t forget that you have to prepare the answers before you test each other.

II. SOME STRATEGIES FOR READING

To become an efficient reader, you need to master the following four strategies of reading. They can be applied to different kinds of texts. For the same piece of text, the four strategies can be used at the same time for different purposes.

• Skimming: You read a text very quickly to get the main ideas.

• Scanning: You read through a text looking for something specific. You may be looking for something like a date, a name or a price.

• Intensive reading: You read through a text very carefully, almost every word, because it is important to understand everything.

• Extensive reading: You read through a text because you are interested in it. You read the entire text but you do not really need to understand every word.

Here are different strategies for different types of texts

• Memos: Skimming and scanning

You just want to know the general ideas (Skimming).

You want to know the date for the next meeting only (Scanning).

• Reading an advertisement, holiday brochure: Scanning

You want to find out particular pieces of information, for example, the price of a tour or perhaps a date. As you look at texts like these, your eyes search for these pieces of information.

• The Yellow Pages Telephone Directory: Scanning

You are looking for something specific like an address or a telephone number.

• The instructions on an examination paper: Intensive reading

You don’t want to miss any information, so you read with extreme care.

• A review of recent movies: Extensive reading

You may want to select one of the recent movies, so you go through the text to find the one you like.

• An article about the life of your favourite singer: Intensive reading

You are a fan of the singer and you want to know everything about the person.

• Novels: Extensive reading

You start reading a novel because you enjoy it but you need not understand everything in the novel.

• Ingredients on food packaging: Scanning and intensive reading

Perhaps you are looking for the expiry date or where the food was made (scanning).

If you are on diet, you will be extremely careful with the ingredients (intensive reading).

III. TASKS

1. Read a text book with the strategies of skimming, scanning and intensive reading. Pay attention to the results from using these different strategies.
2. Read a cook book. Choose a recipe you like and make the food according to the recipe. Compare what you have made with the cook book. If you were unsuccessful, where did you make your mistakes?
3. Cut out the editorial of a local newspaper and prepare some comprehension questions for a friend. Of course, you should prepare answers for the questions. You should set a time limit.
4. Subscribe to a local English newspaper or magazine and choose one to two articles to read every day.
5. Think about the kinds of reading you do now ( e.g. newspaper, exam paper, dictionaries, etc.). Which of the strategies do you use? Try to use appropriate strategies for different kinds of reading.
6. Now that you have tried some of the methods, you should think about what you have learned and if you have made improvement. Can you read more quickly or more accurately?

References:

Ellis, G. & Sinclair, B. (1991). Learning to learn English. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.

Glendinning, E. H. & Holmstrom B. (1992). Study Reading. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.

Haines, S. (1989). Cassell’s Foundation Skills Series Reading 3. Cassell Publishers Limited. Britain.

Tomlinson, B. & Ellis, R. (1993). Reading Advanced. Oxford University Press. Oxford.

Last revised:  Sepember 1998

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