Skill of Reading

READING SKILL

Chapter - 1

Aims of teaching reading

              According to Christine Nuttall the aim of teaching reading is 'to enable students to read without help unfamiliar authentic texts, at appropriate speed, silently and with adequate understanding'. Teaching reading is to develop learners' reading skills and to provide them a rich reading experience.

                        Proficiency in reading is important because it provides self dependence in learning. A good reader can become an efficient user of language than the one who is deficient in reading.

Characteristics of efficient readers
·         They have the ability to read with maximum comprehension in the minimum possible time.
·         They read silently and rapidly.
·         They are able to adapt their reading speed to suit their purpose and the difficulty of the reading material.
·         They know that maximum comprehension is required when reading a manual on how to operate a scientific instrument.
·         They use standard aids to reading like a glossary and a dictionary.
·         They employ a variety of reading strategies. For example, they know how to skim and scan a text.
·         They have developed the right 'physical' habits for reading: no head movement, no lip movement, no murmuring, no going back and forth on the line, and no running of pencil or finger on the line. In addition, they have learnt to read words in sense groups and not merely one word at a time.
Guidelines for teaching reading

Learners are to be asked to read the passage concerned silently.  We should not read a passage aloud and explain it. Our main aim is to help learners become independent readers. If necessary we can explain or paraphrase a text after learners have read it. Read out a text only when the focus of the lesson is on showing learners how a text should be read aloud with correct pronunciation, word stress, sentence stress, intonation and pauses. 

Always set a reasonable time limit for our learners to read a passage silently. It is useful to ask them to read the passage in order to get its global idea. Learners must be trained that while they read a text they should look up the glossary provided. After learners have finished reading the text teachers must start probing their comprehension of it. It is important to encourage learners not only to come up with responses but also to justify them.

Activity 1: Define reading. What are the characteristics of an efficient reader? How will you follow the important guidelines to teach reading?

Chapter - 2

Process involved in Reading – Symbol, Sound and Sense

Reading is essentially a process. It is a process of getting meaning from word symbols.  It is more than a mechanical process.  A mature reader always engages in the following activities when he reads:

• He looks at the printed words
• He comprehends meaning
• He reacts to the meaning he has developed
• He uses some of the meanings according to his requirements.

           The process of learning to read involves the symbol, sound and sense and the following are the varied tasks a child has to do to become an effective reader.

1.      The child must hear and be able to recognize the sounds that are spoken and determine the differences between the sounds. This is the auditory perception and the auditory processing.

2.      The child must recognize the different sizes, shapes, position and form of the 26 letters.
3.      The child must have a sense of directionality and hold the book with the cover first and the opening pages to the right.
4.      The child must remember the sequence of the sounds and the syllables in the correct order.
5.      The child must learn that letters and combinations of letters are all associated with different sounds in speech. This entails knowing upper and lower case letters (Capital and small) and cursive writing.
6.      The child must learn that B and b are the same but ‘p’ and ‘b’ are different. Likewise in script, the child must note the difference between the ‘a’ and the ‘o’.
7.      On top of all of this decoding, the child must also derive 'meaning' from the words read.
8.      The child must use visual and auditory skills at the same time.
9.      The child will need to simply remember the many rules of letters - the silent ‘k’ in knife or the silent ‘p’ in receipt.
10.  The child must also understand the symbolic nature and meaning of grammar, capital letters, commas, exclamation marks, quotation marks etc.
             For many, these skills come slowly and with a great deal of difficulty. It is important to use a multi-sensory approach whenever possible, some memory training, tap into previous knowledge before moving forward and make it meaningful. Be sure to look at the suggested reading for additional support to help struggling readers.

Activity 2: Why do you call reading as a process? What are the various tasks to help one to become a good reader?

Chapter - 3

Types of Reading – Loud Reading, Silent Reading – Skimming, Scanning – Intensive Reading, Extensive Reading

            The main purpose of reading is comprehension, i.e., understanding the meaning of words and the relationship between ideas.
 Loud Reading
            Loud reading is also known as oral reading.  It is introduced two months after the student has learned to read his textbook.  It teaches the student to read with correct pronunciation, articulation, intonation, stress and rhythm.  It enables the student to read with expression.  It helps the teacher to evaluate the student’s knowledge of spoken words, phrases and sentences.  It aids the student to read with understanding and paves the way to silent reading.

            The teachers read aloud the particular passage, paying attention to correct pronunciation, articulation, rhythm, etc.  The passage is selected, taking into consideration the comprehension capacity of the student.  This is followed by the student reading aloud the same passage.  The teacher corrects the mistakes in pronunciation, articulation, etc., after the student has finished reading.  At the junior level, accuracy in reading is stressed and speed is emphasized at the senior level.  Word by word reading should not be encouraged while word recognition can be developed.

Advantages and Disadvantages

            The student learns to read properly.  He develops the skill of speech and can learn elocution.  Mistakes in pronunciation, articulation, stress are corrected at an early stage.  The student learns by imitation which is a natural method of learning.

            The disadvantages of this method are that some students may not enjoy reading aloud.  It does not help deep understanding of the text.  In later life, silent reading is preferred and if a student becomes used to reading aloud, he cannot become an extensive reader.  The other students of the class are distracted when one student is reading aloud. Thus only a few students get the benefits of this system.

Silent Reading

            This is the most important type of reading.  Since we read faster than we speak, children must be initiated into silent reading as soon as possible.  Silent reading should be introduced when the student has mastered the basic structures, comprehends the meaning of words and can recognize and pronounce words accurately.  Silent reading enables the student to read without making sounds and moving his lips.  It helps him read with speed, ease and fluency.  It aids comprehension and expands the student’s vocabulary.  According to Ryburn, the aims of silent reading are pleasure and profit; to be able to read for interest and to get information. To get maximum benefit from this method passages which can be understood and appreciated by the students should be chosen.  The passage should not be too long and the students can be given fresh and unseen passages to read in order to inculcate the habit of wide and varied reading.

Procedure

1.      The teacher explains the method and aims of silent reading to the students.
2.      The teacher asks the students to read the passage silently.
3.      The teacher walks around the classroom to supervise the students. The teacher checks whether the students whisper, murmur or move their lips while reading.  He also checks the postures of the students.
4.      After allowing sufficient time to finish reading the passage, the teacher asks questions from the passage.  He thus tests the students’ comprehension of the passage.  He may also ask the students to summarize whey they have just read.
Advantages and Disadvantages
·         Silent reading is time saving and quick. 
·         It is interesting and useful in later life.
·         It initiates self-education and deep study. 
·         It helps the student to concentrate on the meaning and results in greater assimilation of information. 
·         It is also useful to make a quick survey of the material to be studied and to look through indexes, chapter headings and outlines. 
·         It is useful for speed reading, to skim the material and to familiarize oneself with the material and its thought content.
·         It also helps to appreciate the language as well as to study it from a linguistic point of view. 

However, this method is not beneficial for beginners.  It cannot be used to correct pronunciation, articulation etc.  The students’ comprehension of the material cannot be checked.  The teacher cannot test whether the student is actually reading the material or not.

Skimming

             Skimming is used to quickly identify the main ideas of a text. When we read the newspaper, we are not reading it word-by-word. Skimming is done at a speed 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. We use skimming when we want to see if an article may be of interest.

There are many strategies that can be used when skimming. Some people read the first and last paragraphs using headings as they move down the page or screen. We might read the title, subtitles, subheading, and illustrations. Consider reading the first sentence of each paragraph. This technique is useful when we are seeking specific information rather than reading for comprehension. Skimming works well to find dates, names, and places. It might be used to review graphs, tables, and charts.

Scanning

Scanning is a technique we often use when looking up a word in the telephone book or dictionary. We search for key words or ideas. Scanning involves moving our eyes quickly down the page seeking specific words and phrases. Scanning is also used when we first find a resource to determine whether it will answer your questions. Once we have scanned the document, we might go back and skim it.

When scanning, look for the author's use of organizers such as numbers, letters, steps, or the words, first, second, or next. Look for words that are bold faced, italics, or in a different font size, style, or color. Sometimes the author will put key ideas in the margin.

Intensive reading
           It is related to further progress in language learning under the teacher's guidance. It provides a basis for explaining difficulties of structure and for extending knowledge of vocabulary and idioms. It will provide material for developing greater control of the language and speech and writing. Students will study short stories and extracts from novels, chosen for the standard of difficultly of the language and for the interest they hold for this particular group of students. Intensive reading is generally at a slower speed and requires a higher degree of understanding to develop and refine word study skills, enlarge passive vocabulary, reinforce skills related to sentence structure, increase active vocabulary, distinguish among thesis, fact, supportive and non-supportive details, provide sociocultural insights.

Extensive reading

           It develops at the student's own pace according to individual ability. It will be selected at a lower level of difficulty than that for intensive reading. The purpose of extensive reading is to train the students to read directly and fluently in the target language for enjoyment without the aid of the teacher. Where graded texts are available, structures in texts for extensive reading will be already familiar, and new items of vocabulary will be introduced slowly in such a way that their meaning can be deduced from context or quickly ascertained. The student will be encouraged to make intelligent guesses at the meaning of unfamiliar items.

Material consists of authentic short stories and plays, or informative or controversial articles from newspapers and magazines. The style of writing should entail a certain amount of repetition without monotony. Novelties of vocabulary should not coincide with difficulties of structure. It means reading in quantity and in order to gain a general understanding of what is read. It is intended to develop good reading habits, to build up knowledge of vocabulary and structure and to encourage a liking for reading, Increase total comprehension, enable students to achieve independence in basic skill development, acquaint the student with relevant socio-cultural material, and encourage recreational reading.

Activity 3: What are the various types of reading? What is the difference between oral reading and silent reading? Mention the importance of silent reading? Bring out the difference between skimming and scanning? Mention the difference between intensive and extensive readers. How will you develop the extensive reading habit among the students?

 Chapter - 4

Methods of Teaching Reading

Alphabetic Method

            This is the traditional method.  In this method, the letters are taught by their names in the alphabetical order.  Then words are built by putting the letters together.  For example, the word ‘book’ is taught by asking the children to spell the word letter by letter and then the pronunciation / buk / is taught.

            This method is useful for fixing the spelling of words. It is easy to teach reading by following this method.  But, this method often results in teaching spelling and pronunciation. Even silent letters are pronounced by the child.  For example, in the word ‘comb’, the ‘b’ that is silent may be pronounced by the child.  Those who learn through this method often speak English like reading a book. Their speech is not natural.  Even in reading, the letter is not the unit. The word is the unit.  If we read by the letter, fast reading cannot be developed.

Phonic Method

The phonic method teaches the sounds commonly represented by the letters and not the names of the letters. This helps young learners to establish the correct association between sounds and letters.  For example, sets of words like pin, win, kin, spin, skin or park, mark, dark, lark, spark or see, sea, tea, key, etc. are taught together.

            In this method the pronunciation of a word is learnt easily and correctly. Children will be able to read fluently without any anxiety caused by the irregular system of English spelling.  This method can be used only with a set of words whose pronunciation and spelling are fairly uniform and not with all words.

Phonetic Method

            In phonetic method, pronunciation is taught by giving students knowledge of English phonetics.  There are many entirely new sounds in English.  In this method:

     (i)            Knowledge of 44 vowel and consonant sounds of 26 English letters.

   (ii)            Teacher tells about how these sounds are produced by different speech organs.

 (iii)            Teacher explains the rules of producing sounds.

            In phonetic method, practice of producing correct sound is very essential.  The practice of sounds of single vowel or monopthongs, diphthongs, consonant-cluster is done by the teacher in the classroom.  Apart from the knowledge of phonetic symbols the knowledge of phonetics transcription is taught.  The basis of classification of phonetic symbols is also taught by using tables.

     (i)            Phonetic method is based on scientific principles of phonetics.

   (ii)            The learner can himself evaluate the correctness of his pronunciation.

 (iii)            It develops self-confidence among student.

Word Method or Look-and-Say Method

            This method tries to teach the word as the unit of reading.  It directs the attention of the child to the whole word and not to the letters as in the alphabetic method.  Flash cards containing words are used for this purpose. The cards may be prepared in two sets - one with words and another with pictures to illustrate them or cards which contain both the word and the corresponding picture.  The words on the flash cards are graded according to difficulty in respect of spelling and pronunciation.

Sentence Method

            This method is an improvement on the word method.  The sentence is the unit of thought and not the word. So it is better to present the sentence as an integrated unit.  Here too flash cards can be used.  The phonic method can be combined with the sentence method.  For example, A cat on the mat saw a fat rat is taught as a unit. This result in unauthentic or fictional sentences but in the initial stages, it may be useful. In practice most teachers combine these methods according to the needs of the classroom.

Phrase Method

            This method is based on the assumption that phrases are more interesting than words. Phrases convey meaning and the human eye recognizes a group of words and not a single word each time.  The phrase is the unit of teaching.

            The teacher writes a phrase on the blackboard and asks the student to look at the phrase attentively.  The teacher reads the phrase and his student repeats it several times.  New phrases are compared with the phrases that are already taught.

Activity 4: What are the various methods of teaching reading? What are the methods that are followed to develop the skill of reading among children?

 Chapter -5

Reading for Perception – Reading for Comprehension

Reading for Perception

Cognitively speaking, perception was conceived as a one-way process in which the print was recorded by the eye, similar to a photograph and then processed by the brain.  This perceptual process is also passive.  The eye did little more than record the information available and the brain’s role was to simply process whatever it was provided.  The print environment determined what was perceived.

             Recently perception is understood in more transitive and constructive ways.  According to this the eye and brain are more actively involved in information processing.  Under the direction of the brain, the eye selectively picks up relevant information from the print environment.  Based on the print selected and contributions by the brain, meaning is constructed.

Reading for Comprehension

              Reading comprehension is the mental processes that begin with the reader’s first glance at the print and end with his understanding of the message which the writer is trying to convey through the printed medium.  Success in the process depends on adequate motivation, a background for concepts, word perception skills and the ability to reason one’s way through smaller idea elements and to grasp, as a whole, the meaning of a larger idea.

Comprehension Skills

              The following abilities are basic understanding and they are called comprehension skills.

• Ability to associate meaning with the graphic symbol
• Ability to understand words in context
• Ability to read in thought units
• Ability to understand – the phrase, clause, sentence, paragraph and whole section.
• Ability to acquire word meaning
• Ability to select and understand the main ideas
• Ability to follow directions
• Ability to draw inferences
• Ability to understand the writer’s organization
• Ability to evaluate what is read – to identify tone, mood and intent of the writer
• Ability to retain ideas
• Ability to apply ideas and to integrate them with one’s past experience.

            Reading activity involves perception, recall, reasoning, evaluating, imagining, organising, application, and problem solving.  Reading comprehension involves the following levels -

Reading the lines: Understanding the literal meaning i.e., responding to the precise meaning of familiar words in their context and inferring the meaning of unfamiliar words from contextual clues and also visualising the scenes and events.

Reading between the lines: Getting the author’s intent and purpose - interpreting clues to character and plot, distinguishing between fact and fiction - recognising and interpreting many literary devices like metaphor and irony.

Reading beyond the lines: Deriving implications, speculating about consequences, drawing generalisations not stated by the author - arranging ideas into patterns - by analysis and synthesis the reader gains a new insight or higher level of understanding.

Reading with involvement: The reader not only gets ideas but ideas get him - sympathy and identification with characters, awareness of moral problems etc. (RIE Monograph on ELT, P.1970).

Activity 5: What are the difference between reading for perception and reading for comprehension? Mention the difference comprehension skills. What are the various levels of reading comprehension?

 Chapter - 6

Strategies to Develop Reading

According to Prof. Rajagopalan “We should concentrate all our attention on the pupils now in school and make them more and more book-minded.  We should create in them a real love for books and good taste for reading”

            Reading is one of the most useful skills in learning a foreign language.  According to Gray, reading is a form of experience.  Good reading habits promote self-education.  Reading is an activity which is not confined to school life alone.  It is an activity which becomes a part of man’s life.  Good reading habits keep a student reading regularly for both pleasure and profit.  Following suggestions are given to promote the development of reading habits among school children -

1. Teacher - a Good Reader

            The teacher himself should be a good reader.  Only then he can make his pupils to read books.  He should talk about new books in the class whenever there is an opportunity.  The teacher may also recommend some books to them, keeping in view their age and interests.

2. Proper Guidance

            Most of the pupils are lacking proper guidance for developing good interest in reading.  Teacher should guide his pupils about the source of getting good books according to their age and capabilities.

3. Library Service

            The best place to stimulate the children to read freely is library.  A good school library and class libraries can go a long way in developing reading interests among students.  There should be a provision for a period for library reading in the regular timetable of the school.

4. Organising the Reading Programmes

            The school timetable should provide for a library period as discussed above.  The books may be given to the children on a fixed day.  During this period books for extra reading may be distributed to all the children and they should be asked to read silently.  The school can also organise book exhibitions periodically to develop students’ interest in reading more and more books.

5. Bulletin Boards

            The class bulletin board, if put to proper use, can promote interest in reading among pupils.  Illustrated material like pictures, cut outs from magazines and even an interesting paragraph may be fixed on the bulletin board.

6. Survey of Reading Interest

            Surveys of students’ reading interests can help in the development of reading interest among the students.  Pupils’ reading interest can be surveyed with the help of questionnaire, interviews and visits to their homes.  In this way reason can be found out that stand in the way as obstacle of the pupils’ interest in reading.

7. Reading Clubs

            A reading club can be organised in the school to develop reading interest among students.  The books dealing with particular activities may be collected and placed at the disposal of member students.

8. Follow Activities

            Creative activities such as listen to recitation of poems or reading plays and dramatization followed in the school will motivate the students to form reading habit.  Some students do not take interest in reading.  They can be inspired effectively by discussion activities held on various books read.

            To sum up, all efforts should be made to develop reading habits among school-going children.  We should concentrate all our attention on the pupils in schools and make them more and more book-minded.  We should create in them a real love for books.  We can never hope to improve the standards of English of our pupils unless and until reading habits are formed among them.

Activity 6: As a teacher of English mention the various strategies you follow to develop the skill of reading.

Chapter - 7

Testing Reading Comprehension

            Students’ reading comprehension can be tested from his response to a few new or unseen passages.  Testing the familiar passages may elicit only memorized responses.  Four types of questions may test reading comprehension–

i)True/False

            Here the teacher frames a few questions which cover the main points of the text or passage.  Students have to reply to the questions.

ii)Multiple Choice

            No or little writing is involved in this type.  They are to choose the correct answer.

iii) Open-Ended questions

            The teacher can write a few open ended questions related to the main points of the text.

iv) Information Transfer

            Instead of answering a question the student has to record information from the text in a different form - Completing a table, labeling a picture, drawing a diagram etc.,

            While testing reading comprehension in English the teacher must ensure the following –

• The pupils relate one idea with the other.
• They are able to infer the given facts.
• They find out the sequence of events.
• They find logical connections between ideas.
• They guess the meaning of the words.
• They locate the relevant information

            The teacher will frame different questions to test the above abilities of the students.

Activity 7: How will you test reading comprehension?