Developing Reading Skills and Sub-Skills

Reading is an important part of language learning and teaching at every level because it supports learning in multiple ways.

Reading to learn the language: Reading text is language input. By presenting learners a variety of materials to read, teachers provide multiple opportunities for students to learn vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, and discourse structure as they occur in authentic contexts. Therefore, learners gain a more complete picture of the ways in which the elements of the language work together to convey meaning.

Reading for content information: Learners' purpose for reading in their native language is often to get information about a topic they are studying, and this objective can be beneficial in the language learning classroom as well. Reading for content information in the language classroom provides learners both authentic reading material and an authentic purpose for reading.

Reading for cultural knowledge and awareness: Reading everyday text that is designed for native speakers can supply learners’ insight into the lifestyles and worldviews of the people whose language they are studying. When learners have access to newspapers, magazines, and Web sites, they are exposed to culture in all its variety.

Reading involves a number of sub-skills:

Global Comprehension: In reading a text for meaning, it is advantageous to go from the ‘whole’ to the ‘parts’, and not vice versa, as inexperienced readers tend to do. A poor reader will pick up information from the text in small bits and pieces, as he/she reads from one word or one sentence to the next, and try to bring the bits together. An efficient reader, on the other hand, will first try to form an overall

‘picture’ of the whole text. ‘Global Comprehension’, or the ability to get ‘over-all’

meaning from a text, necessitates the sub-skill of skimming i.e. reading through the text at high speed in order to recognize and pick up the main idea or ideas in the text while ‘filtering out’ the needless details.

Understanding the Plan of the Text: Efficient readers are able to form a ‘plan’ of the text that is being read, which aids them to progress meaning from it. Most texts – unless they are badly written –have unity of thought. There is generally one central idea or ‘theme’ in the text, which is most important. There may be other ideas as well, but they are usually introduced in order to offer support for the main idea. The reader’s cognitive plan helps him/her to ‘navigate’ through the text assertively instead of examining blindly.

Making Predictions and Informed Guesses: An inexperienced reader plods through a text with difficulty, trying to get the meaning of every word. The experienced reader, after reading a few sentences, paragraphs or pages, can form a quite accurate picture of what the writer is trying to say, and can ‘hop’ and ‘skip’

through the text, excluding quite substantial parts of it without missing essential

information. Most authors have an affinity to repeat themselves in order to certify that their readers do not miss the importance of what they are saying; good readers are aware of this and know that parts of the text can be safely excluded.

Making reliable predictions about what is likely to be established in the text is a significant sub-skill of reading.

Local Comprehension: After reading through the text quickly to form an overall sense, one must concentrate on the details of the information presented by the author, which will generally be positioned in different parts of the text. A reader begins by assembling the ‘facts’ presented by the writer in the text. The term

‘factual comprehension’ refers to the ability to get and regain factual information contained in the text – i.e., information which has been explicitly stated by the author and is directly accessible in the text. Inferential comprehension refers to the reader’s ability to ‘read between the lines’. The reader has to comprehend not just what the author has said but also what he/she may have said but has chosen to leave unsaid. This is done on the basis of clues supplied in the text as well as the reader’s own background knowledge.

Guessing the Meanings of Unfamiliar Words: Good readers deal with unknown words in a text by making an effort to guess their meanings from the context. It is not likely to look up the meanings of all unknown words in the dictionary. If the reader endeavours to do that the flow of reading is broken up. However, this is probable only when the text does not have too many complicated words.

Skimming and Scanning: 'Skimming' a text means going through it quickly to get an overall idea of the content. We are not concerned about details or any specific information while skimming. 'Scanning' on the other hand, includes seeking the text for specific piece of information in which the reader is interested.

Understanding Discourse Markers: Discourse markers are ‘signposts’ provided by the author. These are utilized in a text to show sequence of ideas and signal the author’s point of view. Understanding the author’s use of discourse markers is a significant sub-skill of reading. These signposts are beneficial because they show to the reader the connection between two parts of the text.

Understanding the Organization of a Text: Every text includes a number of diverse ideas, which are given in different parts of the text. The manner in which

different ideas are connected to each other in a text is referred to as the structure or organization of a text. This is controlled by the subject, the author’s purpose and the audience that he/she has in mind. A good reader must be able to follow the organizational pattern in the text. Once readers comprehend how a text is organized, they are better able to obtain meaning from a complicated text.

Note-Making: Note-making is a sub-skill of reading that is highly beneficial for study purposes. It includes comprehending the organization of the text and being able to recognize the main points and the supporting details, in skeleton or outline form.