How to Improve Students’ Reading Skills

How to Improve Students’ Reading Skills
发表时间：2009-07-09T10:51:14.077Z 来源：《中学课程辅导●教学研究》2009年第9期作者：王继宏
[导读] 本文阐述了提高阅读技巧的重要性以及提高策略。

How to Improve Students’ Reading Skills
王继宏
摘要：毫无疑问，英语是世界上最广泛使用的语言。

我们是通过听、说、读、写四方面来学习英语的。

阅读则是学习中的重要部分。

本文阐述了提高阅读技巧的重要性以及提高策略。

关键词：阅读技巧；重要性；阅读
作者简介：王继宏，任教于广东珠海市拱北中学。

I. Introduction
Along with the knowledge economy Age, facing more and more books, we almost keep in touch with the books everyday, how we should read effectively and efficiently and gain more accurate information? when we read, how we conduct the comprehension of vocabulary? Firstly we should master the use scope of the vocabulary, we not only pursuit and pay attention to the economy of vocabulary, but also we should have master the use of word structure. When we have learnt the structures of words, they bring some suffixes. Sometimes we come across some strange words, just according to their suffix, guess the word from the context. It is necessary for us to analyze the word. Secondly it is very important for us to know difficult sentences, the function of a sentence could be divided into four sides, and the structure of a sentence consists of six patterns. Then during reading if we want to master the whole article, we must understand the meaning of every key paragraph. Finally we should attain the thesis effectively and efficiency, when we are reading a text, besides we have some other reading skills and if we want to get more information we should improve our reading spread.
II. The importance of improving reading skills
Reading comprehension means extracting the required information from the text as efficiently as possible. Reading is a silent and individual activity since the writers intention was that text should be read not heard. There are two broad levels in reading: (i) Visual signals from the eyes; (ii) A cognitive task of interpreting the visual information, relating the received information with the reader’s own general knowledge, and reconstructing the meaning that the writer had meant to convey. In order to achieve these two levels of reading, the reader needs some reading skills.
III. How to improve our reading skills
1. Reading skills of vocabulary
The vocabularies maybe include not only a piece of meaning; it needs us to know all sides of them and in case that we could use them correctly. Therefore, we should follow the idea of the writer in the use scope of vocabulary while reading and we can understand deeply and analyze well.
We should pay attention to the correct use of the vocabulary. For the writer, just one word could be used in some place of a sentence; the any other words could not take the place of it. Authors have arranged it according to the conditions above; they are the basis of the author choosing words. So we must keep the styles of which the writers compose an article, they are the guidance which readers??understand the article.
On the comprehension of vocabulary, we should know the “economy” of using vocabulary. Author will get rid of some words with the purpose of being simple and clear, which appear in the text again and again or have not the great effect on the text. In this case, it requires readers to have the ability of judging vocabulary. Of course, it is impossible for us to judge words well in one or two days.
2. Reading skills of sentences
The sentence is usually made up with words as certain grammar regulars and its own sense, which is based unit that has complete and independent parts and consists of grammar, speech sounds and vocabulary structures. It is the smallest speech unit that can express feelings and take message. Meanwhile, it is the smallest unit that composes a text. A sentence as its function could be divided into four parts, that is, declaratives, interrogatives, imperatives and exclamatory.
3. Reading skills of Paragraph
During reading, if we want to hold a good master of the whole article, we must have good understanding in the meaning of every paragraph.
In the course of reading, we read the first paragraph or two in its entirely at the fastest average rate to grasp the idea of the story, the setting, a little of the author’s style, the love or mood and so on. Frequently the author will give an instruction in the first few paragraphs, giving an overall picture of the selection. Hence, on the third or fourth paragraph, the readers read only the key sentences to get the main idea of the paragraph, and skip the other part of it. Of course, note besides the first few paragraphs, it is wise to read the last few paragraph, because they are often summarized. So we should master every paragraph very well in case we could acquire more information in a limit time.
4. Other reading skills
(1) Pair students and have them face each other. Have one watch the other while they read. Their job is
to count the number of eye movements the other makes per line. One way to speed up reading is to reduce the number of eye movements and improve peripheral reading. It takes practice, and one way to do it is to draw two light pencil lines down the page, dividing the passage into thirds lengthwise. Have the students concentrate on just making two eye movements--on each line down the page. Their time will increase automatically, but it takes a while for the comprehension to catch up. Many students find this hard to do. If they have a lot of eye movements, I let them put 3 or 4 lines down the page.
(2) Don't move your head--your eyes can move faster, so it slows you down.
(3) Don't use a pencil or your finger when you are reading. Your eyes move faster than your finger (try it), so you're slowing yourself down.
(4) I give each student a blank 5x8 index card. I have them use it to read the passage. It focuses the eye on the line being read, and
it really speeds them up. If they want to read faster, they should move the card faster.
(5) Don't mouth the words or try to pronounce them in your head. You can read faster than you can talk.
(6) I have them do an exercise to help them group words together--adjectives go with nouns, so they should be read as a unit.
(7) Don’t read function words. The, an, a, of are usually not important, skim them.
(8) Keep reading--don't stop if you don't understand something. Faster readers understand more. It's hard to convince them of that, but if you say it enough, some of them believe you. If they keep reading, they usually begin to understand.
(9) Preview quickly--guess what the article or passage is about before you begin to read. Bring as much of your background knowledge as you can to the forefront of your mind. You can read things you know something about faster than what you know nothing about.
References：
[1]李学术.实用英语阅读[M].北京：机械工业出版社，1997.
[2]王迈迈.English Reading of Grade 4 for English Major[M].武汉：西北工业大学出版社，2000.作者单位：广东珠海市拱北中学
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Abstract: There can be no doubt now that English is one of world’s most widely used languages. We learn English across four aspects speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Especially reading is an important part for our study and living. This paper expounds the importance of improving reading skills and improving strategies. Key words: reading skills; importance; reading。