Readin

g skills
back You are expected to do much more reading at university than at school
or college; it's not called ‘reading for a degree' for nothing.

Here are five tips to help you improve your reading:

1. Styles of reading
2. Active reading
3. A tip for speeding up your active reading
4. Spotting authors' navigation aids
5. Words and vocabulary

1. Styles of reading
There are three styles of reading which we use in different situations:

Scanning: for a specific focus

The technique you use when you're looking up a name in the phone
book: you move your eye quickly over the page to find particular
words or phrases that are relevant to the task you're doing.

It's useful to scan parts of texts to see if they're going to be useful to

you:

 the introduction or preface of a book

 the first or last paragraphs of chapters
 the concluding chapter of a book.

Skimming: for getting the gist of something

The technique you use when you're going through a newspaper or

magazine: you read quickly to get the main points, and skip over the
detail. It's useful to skim:

 to preview a passage before you read it in detail

 to refresh your understand of a passage after you've read it in
detail.
Use skimming when you're trying to decide if a book in the library or
bookshop is right for you.

Detailed reading: for extracting information accurately

Where you read every word, and work to learn from the text.

In this careful reading, you may find it helpful to skim first, to get a
general idea, but then go back to read in detail. Use a dictionary to
make sure you understand all the words used.

2. Active reading
When you're reading for your course, you need to make sure you're
actively involved with the text. It's a waste of your time to just
passively read, the way you'd read a thriller on holiday.

Always make notes to keep up your concentration and understanding.

Here are four tips for active reading.

Underlining and highlighting

Pick out what you think are the most important parts of what you are
reading. Do this with your own copy of texts or on photocopies, not
with borrowed books.
If you are a visual learner, you'll find it helpful to use different colours
to highlight different aspects of what you're reading.

Note key words

Record the main headings as you read. Use one or two keywords for
each point. When you don't want to mark the text, keep a folder of
notes you make while reading.

Questions

Before you start reading something like an article, a chapter or a whole

book, prepare for your reading by noting down questions you want the
material to answer. While you're reading, note down questions which
the author raises.

Summaries
Pause after you've read a section of text. Then:

1. put what you've read into your own words;

2. skim through the text and check how accurate your summary is
and
3. fill in any gaps.

3. A tip for speeding up your active reading

You should learn a huge amount from your reading. If you read
passively, without learning, you're wasting your time. So train your
mind to learn.

Try the SQ3R technique. SQ3R stands for Survey, Question, Read,
Recall and Review.

Survey

Gather the information you need to focus on the work and set goals:

 Read the title to help prepare for the subject

 Read the introduction or summary to see what the author thinks
are the key points
 Notice the boldface headings to see what the structure is
 Notice any maps, graphs or charts. They are there for a purpose
 Notice the reading aids, italics, bold face, questions at the end
of the chapter. They are all there to help you understand and
remember.

Question

Help your mind to engage and concentrate. Your mind is engaged in

learning when it is actively looking for answers to questions.

Try turning the boldface headings into questions you think the section
should answer.

Read

Read the first section with your questions in mind. Look for the
answers, and make up new questions if necessary.
Recall

After each section, stop and think back to your questions. See if you
can answer them from memory. If not, take a look back at the text. Do
this as often as you need to.

Review

Once you have finished the whole chapter, go back over all the
questions from all the headings. See you if can still answer them. If
not, look back and refresh your memory.

See also: Taking notes, Gathering information

4. Spotting authors' navigation aids

Learn to recognise sequence signals, for example:

"Three advantages of..." or "A number of methods are available..."

leads you to expect several points to follow.

The first sentence of a paragraph will often indicate a sequence: "One

important cause of..." followed by "Another important factor..." and so
on, until "The final cause of..."

General points are often illustrated by particular examples, for

example:

General: Birds' beaks are appropriately shaped for feeding.

Particular: Sparrows and other seed-eating birds have short, stubby

beaks; wrens and other insect eaters have thin pointed beaks; herons
and other fish hunters have long, sharp beaks for spearing their prey.

Whatever you are reading, be aware of the author's background. It is

important to recognize the bias given to writing by a writer's political,
religious, social background. Learn which newspapers and journals
represent a particular standpoint.

5. Words and vocabulary

When you're a graduate people expect you to use a vocabulary which is
wider than a school-leaver's. To expand your vocabulary:
Choose a large dictionary rather than one which is ‘compact' or
‘concise'. You want one which is big enough to define words clearly
and helpfully (around 1,500 pages is a good size).

Avoid dictionaries which send you round in circles by just giving

synonyms. A pocket dictionary might suggest: ‘impetuous = rash'.

A more comprehensive dictionary will tell you that impetuous means

‘rushing with force and violence', while another gives ‘liable to act
without consideration', and add to your understanding by giving the
derivation ‘14th century, from late Latin impetuous = violent'.

It will tell you that rash means ‘acting without due consideration or
thought', and is derived from Old High German rasc = hurried.

So underlying these two similar words is the difference between

violence and hurrying.

There are over 600,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary; most
of them have different meanings, (only a small proportion are
synonyms).

Avoid dictionaries which send you round in circles by using very

complicated language to define the term you're looking up, leaving you
struggling to understand half a dozen new words.

Keep your dictionary at hand when you're studying. Look up

unfamiliar words and work to understand what they mean.

Improve your vocabulary by reading widely.

If you haven't got your dictionary with you, note down words which
you don't understand and look them up later.

> return to the list of quick-reference guides

Further Reading
Your next step should be to print out and work through the study guide
Reading Academically
last updated on October 16, 2008
contact details and credits
all resources © University of Southampton
Building reading skills the high-tech way
By Angela Casauay
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:41:00 06/08/2008

Filed Under: Education, Technology (general)

A PHOTO COLLAGE SERVES AS THE DESKTOP background of a

computer near schoolteacher Maria Noemi Bagayaua’s desk. The most
striking thing about it? A picture of her face “Photoshopped” onto the
body of actress Angel Locsin as “Darna.”

But indulging her personal fantasies isn’t the only thing this English
teacher can do with the computer.

Unlike most public schoolteachers, Bagayaua, 33, extensively uses

computer tools in teaching her Grade 6 pupils at the Cembo
Elementary School in Makati City, where she has been working for the
past six years.

In telling a story called “The Seed,” Bagayaua uses Powerpoint slides,

complete with text and drawings, to give life to the narrative, in this
case, about a little seed that fell from its mother tree and learned to
grow on its own with the help of the elements.

New method

Afterward, instead of the usual question-and-answer session, she asks

her students to come up with “graphic organizers”—different tasks that
test their understanding of the story.

These include character profiles in which students are asked to

describe the story’s characters and their traits and a Venn diagram
which could be used to pinpoint the similarities and differences among
the characters, among others.

“The main character in the story is the seed. Usually, a teacher would
ask, ‘Who was the main character of the story? Can you describe …’
And then the students would raise their hands, right?” Bagayaua said.

“With the graphic organizers, it’s not just simply knowing the
characters in a story. You don’t just know that the seed is the main
character. With the character profile, for example, they will describe
the characterization of the seed,” she told the Inquirer.

“Then I will ask questions about the seed again, about the story. With
those questions in mind, they will present the output of their activity.
For every question, they use a certain kind of graphic organizer,” she
said.

“Since my subject is English, of course, it includes reading,

storytelling, story reading. Before, I only made use of the textbook. But
in textbooks, there is just one picture and then the rest is text,”
Bagayaua said.

The students are given 10 to 15 minutes (depending on their abilities)

to accomplish the graphic organizers assigned to them by making slide
shows in the computer laboratory.

Using computer applications and the Internet is still relatively new to

Bagayaua, who started using the teaching tool only three years ago
after the school principal was appointed Information Communications
Technology (ICT) coordinator.

Old-fashioned method

“Before that, we didn’t have what we call ICT integration. So we did it

the traditional way—chalkboard, Manila paper, cartolina,” she said.

Since then, Bagayaua has fully embraced this type of “literature-based

ICT integration.” She added: “If we are going to compare it to the
situation before, the kids now are more interested in the lessons
because it is in Powerpoint and presented through an LCD projector.
Said one of her students, Allyana Villanueva: “I like it because it’s
modern. It’s easier to understand. And Ma’am likes to tell jokes.”

“We have good vibes. She is our friend in and out of the classroom.
When she teaches, we really understand the lesson. She also uses
graphic organizers like drafting thank you letters which we really
enjoy,” Villanueva added.

Top three
For her efforts, Bagayaua recently won first place in the search for the
Most Innovative Teaching Practices in the Division of Makati. She was
also among the top three finishers in the Microsoft Innovative Teachers
Awards.

“There was a memo from Microsoft, from Partners in Learning (PIL),

about the contest. The principal told me, ‘Why don’t you upload your
lesson?’ At the time, I was very busy. I had a lot of concerns,”
Bagayaua said. “At first I said it was hard to do because I had to
upload three lessons.” But the principal prodded her until she finally
complied with the requirements.

“After that, I didn’t think much about it anymore. I did not expect
anything. But when I checked the PIL website, I saw I was nominated
four times,” Bagayaua said.

“Eighty teachers from different regions qualified. I was already very

happy since I was part of the top 80 qualifiers from all over the
Philippines,” she said. In February, the Division ICT coordinator sent a
text message to Bagayaua that read “Congratulations, you are in the
top 10.”

“I was very happy about it. Plus it’s my dream to own a laptop and I
won one,” said Bagayaua who was given a laptop computer as her
prize. She went on to win a place in the top three.

Worth the trip

With the two other finalists, she competed in Hanoi for the right to
represent the country. Although she lost, Bagayaua said that the trip
itself was enough of a prize.

During the awards night, Bagayaua said almost all the 150
international teachers wanted to have their pictures taken with her and
another Filipino teacher from Iligan City.

“We were like artista (actors) because we were the only ones in
evening gowns. Microsoft told us to bring evening gowns, so we did,”
she said, laughing.

Her trip to Vietnam, she said, sparked a desire to work in another

country. “I think I want to see myself teaching in another country. But
I will go back after two years to share whatever I will learn with the
kids and the teachers.”
A source of pride

A mother of two, Bagayaua said her students are a constant source of

pride for her.

In the course of the deliberation for the local Microsoft prize,

Bagayaua admitted to the judges that her students made better slide
shows than her.

“Ma’am, don’t be mad but your pupils’ output are better than yours,’”
she recalled one of the judges as saying.

She replied, “Why would I get mad? I’m proud to say that I was the
one who taught them that!”

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/metro/view/20080608-
141374/Building-reading-skills-the-high-tech-way

eading skills acquisition is the process of acquiring the basic skills

necessary for learning to read; that is, the ability to acquire meaning
from print.

According to the report by the US National Reading Panel (NRP) in

2000, the skills required for proficient reading are phonological
awareness, phonics (sound-symbol correspondence), fluency,
vocabulary, and text comprehension.[1] Another important skill is rapid
automatized naming (RAN).[2][3]

Contents
[hide]

 1 Skills required for proficient reading

  2 Chall's Stages of Reading Development
o 2.1 Other views
 3 Reading difficulties
 4 References
 5 Further reading
 6 External links

[edit] Skills required for proficient reading

The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a
worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and
discuss the issue on the talk page.
According to the National Reading Panel, the ability to read requires
proficiency in a number of language domains: phonemic awareness,
phonics (sound-symbol correspondence), fluency, vocabulary, and text
comprehension.[4]

 Phonemic awareness: The ability to distinguish and

manipulate the individual sounds of language. The broader
term, phonological awareness, also includes rhymes, syllables,
and onsets and rimes.

 Phonics: Method that stresses the acquisition of letter-sound

correspondences and their use in reading and spelling. This
helps beginning readers understand how letters are linked to
sounds (phonemes), patterns of letter-sound correspondences
and spelling in English, and how to apply this knowledge when
they read.

 Fluency: The ability to read orally with speed, accuracy, and

vocal expression. The ability to read fluently is one of several
critical factors necessary for reading comprehension. If a reader
is not fluent, it may be difficult to remember what has been
read and to relate the ideas expressed in the text to his or her
background knowledge. This accuracy and automaticity of
reading serves as a bridge between decoding and
comprehension.[5]

For struggling readers, traditional phonics instruction can have the

unintended consequence of promoting dysfluency. The difficulty lies in
the coarticulated nature of speech. Speech sounds are overlapping [6],
while print is discrete and sequential. This can be appreciated if one
places his/her mouth in position to begin to produce the word cat vs
cot. The initial hard c is colored by the subsequent vowel even before
speech begins, i.e., the smiling position as one prepares to say cat vs
the more limp position as one prepares to say cot. As the early reader
works from left to right, beginning with the onset consonant, s/he
typically does not yet know the vowel with which it must be
coarticulated. And, the vowel sound itself cannot be known until the
remaining rime (the rime is the portion of the syllable beginning with
the vowel and extending to its end: ig in rig vs ight in right) is fully
encountered.

The following example illustrates the dysfluency that this can create.
Without looking ahead, begin to sound out the following word, left to
right, using letter-sound knowledge. The first letter is b, the sound of
which is- try to say it. The second letter is o. If you said the sound of b
was buh, you have some revision to do since you have ended in a
vowel sound that does not allow for blending with the o. But how does
the o sound? Now you have bo. What does it sound like? The o could
be long or short. Try bou, bough. At this point you might have begun
to appreciate that the vowel is not knowable until you reach the end of
the syllable, i.e., until you have considered the full rime. Now try
bought.

For these reasons, teaching reading through orientation to rime first

and then adding the onset (ought-bought) can be helpful in promoting
fluency through supporting the phonological problems of
coarticulation. Emphasis on the rime also supports the development of
an intuitive, and therefore more fluent, awareness of orthographic
patterns. [7]

 Vocabulary: A critical aspect of reading comprehension is

vocabulary development. When a reader encounters an
unfamiliar word in print and decodes it to derive its spoken
pronunciation, the reader understands the word if it is in the
reader's spoken vocabulary. Otherwise, the reader must derive
the meaning of the word using another strategy, such as
context.

 Reading Comprehension :The NRP describes comprehension

as a complex cognitive process in which a reader intentionally
and interactively engages with the text. Reading comprehension
is heavily dependent on skilled word recognition and decoding,
oral reading fluency, a well-developed vocabulary and active
engagement with the text.

 Rapid automatized naming : The ability to quick say the

 name of both letters, objects and colors predicts an individual's
ability to read. This might be linked to the importance of quick
retrieval of phonological representations from long-term
memory in reading and the importance of object-naming
circuits in the left cerebral hemisphere that are recruited to
underpin a child word-recognition abilities.[2]

[edit] Chall's Stages of Reading

Development
Jeanne Chall's model of the stages of reading acquisition is well
known.(Resnick, pg 38) In Chall's model, each stage builds on skills
mastered in earlier stages; lack of mastery at any level can halt the
progress beyond that level.

 Stage 0. Prereading: The learner gains familiarity with the

language and its sounds. A person in this stage becomes aware
of sound similarities between words, learns to predict the next
part in a familiar story, and may start to recognize a few
familiar written words. Chall's Stage 0 is considered
comparable to what is often called "reading readiness."
Typically developing readers achieve this stage about the age of
6.

 Stage 1. Initial reading stage, or decoding stage: The learner

becomes aware of the relationship between sounds and letters
and begins applying the knowledge to text. This demonstrates
the reader has achieved understanding of the critical concept of
the alphabetic principle and is learning sound-symbol
correspondences, the alphabetic code.[8] Typically developing
readers usually reach this stage by the age of 6 or 7.

 Stage 2. Confirmation: This stage involves confirming the

knowledge acquired in the previous two stages and gaining
fluency in those skills. Decoding skills continue to improve,
and they begin to develop speed in addition to accuracy in word
recognition. At this point, the reader should be able to give
attention both to meaning and to the print, using them
interactively to build their skills and fluency. This stage is
critical for the beginning reader. If the developing reader stops
making progress during this stage, the individual remains, in
Chall's words, "glued to the print." Typically developing
readers usually reach this stage around the age of 8.
  Stage 3. Reading to learn: At this stage, the motivation for
reading changes. The reader has enough reading skill to begin
to read text in order to gain information. Readers' vocabulary
development accelerates at this point resulting from increased
exposure to the written word. Typically developing children
usually achieve this stage in 4th grade, around the age of 9.

 Stage 4. Multiple viewpoints: The reader at this stage begins

to be able to analyze what they read, understand different points
of view, and react critically to what they read. Typical readers
are developing this skill set during the high school years,
around ages 14 to 19.

 Stage 5. Construction and judgment: At this stage, readers

have learned to read selectively and form their own opinions
about what they read; they construct their knowledge from that
of others. This highest level of reading development is not
usually reached until college age, or later, and may in fact be
achieved only by those who have an intellectual inclination.

[edit] Other views

 Phase 1: Uta Frith's view of phase 1 as the logographic phase.

Linnea Ehri calls it the visual-cue phase.

 Phase 2: Ehri's phonetic cue, or rudimentary alphabetic, stage.

 Phase 3: Gough and Hillinger's cipher or alphabetic phase

 Phase 4: Orthographic phase

[edit] Reading difficulties

Problems processing spoken words hinder a student’s ability to
translate written words into speech. Regardless of age, subtle auditory
or phonological (speech-sound) processing issues hinder reading.[citation
needed]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_skills_acquisition
http://www.jstor.org/pss/40031742