Unit 5: Reading

 

UNIT 5: Reading

It is one of the four core language skills. It is perceived as a receptive skill, like listening. To be a receptive skill means that we respond a text rather than produce language. Reading understand the meaning of written text. For that reason, the most important is to understand the texts at word level, sentence level, and whole-text level. Connecting language with the knowledge of the real-world is necessary.

To understand any sentence used, it is necessary to understand the letters used, the way that words are joined to create a word, the meaning of words and the grammar of words used in a sentence.

Can you think why learners find reading difficulties?

A text does not have just a word or a simple text. This contains several sentences such as a postcard or an essay. Discourse refers to connect text. It is connected by grammar, vocabulary, and knowledge of the world. A learner must use his/her knowledge of the world to notate the sense connection between sentences (coherence), and the grammatical links of sentences (cohesion). The words use to connect sentences are named conjunctions.

Reading presents some reading (sub)skills

Reading for specific information (Scanning)

Reading for detail

Deducing meaning from context

Understanding text structure

Reading for gist (Skimming)

Inferring

Predicting

Some author mention that are reading skills but there are authors who believe that should be named as subskills. They will help us to read in many ways, of course we must find the correct one for the purpose of the reading. The reason for reading has a great impact in the manner that we read, and the reading subskill used.

To use scanning does not necessary read the whole text presented, reader just has to read until find the information required, for example: an address, a name, a number, or other specific information.

Another subskill uses for readers is reading for gist or skimming. Some authors denominated as reading for global understanding. It means look a text to obtain a general idea of what it is about.

The third reading subskill presented is reading for detail. Readers can use it, when they should understand each word in a specific part of the text.

Inferring is used by readers to get meaning from a text. A reader uses this skill to know the writer’s opinion or feeling about a topic. To infer is essential to recognize the words, register, grammar, or style used by the writer to refer something.

Deducing meaning from context means that we can read the words around an unknow word to work out the meaning. This skill helps reader to deduce the meaning of a word without the use of dictionaries or others reference resource.

Predicting is a skill that uses clues before starting to read, this helps to guess what the reading is about. We can see the title, pictures, the name of the author, and many other little aspects. At the moment that a reader makes a prediction about a text, s/he decides the importance of the text and the wish to read.        

Understanding text structure means to understand how written text information is organized. It helps to reader to get an idea that a text could present a main idea and details, cause and effects, and the different views of topics. It can help to students with the comprehension of the text. readers always are focusing to the sequence of a text. Also, it is important to understand the meaning of conjunctions using in the text.

Extensive reading is also called as reading for pleasure. Reader has to reader long pieces of text, such as a story, book, article, news. Here you can use different skills, because in some parts of reading you probably read with special attention and other probably just skimming, it happens because your attention and interest vary.

Intensive reading is related to read a text and examine the language that it contains. A clear example, it is to ask learners to search words related to a particular topic or look for the grammar use in a sentence. This type of reading is not used to comprehend a text, this uses in the language study.

Understanding text types could help to readers. There are many types of text types and each on is different from another. They change in aspects as lengths, layouts.

Read the following the following tips

·       Learners can transfer their reading skills to English if they know how to read in their mother language. It is possible to find some difficulties when students do not have a high level in foreign language. Here is where teacher must see in which subskills learners are good and prepared better those skills that they are not so good.

·       A teacher must look and choose good texts for learners. The texts that a teacher will use in his/her classes should have the correct level of difficulty according the learners, be interesting, and motivate them to maintain their concentration in reading.

Glossary

Coherence: ideas in spoken or written text fit together clearly and smoothly, this means that ideas have sense and logical order.

Cohesion: it explains the way a spoken or written text is joined with lexis or grammar.

Conjunctions: is a connector to connect words, phrases, sentences.

Discourse: spoken or written language in texts.

Layouts: the way that a text is organized and presented on a page.

Reference resource: the materials used for teachers to find information.

Sequence: it is a series of objects which are following a logical order.

Work out: it happens when learners try to learn how and why specific pieces of language are used or formed.

Bibliography:

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