Understanding Reading Skills
What are Reading Skills?
Reading is very important. Where there is little reading, there will be little language learning. Only by reading can students acquire the speed and they skills they need for practical purposes when they leave school. In any literate society, it is hard to imagine any skilled worker that does not require the ability to read. Professional competence depends on it.
Efficient reading depends on, first of all, having a purpose for why you are reading a text. The purpose could be a very general one like reading a novel for pleasure or escape on the other hand; it could be very specific like looking up a telephone directory for somebody’s number or address. The purpose will usually determine the appropriate type of reading and the relevant skills to be used. For instance, if the purpose of reading is to find out a specific piece of information in a chapter of a textbook, slow and intensive reading or the whole text would be inefficient reading.
What is needed here is scanning for the relevant details. That is, the eye, directed by the brain, runs down through the lines on the lookout for the relevant details. When these are recognized, the brain will tell the eye to slow down for close scrutiny. Usually at this point, another type of reading (intensive reading) may operate, since the purpose will now have changed.
Types of Reading
The student tends to read slowly and laboriously with the consequence that he has difficulty keeping up with his reading program. This is because he is often not sure of what he is expected to learn from his reading assignments, his uncertainty increases when he is given tests which require accurate recall of details.
As a result, he loses confidence in his ability to determine the important ideas and relevant details of a passage. At school, he has become conditioned, by so many years’ practices of reading English without a purpose to read everything in the same speed. Frequently, students read carefully, word-by-word through an entire chapter and get lost in the repetition of some facts never grasping the main idea. Skimming and scanning are parts of the total reading process and will help the student much in enhancing both his speed and understanding in reading.
However, the knowledge that he gains through the use of these techniques alone is not sufficient to enable him pass the examinations he will take at school. These techniques should be used as preliminary steps to studying before reading each section thoroughly.
The student needs to develop the ability to locate the main ideas of a reading selection rapidly, if he is to read with better comprehension.
Skimming and scanning can help the student to read with greater ease and understanding. As the student develops confidence and skills in locating main ideas and details quickly, he will find that thorough reading will take less time and that understanding will be improved. The idea that some words in a text may be ignored or skipped will certainly seem strange and scanning requires this. Skimming and scanning reading styles that are used for very special and specific purposes; for example, for the rapid location of specific information. These techniques requires an extremely fast reading rate, and they differ significantly from regular or rapid reading in that all the material is actually read. Large parts of the texts are not read at all. It’s is selective learning- parts of the material. These terms, skimming and scanning, are used indiscriminately, but we will distinguish them as follows:
I. Scanning
Scanning is the process of going through large quantities of material for the purpose of locating particular facts or details. It involves rapidly glancing through a text either to search for a specific piece of information or to get an initial impression of whether the text is suitable for a given purpose. Here, it is barely fast reading with instant rejection of all relevant data, perhaps most of the text that is needed.
II. Skimming
When we read to identify the main points of a text, we engage in skimming. This means paying close attention to these items that form the substance of the text. Once the main theme is located, the reader could skim further to establish the sub-theme. Sometimes skimming may involve just locating some names or specific dates as they have occurred in the text.
The SQ3R Method
In going through a textbook or a long passage, the reader does more merely reading through. He organizes his efforts such that he can make a quick observation of what the contents are and how they are organized and what elements constitute the most salient points to be remembered.
The strategy is more of a reference or study skill than reading in the traditional sense. It is called the SQ3R Method. This is because of the distinct steps followed:
• Survey
• Question
• Read
• Recall
• Revise
a. Survey: here the reader takes a quick glance at what the book or passage contains. This is done by looking at the table of contents or the section by section sub-heading. The survey reveals what the general specific areas focus are likely to be. This survey is probably the most used of skimming in the reading process. It may warrant looking at the index pages for topics given special or ample treatment.
b. Questions: at this point, the reader formulates some questions which act as signposts in reading. He may already have such questions which will pin him down on what to look for and how much attention to give to each identified point or sub-point. Often the book is taken up in chapter. There after, the chapter is examined in sections.
c. Read: this involves a slower and more concentrated reading of the book in sections or paragraphs. The questions earlier raised and the items under the index are used as guide. Some notes maybe taken down at this stage or after the completion of the reading.
d. Recall: the act of going over what has been read and retained details assists the reader in gaining confidence. He becomes more positive about what he has grasped.
e. Revise (Review): revision may involve going over the four previous steps and seeing which have proved more helpful. If any steps has been particularly useful, it may have to be repeated.
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