What is Reading Comprehension ?
Understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as effectively as possible. "Required information" depends on what we are reading and why we are reading. For example , the approached used while looking for 'computer peripherals" in the classified section would be very different from the one used in reading a harry potter novel. That is we automatically and without too much formal training use multiple reading strategies depending on what we are reading and why we are reading it.
What Do we Read ?
* Newspapers and Magazines (headlines, articles, editorials , opinions , classifieds , score cards, tv/movie listings)
* Specialized articles , reports , reviews , essays , business letters
* Handbook ,Textbook guidebooks
* Novels , short stories, tales , other literary texts and passages
* Advertisements , Brochures, Catalogues
* Recipies , how to instructions , posters , road signs , graffiti, menus , price lists , tickets and so much more.
Why we Read :
1. Reading for pleasure and general information, to keep your self updated with the world , novels , books , articles on your interest areas.
2. Reading for Specific information , looking for specific answers or reading from the point of view of analysis (exam reading)
how we read ?
Extensive reading : Reading longer texts like Novels , short stories for your own pleasure. Typically this is a fluency activity and the focus is on global understanding that is following the major elements of the story with sometimes a lot of detail only at the periphery of active focus. Though the details are not at the center of focus the overall data is going into the brain in a sequential , chornological manner and so memeory is of some significance her. Not remembering what happened in prisoner of Azkaban will be of some hindrance in reading latter Harry Potter books.
Intensive reading: Reading shorter texts to extract specific information. This is an accuracy activity with focus on detailsas well as global understanding , however memory is associated only till the act of intensive reading i.e you can read , analyze and forget the text.
Skimming :Quickly running one's eye over the text to gather the subject , general topic , global idea. This is what you do typically with newspapers in the first run through before you decide what articles to read and in what order.
Scanning: Quickly going through a text to find a specific piece of information , this is what you do when you look for a specific dal in the classifieds, much like the skill required to go through a dictionary .
The strategies are not mutually exclusive with each other and often work with each other and are needed to work together if one needs total control over his reading skills. For example while reading an exciting novel the reader would often skim through parts of the story and use extensive reading only in the portions that really excite the reader. Or while reading intensively one might need to go back a couple of paragraphs to better understand the data or answer a question and the reader would use his scanning skills to look for the general area of that information.
Specific Skills involved in reading.
Reading as a skill is made up of small tasks and activities which mesh together to give you the view of the text. If we need to improve our Reading Skills it is paramount that we understand what are the mini skills that go into making this over skill.Not surprisingly all the questions that come in the reading sections of aptitude tests , are designed to test these very skills and an examiner uses this very list to create menacing questions so take your time with this list and try and acquire most if not all of the following sub skills
* deducing the meaning and use of unfamiliar words using context and inference
* Understanding Explicitly stated information
* Understanding information when not explicitly stated
* Understanding relations within the sentence
* Understand relations between parts of text
* Understanding cohesion between parts of text through grammatical cohesion devices
* Interpreting text by going outside it
* Identifying main point and most important information in a text
* Distinguishing the main idea from supporting details
* Extracting important points to summarize
* Selective extraction of relevant point in the text
* Basic reference skills
* Skimming
* Scanning for specific information