How to read a text with reading comprehension skills

Sichuan Fine Arts InstituteLi zhao

【Abstract】Reading is a process in which the reader must be actively involved. You must use what knowledge you can gain from the text and what you knows about the world in general in order to infer meanings and other sorts of information. This paper will puts forward some skills for reading comprehension.

【Keywords】reading comprehension skills， anticipating， predicting， skimming， scanning

一、Introduction

It is generally advisable to read a comprehension text at least twice： once quickly to get the gist of the text or have an overall impression of what it is about， and then a second time to concentrate on the relevant details and get the information important to the textual understanding.

In the first reading， you skim through the text， constantly ask yourself questions about the contests and function of the text， anticipating， predicting， checking your guesses off against the text as you read along， confirming or revising your guesses， and making further prediction. Do not slow down your reading for something you do not understand. The aim of this first reading is to get a general understanding of the text， to fulfill your reading purpose of the first reading， it is not necessary to understand every single word or sentence.

In the second reading， you scan to notice relevant details. As you have had a general idea about the text， you must know where to locate the pertinent passages and what details are important to the authors main idea. Read these parts of the text closely and carefully. Often something you did not understand in your first reading now becomes clear or turns out to be unnecessary for your reading purpose. Now based on the information got from the text， you can make analysis， inference and judgement， and have a thorough understanding.

二、Anticipating

One of the most important factors that can help you in the process of reading is the desire you have to read about a given subject. The more you look forward to reading and anticipating in your minds what the text could hold in store for you， the easier it will be to grasp the main points of the passage. You can get a quick idea of what a book is about by simply looking at its title， skimming through its table of contents， its back cover， and its preface

（一）How to anticipate

1 First reading the preface， the cover

2 Look at the title. With the help of the keywords the author provides and following the author's ideas， you can predict the main content the article is going to write.

3 Look at the subtitle， you can predict something in this section.

4 Through the topic sentences you can predict the outline of the paragraph.

5 Use illustrations

三、predicting

One way to read effectively is to predict. Reading is an activity involving constant guesses that are later rejected or confirmed. This means the reader relies on some “cues” to get an idea of what is likely to follow. Although you may not be able to predict every detail and a writer may surprise you with unexpected idea， you can often anticipate the general direction the author is going. Its a way to double-check your comprehension of what youve read so far， and it can be a great aid to understanding what comes next.

（一） how to predict

1 Use the clues in the article or title

2 Use the clues in the graph

3 Read the first paragraph and the last paragraph

四、Skimming

Skimming through a text means that you run your eyes over the text， in order to get the gist of it. It is a valuable rapid reading skill， which helps improve your comprehension and save your time. Skimming requires the reader to note only information and clues which provide an idea of the central theme or topic of a piece of writing. When you skim， you read only selected sentences in order to get the main idea. Do not stumble on some difficult vocabulary items. Do not read every word or sentence， You just want to determine the authors general message. Good readers often skim through a text to find main idea quickly. In order to determine the main idea， you should ask yourself what idea is common to most of the sentence in the paragraph？ What is the idea that relates these sentences to each other？ What idea do they all support， explain or describe？

（一）How to skim

1 Read the headings and subheadings

2 Read the introduction

3 read the first and last paragraph

4 Notice pictures ，charts， or graphs

5 Notice any italicized or boldface words or phrases

6 read the first and last sentences in each paragraph

7 Look for clues， these clues words can tell you some important contents of the who， what， where， when， how many， how much， etc.

8 concentrate on the gist of the passage， not the details

9 Look for the writer's direction words， for example： furthermore， also， which can let you know what is still under discussion. However， this words such as “on the contrary， yet， however” may indicate the content elaborated later are different from the previous.

10 Look for the theme of the article， main idea， main points， sometimes selectively read， or even skip some sentences and paragraphs.

五 Scanning

To scan is to read quickly in order to locate specific information. First you should decide what information you are looking for， think about the form it may take， and decide where you need to look to find it. The reader often scans when consulting an index， a table of contents， the advertisement and the radio or TV program， the dictionary and encyclopedia， perhaps it is particularly useful in reading newspapers or some magazines. It is also possible to use the reading skill to find some particular information in any kind of reading materials.

（一）How to scan

1 See first the questions at the back of the passage.

2 Determine the specific information you are looking for

3 Quickly search for some key words or key sentences which is related to the specific information you are looking for

4 Identify likely answer locations

5 Read it with more attention to get the answers

【Reference】

[1]Krashen. Principles and Practice in Second Language Ac[M].NY；New York Pergamon Press，1982.

[2] Anderson J. Neil （2004）. Exploring second language reading. Beijing： Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

[3]Wen Quifang. English learning strategies [M]. Shanghai： Shanghai foreign language education press， 1996.