General ideas on English reading

ZHU Wen–ying

【Abstract】This paper is talking about some general ideas on English reading in order to help teachers and learners foster some reading skills by seeing through its natures aiming at effective and productive English teaching and learning.

【Key words】English reading； foster； understanding； absorption； receptive

It is generally considered that reading is the quickest and most effective way that accesses learners to a foreign language like English.

Reading is reading and understanding

Reading is not merely decoding and translating written symbols into corresponding sounds.It needs to be read and understood.

According to David （242）there are two different views on the nature of reading：the bottom-up and the top-down views.He thinks reading is basically a matter of decoding a series of written symbols into their natural equivalents.Cambourne （2：78-90）who likes the term “outside-in” rather than “bottom-up”，provides the following illustration of how the process is supposed to work：

Print → Every letter discriminated → Phonemes and graphemes matched → Blending → Pronunciation → Meaning

According to this mode，the readers process each letter as it is encountered.Penny （142）tells us that when we read，we need to perceive and decode letters into words.We need to understand all the words in order to understand the meaning of a text.He gives us an example to show how it works.Now，read the first following content，“her with”； we may guess various possibilities.Then read the second part “Shes a natural teacher！ （And it is a pleasure does have her with us.）” Through the example，he shows us that we can read words without necessarily being able to identify and decode single letters.

Reading is process of absorption

During the reading，we gain words，sentences，grammars，contents etc.，everything in written language.Mass reading can help us absorb the forms of English.However，begin to read a foreign language like English involves learning an entire new set of written symbols.So it is practical and productive to begin with single letters，starting with the most common and useful ones.It is also more useful to read for purposes.On the other hand，try to use appropriate questions and tasks to make the learners feel more motivated to read.Sometimes if passages are easy and useful，it may provide the learners with a target in reading and make the whole activity more interesting and effective.

During the reading，teachers should also know about other possible reading activities of using different kinds of texts for different kinds of learners，such as pre-questions，do-it-yourself questions，and presentation of content and so on.

Reading is receptive skill

Learners need to learn how to read efficiently themselves.They should help themselves to learn to recognize words and phrases in English scripts，use their own knowledge to make predictions and interpretations of words and phrases，retrieve useful information，deduce the meanings and usages of unknown words，understand the meaning and implications of grammatical structures，classify the functions of sentences，skim to obtain the gist，understand implied information and attitudes，and understand layouts or usages of headings etc..Teachers can also help them with giving more information，dividing texts into short chunks，adding discourse markers where helpful，and paraphrasing difficult ideas and so on.No matter what and how，reading skills need to be fostered so that learners can cope with more and more texts and tasks，and deal with them efficiently，appropriately and skillfully.

Penny （1996）thinks reading is fixed and stable so that reading can be done at whatever time，speed and level of thoroughness the individual readers wish.Careful selections of the reading materials can help to develop learners reading skills.We choose something like magazines for pleasure reading，newspapers for survival reading，and literature novels for study reading and so on.Classified reading contents are always used for different levels of learners and different stages of reading learning.

Reading builds basis of language learning.English is no exception.

References：

[1]David Nunan.（1991）.Language Teaching Methodology：a text book for teachers[M].Prentice Hall.

[2]Cambourne.（1979）.How Important is Theory to the Reading Teacher？[J]Australian Journal of Reading，2：78-90.

[3]Penny Ur.（1996）.A Course in Language Teaching[M].Cambridge University Press.

作者簡介：

祝文瑛（1973—），女，本科，湖北孝感人，講師，主要研究方向為英語教學。