Teaching and Learning of Reading

田昊

Reading is one of the most important skills necessary for acquiring knowledge in every discipline. Different people have different ideas about reading. Kenneth Goodman (1967) defined the reading act in the following way:

English reading has always been considered one of the most important parts of foreign language learning. Without reading, nothing can be done in the development of the competence in listening, speaking, writing and translating. Obviously, students and teacher should pay great attention to the importance of reading courses. And what is reading? How can Chinese students achieve proficient reading?

Kenneth Goodman (1967) defined the reading act in the following way:

Reading is a sampling, selecting, predicting, comparing and confirming activity in which the reader selects a sample of useful graphic clues based on what he sees and what he expects to see. The graphic symbols are not proceed one by one in a strictly serial manner, rather the reader samples from the print on the basis of predictions he has made as he seeks meaning.

Reading has generally held an important place in foreign and second language learning and it also lays a foundation for normal college students further development in listening, speaking and writing. The reading program is composed of intensive reading and extensive reading. Extensive reading serves the purpose of complementing intensive reading to help students improve their intensive reading.

It is a common problem for some students to complain about having trouble with how to read efficiently. It can be attributed to unsuitable text books, students bad reading strategies, or their wrong belief that slowly they read, the better they comprehend the text.

Some words lose their original sense when used in specific context. The readers must figure out the understatement when reading between the lines.

Vocabulary is the basis of foreign language learning, hence it is also the biggest problem in reading comprehension. Among the lexical barriers in reading, some are related to other factors, such as the change of word formation, complexity of sentences, insertion of modifiers, change of grammatical positions, extension of meaning, difference of cultures and habitual way to comprehension in using language.;

As we all know, different countries have different cultures. 'Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another.' (Hofstede, 1991);

Enriching and enlarging the background knowledge are the keys to understanding the text. As we know, we all have experiences of reading something which does not contain any new words ，but we still find it difficult to understand its meaning.;

Reading is one of the important skills in English learning. Its purpose is to enlarge their vocabulary and familiarize themselves with background information about English and to cultivate students' careful observation and their logic thinking. What is more, it is to improve students' comprehension. I have suggested in the following ways to improve readers reading ability:;

According to Anderson (1969) and Nuttall, (1985) phase or sense group reading will help build up students reading habits, because our brain deals with chunks of meaning of various sizes. The bigger the size of the sense group, the more rapidly the information can be accumulated, predicted, and stored.

Before starting to read a passage in detail, normal college students take a moment to preview the passage. Read quickly, without pausing to study the details. This is called skim reading. The students ask themselves to have these in mind: for which the passage was written, what type of passage it is, what the purpose and attitude of the author is and what the style of the article is.

Skimming refers to the process of reading only main ideas within a passage to get an overall impression of the content of a reading. Scanning is a technique you often use when looking up a word in a telephone book or dictionary. You search for key words or ideas. In most cases, you know what youre looking for, so youre concentrating on finding a particular answer. Scanning involves moving your eyes quickly down the page to seek specific words and phrases.

It should be preceded in an orderly way and should be realized step by step. Surely, you cannot improve it within a short time. However, if you master the proper reading skills and reading strategies and keep on reading, you will improve your reading ability at last.