how to improve reading ability for the senior students.doc

Help the Students to Improve Their Reading Ability According to the outline of English teaching, in our teaching we should train the students reading, speaking, writing and listening abilities. Among the four, reading is the most important and difficult part in English teaching. Reading ability can help the students obtain as much information as possible and make them be more interested in English learning. So improving the students reading ability is necessary. In order to achieve this goal, we can teach the students to read passages in scientific methods, as follows.一、 To learn to scan passages first When the students must find important information in a passage in a short time, they should learn to scan it. But it is not necessary for them to read and understand every sentence and every word they see.(一) To read the title carefully. The title of a passage is always related to the main idea of the whole text. Sometimes from the title the students can know much more than the only words. For example: “Is money so important?”when they read the text they should try to find the answer of the question and of course they would easily understand the main idea of the author. (二) To search for key words and key sentences. Students can search for key words and sentences with purpose and get detailed facts they need very fast. Those words appearing several times should be paid more attention. And in every paragraph the first and the last sentence sometimes gives important information.(三) To learn about the structure of the passage While the students are scanning a passage, they must know how the passage they are reading is arranged, because all kinds of materials have their own way of arrangement. For example, broadcast programs and time schedules are arranged in time clue, so it is suitable for the students to scan in time order. As to discussion articles, the thesis, proof and argument are usually the topic sentences and key expressions. They are very important for the students to scan. If they know them, the whole text will be simple and clear. And it is much easier for them to find useful information in a limited time.二、 To try to guess the meaning of new words Every time the students are reading, they will certainly come across some new words they never see before, and they often get puzzled about the meaning of these new words. It is important to try to guess their meaning instead of turning to a dictionary at once. We will introduce the ways of guessing as follows: (一) To guess it according to the context It is not necessary for students to look every new word up in a dictionary at once when they see any new word in reading. Students should try their best to guess at new words according to the context. For example: 1 AIDS is the plague of the 20th century. It is a disease caused by a virus. From the context, they could guess that “plague” means a kind of bad disease. 2 Water could evaporate in very hot weather and freeze in very cold weather. In this sentence, the meaning of “evaporate” is not clear, but it is unnecessary to look it up. According to the words hot, cold, freezein the context. Students can easily guess that it might be the opposite of freeze and go on reading. 3 A middle-aged professor said that his wife was too extravant, because no matter how much he give her for the household expenses, she always ran short. In this sentence, the meaning of the word extravagant can be easily guessed(二) To guess it according to the punctuation marks and some hints in sentences Some punctuation marks have the usage of explanation and illustration. Students can do reading easily with them. For example: The underside of the frog-its belly-is very light in colour. In this sentence, “bell” is used to explain the word “underside”. So we can know underside means side or surface that is underneath. And sometimes we should find some hints. Context, some phrases, such as means, refer to, in other words, That is to say; are all the hints. For example:(三) To guess it according to the forms of words they know Sometimes, students meet some words and phrases in reading as if they knew. As to this kind of words, we would like to teach them to use the knowledge of words formation to guess. The skill is very useful for students to enlarge their vocabulary and improve the ability of reading. Normally, words are usually formed in three ways: transform, derive and compound. They are very familiar to everyone to grasp well and use freely in reading. If students do more reading, this awkwardness will be released. For example:The witness was questioned by the police.In this sentence, They are familiar with the meaning of the word “question”as a noun, and they know it is a verb in a passive voice here and it is related to “问题”.So it is not difficult to guess the meaning of the whole sentence.(四) To guess it from contrasting People usually use some words to express the meaning of contrast. Such as “but, while, however, otherwise”. The sentence followed is usually the opposite meaning of the proceeded one. With the help of these words, students can guess at new words. For example: Jack was thin while his while was really obese. In this sentence, “obese” may make students puzzled, but they can see that it is the antonym of “thin” by the word “while”, so its meaning is understood and that is very fat. But sometimes they cant guess what the word means. If the word doesnt affect their reading, let it be. For example, A German told me that all over China they use Gourmet powder in their food. It will give you higher blood pressure. They may know that gourmet is a kind of thing that can be eat. But it doesnt matter whether they know what it is.三、 To learn about culturalbackgroundknowledge ReadingEnglisharticlesrequiresacertainlanguagebasis,butthecompetenceofreadingcomprehensionisnotentirelyrelatedtooneslanguagelevel.Knowledgeofculturalbackgroundisalsoimportant. (一) To know more English words from history,religion,literatureetc.Manyallusion.wordsdrawnfromhistory,religion,literatureetc.,oftenappearinEnglishworksandhavebecomecommonhouseholdterms.If possible we should encourage the students read English books and see English films. Or in class it is great use telling stories, remarking favorite films. They would know more about allusion words. For example: Rambo means a hero and Romeo means an ideal lover. (二) To learn about allusion of some common words in different cultures Students should know in different cultures the same thing perhaps means different things or express different feelings of the author. Eventheverysimpleexpressionscannotbedealtwithwithoutanyconsiderationofspecificcontextandcustoms. For example:He is the lucky dog.Here the word “dog”just means a person, not a real dog, and the author doesnt degrade the person. Because in English the word “dog”is not used to mean a bad man ,just like in Chinese. So,inteachingreading,ateachershouldexplaingrammaticaldifficultiesaswellasculturalbackground.四、 To avoid problems that affect your reading speed Someone reads word by word. Some one reads with his finger pointing to the words or with his head shaking. Those are all bad habits. You should read phrase by phrase. Dont blink your eyes so often and dont shake you head. Just move your eyeball. Thats enough. If you want to get more word information, there must be a proper distance between your eyes and the reading material.五、 To develop a good reading habit. Generally speaking, good readers know that reading is not knowing wordsit is a way of thinking .Smart readers think before, during and after reading. 1)Think before you read .Ask yourself why you are reading the text .This will he