An Analysis of Multiple Perspectives of Reading Skills

Zhu+Meijun

【Abstract】It is very important for students to learn some reading strategies to improve their reading ability. Some people think that reading is a very simple matter. However， English reading is a complicated process which needs some skills and methods. There are many skills to improve ones ability of reading comprehension.

【Key words】reading ability； complicated process ； reading skills and methods

Introduction

Some people think that reading is a very simple matter. You move your eyes along the lines， and the authors message appears somehow in your mind. However， the actual reading process is quite complicated . Imagine you are reading English right now. That means you are using your brain in a very active way. You should imagine a scene in your head or show that you agree or disagree with the writer. So English reading is a complicated process which needs some skills and methods. There are many skills to improve ones ability of reading comprehension.

One of the most important skills in reading is the knowledge of vocabulary. The number of vocabulary determines the difficulties and complexity of the material you can read and understand. The more words you memorize， the faster you read the article. So it is necessary to memorize words as many as possible. When coping with unknown words， you have to develop strategies， which will allow you either to discover the meaning of the words or at least to proceed further with the passage in spite of not knowing the meanings of some new words. One of the efficient ways is to guess the unknown vocabulary .While reading in our own language ， we usually have an unconscious habit of making logical inference as to the meaning of words based on the context. You can use the content to get the meaning and to help you develop the comprehension skills. To be a good reader， deducing the meaning of unfamiliar lexical through context is necessary.

A sentence is always about its subject or has a statement about the subject. The form of the sentence varies， but the subject or the statement about it remains the same. So being familiar with various sentence patterns and being able to have a good sense of what is conveyed by a sentence， will be helpful for a more efficient reading.

A paragraph has some sentences that are connected with each other in some logical ways and a passage is the connection of paragraphs. Generally speaking， if one paragraph is complex in structure， it involves much information such as culture， social background ， traditions and so on. But you can be sure that there is only one main idea in the passage. Skilled authors usually try to organize their material around a particular point. If you are good at reading， you will be sensible to it and this may help you to read with a high degree of efficiency and obtain maximum information from what you read with minimum misunderstanding. In reading we should be aware it is not always necessary to look for specific details.

In modern writing ， the main idea is not so clear that it takes skills and practice to recognize it. When you are searching for a main idea， it is a good idea to force yourself to read a bit faster than usual. Thus you will be able to focus your attention on ideas and relationships among them. In order to search for the main idea， it is important to distinguish the topic sentence. The main idea of a paragraph is often expressed by a topic sentence. It often best expresses the main idea that the author is trying to get across. Most paragraphs have a topic sentence . The remaining sentences either expand or support the central idea .It is no doubt that identifying the topic sentences rapidly will help you to grasp the main idea of the paragraph. Most topic sentences are at the beginning of the paragraph. Sometimes， However， the first sentence in the paragraph doesnt seem to give enough information to justify a paragraph. In that case， the most likely place to look for the topic sentence is the last sentence of the paragraph. Of course， there are also occasions when the topic sentence appears in the middle， or both at the beginning and at the end of a paragraph.

Finally ， trying to make progress in speed is an efficient way to improve reading ability. Fast reading ， once it is mastered ， makes reading more interesting . A good reader sees words as part of a whole sentence or paragraph ， not just in isolation. This is why slow word-by-word readers often understand for less， or miss the joy and excitement of reading.

Conclusion

In a word， reading involves much knowledge and common sense. Everyone has certain kind of special reading skills . It is necessary to generalize the skills in the process of reading and then we can improve our reading ability quickly.

References：

[1]Bauer，L.1983 English word-formation.London：Cambridge University Press.

[2]張維友.英語詞匯學[M].北京：外語教學研究出版社，1997.

[3]韓志先.英語閱讀教程[M].北京：高等教育出版社，1988.