Reading

Note: You should be aware that many resources available to improve your reading don't clearly distinguish between skills and strategies.

Reading Skills
Reading is often referred to as a skill and contains several sub-skills, of which we may need to do one or several.


 * Read efficiently (quickly enough)
 * Understand or deal with unknown words including technical lexis
 * Cope with grammar complexity – long complex sentences
 * Read for overall comprehension – gist reading
 * Read for details – intensive reading
 * understanding concepts
 * understand functions such as description, analysis (e.g. cause and effect), and evaluation
 * understanding discussions
 * understanding arguments
 * Understand main ideas and separate these from supporting detail
 * Understand how details, ideas, points made, relate to each other and the overall meaning
 * Understand nuances of meaning such as writer’s bias, implied meaning, or understanding non-literal meaning
 * Paraphrase and summarise
 * Think critically e.g. balance of argument; assumptions; level of support; quality of support
 * Cope with affective issues – e.g. work under stress or pressure and suppress distracting thoughts
 * Choose and apply appropriate strategies (meta-cognitive reading)

Reading at University - what skills, what strategies
University, or college, reading can sometimes be a challenge not only because you are learning so many new concepts and technical information, but also because there is so much reading. You can find a useful overview of what typifies University reading here from University of New South Wales.

Reading Strategies
To help us read more effectively for our aims, e.g. to read efficiently when we want to very quickly get an idea what a text is about, we can employ a variety of approaches or strategies. This list includes some of the most well-known.

Pre-reading strategies

 * Previewing - what do you know already? Schema? Purpose of reading? Purpose of writer?

While-reading strategies

 * Repetition   - read several times; reading is not always linear i.e. start to finish
 * Complex sentences – break them down (where is main clause, subject and verb); linking words (how do these show relationships?); pay attention to referencing words e.g. this; it etc
 * Paraphrasing             - explain; summarise; re-word
 * Using prediction and contextual clues       -  be aware of text type, structure, paragraph topic and function; surrounding information in text
 * Skimming    - use headings; topic sentences; illustrations
 * Comparison and contrast to my domain - what do you know (in your language) about this (topic and genre)
 * Using external knowledge    -  what do you know about the topic? What else can help?
 * Picking out key words            - what words appear to be key to understanding? Are they repeated often?
 * Scanning      - look for words, phrases, numbers, that contain important information.
 * Self-questioning    - what have you just read? How does it relate to your purpose?
 * Reacting – do you agree? Is that surprising? Is that interesting? are there assumptions?
 * Looking for purposes and important information          - what is author’s purpose in various parts and overall? Focus on linkers and discourse markers?
 * Visualizing   - can you build up a picture of what is being described?
 * Translation - is this appropriate? Will this help?
 * Summarizing                                    - stop and summarise (in your head?) at the end of each section or at the end of the text

Post -reading strategies

 * Evaluation and personal response                    - how did I perform? Why?
 * Do something with the information you have gained – take notes (ideas here and here) or draw diagram; explain it; summarise it

Some of the strategies listed above are explained in more detail here https://www.monash.edu/rlo/study-skills/reading-and-note-taking/effective-reading-strategies with some practice opportunities. Practice activities are also available here from RMIT in Australia https://emedia.rmit.edu.au/learninglab/content/reading-skills.

Resources that provide practice of skills and strategies

 * Practise of a variety of skills including reading through Open University pages. These pages include reading critically. You can find more information on what critical thinking means here at University of Sussex or you could also check the thinking skills part of the Canan wiki.
 * Group reading approaches can be a very useful way of improving language and improving understanding of texts. For example, reading circles.
 * Exam English can present useful opportunities to work on some of the skills listed at the top of the page. Some tasks/questions may focus on one or two skills such as understanding relationships between ideas while others may test a variety of skills together. Two well-known English proficiency tests are FCE and CAE. You can find practice at the following sites. https://www.examenglish.com/FCE/fce_reading.htm https://www.examenglish.com/CAE/cae_reading1.htm and many more by searching for FCE or CAE reading practice. Other well-known exams are TOEFL and IELTS. You can find many sites on the web that will give you strategies specific to the exams but if you wish to develop your reading skills more fully then it is best to do these tasks without the actual exam in mind e.g. you should read for gist before attempting exam questions.
 * A range of tips can be found at EAP Foundations including on speed reading/reading quickly https://www.eapfoundation.com/reading/skills/
 * You'll find a mixture of tips and strategies for improving your reading generally here https://www.englishclub.com/reading/guide.php