THE READING SKILL

“Reading maketh a full man…”

-Francis Bacon
 PREVIEW

• Introduction
• Reading Strategies
• Faulty Reading Habits
• Speed Reading
• Summing up
 INTRODUCTION

Reading - One of the Four Major

Language Skills

Readingdef. “Visual decoding and

processing of information”

Reasons for Reading

 READING STRATEGIES

1. Skimming : Making a quick survey of

a text to get its main idea

2. Scanning : Glancing rapidly through a

text to search for specific
information
 ACTIVITY - 1 [Time - 2 minutes ]

Which of the 4 titles below the news item represents its main idea ?
By Our Science Correspondent :
Hundreds of people made 999 calls to police stations throughout
Britain early yesterday to report a fiery meteor. Many said they
had seen a UFO.
Inspector John Smith, who was in a patrol car in the New Forest
reported a glowing light with a long orange tail. “After a second or
two, it seemed to explode or disintegrate” in the sea off the Isle of
Wight.
About a million tons of meteoric rock and dust land on the earth
each year. They are part of the primordial debris from which the
solar system was formed some 5,000 million years ago.
a. Explosion in New Forest
b. UFO seen over Britain
c. Hundreds call police about meteor
d. Catastrophe near the Isle of Wight.
3. Guessing the Meaning of Unknown Words :
Using prior knowledge of the subject
and the ideas in the text as clues to the
meaning of unknown words.

 CLUES:
(1) Word Structure: (Prefix) Root (Suffix)
un - question - able
mono – tone - ous
post – doctor - al
(2) Context:
e.g. “Although she is usually loquacious,
she remains silent before her father.”
4. Inferring : Coming to a
conclusion about a question by
relating ideas from different
parts of a text.
 ACTIVITY - 2 [Time - 3 minutes ]

Read the passage and answer the question that follows

Big Brother
A new software package, aptly named Big Brother, can
track under-performers by automatically scanning e-mails to
create a personality profile for each staff-member. The
software scans every e-mail received or sent by an employee
and looks for patterns of words or the absence of words that
provides clues about their personalities. Although it is
designed to tackle workplace cyber-crime, the system could
be adopted to show whether employees are lazy, take very
frequent sick-leave, or are applying for jobs elsewhere. The
program is the brainchild of computer experts working for
the U.S. military and will soon be available in India for free
download by companies.
 Systems like Big Brother rely on the
assumption that the riskiest employees are those
who are disgruntled and alienated. They search their
e-mails for specific ‘negative profile’ words such as
‘drink, love, depressed, lonely, break-up, divorce,
suicide, kill, penniless’, or phrases like ‘the
workplace sucks’. The system also checks if anyone
is discussing sensitive subjects, personal or
professional, with those outside. If they do, they may
be flagged. People who are seen to be alienated are
seen as risks, and their names are immediately
forwarded to the management. The system can even
track those who are applying for jobs elsewhere or
taking too much time off.
 The advantages to employers are obvious.
Companies say that one-third of the damage to
their business is caused by insiders. In such cases,
Big Brother would be a boon.

Inferential Question:
Does the writer approve of ‘Big Brother’
and its use? Which words in the passage tell
you what the writer’s opinion is?
5. Extensive Reading :
• Reading longer texts, usually for
one’s own pleasure.
• A fluency activity, mainly involving
global understanding.

6. Intensive Reading :
• Reading shorter texts to understand
details.
• An accuracy activity involving reading
for detail.
 ACTIVITY - 3 [Time – 2 minutes]

Look at the six reading situations and four different strategies given
below. For each reading situation, identify the strategy you would use.
Write the number of the strategy (1/2/3/4) against the situations.
Reading situations Reading strategies
a) Looking for the main news in a 1. Reading carefully for maximum
day‘s newspaper. information (intensive reading).
b) Reading the ‘situations vacant’ 2. Reading for pleasure (extensive
page in a newspaper, looking reading).
for a teaching job abroad.
c) Reading an article for a 3. Reading to get overall
presentation. information (skimming).
d) Finding the telephone number 4. Reading quickly to find specific
of a friend in a directory. information (scanning).
e) Reading a novel while traveling
in a train.
f) Reading the instructions on a
medicine bottle.
 FAULTY READING HABITS
(a) Sub-vocalizing :
Forming the sounds of words
and even murmuring them.
(b) Finger pointing :
Finger moves from word to
word.
(c) Regressive Eye-movement :
Eyes move back to check
previous words instead of
steadily moving forward.
 NEED FOR SPEED READING
Reading Efficiency = Speed + Comprehension

Link between reading speed and comprehension

Chunking by Sense Groups & eye movements

Adjusting Reading Speed to reading purpose

 HOME WORK – I
Read Sanjay Kumar and Pushp Lata’s
“Communication Skills” : Pages 359 – 375.
OR
Ashraf Rizvi’s
“Effective Technical Communication” : Pages 228 – 248

To answer in the next class questions on

• Concept mapping
• Difference between skimming and scanning
• Common Reading Faults
• Need for flexibility in reading speed
HOME WORK – II [First Reading : 2 min + Task completion : 10 min ]
Read the following tips on Note Making and then the passage
following to fill the template for note making.

NOTE – MAKING
A systematic method of writing down the
important points of a reading text.
TOPIC

MAIN POINTS

IMPORTANT SUPPORTING DETAILS OF EACH MAIN POINT

 Read the following passage for making notes.

[In this passage, there is one main, final effect and

a number of connected causes. Fill in the arrow
diagram with causes and effects from the list above
the diagram. Write only the correct letter in each
box. ]

In 1912, the Titanic, the largest and best equipped

transatlantic liner of its time, hit an iceberg on its
first crossing from England to America and sank.
Of the 2,235 passengers and crew, only 713
survived.
Research has shown that a number of factors played
an important part in the disaster. First, the Titanic
carried only sixteen lifeboats, with room for about
1,100 people. This was clearly not enough for a ship
of the Titanic's size. In fact, the designer of the
Titanic originally planned to equip the ship with
forty-eight lifeboats; however, in order to reduce
their costs for building the ship, the owners of the
Titanic decided to give it only sixteen lifeboats.
A second factor was that the Titanic's crew were
not given enough time to become familiar with the
ship, especially with its emergency equipment. As a
result, many lifeboats left the ship only half-full
and many more people died than needed to.

The third factor in the disaster was the behavior of

the Titanic's officers on the night of the disaster. In
the twenty-four hours before the disaster, they
received a number of warnings about icebergs in
the area, but they took no precautions. They did
not change direction or even reduce speed.
A. The Titanic did not have enough lifeboats for all the passengers and crew.
B. The Titanic hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank with the loss of
1,522 lives.
C. The Titanic's officers did not pay any attention to warnings about icebergs
near the Titanic.
D. The Titanic's owners decided to save money by equipping the Titanic with
sixteen lifeboats instead of the forty-eight that the ship's designer planned.
E. The crew were not very familiar with the ship and its emergency
equipment.
F. Many lifeboats were only half-full of people when they left the titanic.
THANK
YOU !