Santa Monica Institute of Tech.

Andrada Bldg. Poblacion, Iligan City

Module 1
Week 1
Senior High School
Reading and Writing Skills
1st Semester of S.Y. 2021-2022 Instructor: Ceasar Ian H. Mundala

Intended Learning Outcomes

A. Describes a written text as connected discourse. EN11/12RWS-IIIa-1

B. Apply the EFFECTIVE READING STRATEGIES.
Discussion
Text as Connected Discourse

RW
Reading and Thinking Strategies across Text Types
There has been some confusion in the literature regarding the distinction between ‘discourse

S
analysis’ and ‘text analysis’.It is a result of the confusion in the terms ‘discourse’ and ‘text’.

MO TEXT vs. DISCOURSE

Text - is anything that conveys a set of meanings to the person who examines it.

DU (openoregon.pressbooks.pub)
Qeworqoiutiqv oiqn uiuw9v590
Is this a text?
LE q38c9r0eroinbtpu09c9we mf9en 8 b3bq4i 09

It was generally evident whenever

they met, that he did admire her; and to
her it was equally evident that was
yielding to the preference which she had Is this a text?
begun to entertain for him from the first,
and was in a way to be very much in love;

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 Is this a text?

Is this a text?
RW
S
MO What do the images above represent?
Decide whether they constitute a text or not.

DU Justify your answer.

LE TEXT vs. DISCOURSE

Text or discourse?
According to Widdowson (1973)
 Text:  Discourse:
is made up of sentences. is the use of such sentences.
- A text is made up of sentences  A discourse is made up of
having the property of grammatical utterances having the property of
cohesion. coherence. 2
-Text Analysis: deals with cohesion.  Discourse analysis: investigates
coherence.
 Another distinction

 Text:
 Text is defined in terms of
its being a physical product.
 Meaning is not found in
text.
 Discourse:
 Discourse is viewed as a process.
 Meaning is derived through the
reader’s interaction with the text
 discourse.

Others
 Text:  Discourse:
 written  Spoken

RW  Text analysis: investigates

written form
 Text:
 Discourse analysis: analyzes
spoken form.Discourse:
“language in action”

S  “written record of an
interaction”
 Nunan (1993:6-7): text refers
 Nunan (1993:6-7):
discourse refers to the
interpretation of the

MO to any written record of a

communicative event (which 

communicative event.”

may involve oral language or

DU 
written language);

What makes text a connected discourse?

LE Text becomes a connected discourse when we read.

Read!
Paul Theroux’s “Being a Man”
Femininity—being lady-like—implies needing a man as witness and seducer; but masculinity celebrates the
exclusive company of men. That is why it is so grotesque; and that is also why there is no manliness without
inadequacy—because it denies men the natural friendship of women. It is very hard to imagine any concept
of manliness that does not belittle women, and it begins very early.

At an age when I wanted to meet girls—let's say the treacherous years of thirteen to sixteen—I was told to
take up a sport, get more fresh air, join the Boy Scouts, and I was urged not to read so much. It was the
1950s and if you asked too many questions about sex you were sent to camp—boy's camp, of course: the
nightmare. Nothing is more unnatural or prison-like than a boy's camp, but if it were not for them we would
have no Elks' Lodges, no pool rooms, no boxing matches, no Marines.

WHAT IS READING?

READING is a cognitive process of decoding symbols to derive meaning from a text. It is always an
interaction between the text and the reader. We read to gain and share information and ideas, whether for
academic, personal, or professional purposes.
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 EFFECTIVE READING STRATEGIES

Reading Strategies
 Previewing
 Skimming
 Scanning

1. Previewing the text to get an overview

What is it? Previewing a text means that you get an idea of what it is about without reading the main body of
the text.
When to use it: to help you decide whether a book or journal is useful for your purpose; to get a general
sense of the article structure, to help you locate relevant information; to help you to identify the sections of
the text you may need to read and the sections you can omit.
To preview, start by reading:
 the title and author details
 the abstract (if there is one)
 then read only the parts that ‘jump out’; that is: main headings and subheadings, chapter summaries,
RW any highlighted text etc.
 examine any illustrations, graphs, tables or diagrams and their captions, as these usually summarise
the content of large slabs of text
S  the first sentence in each paragraph
2. Skimming
What is it? Skimming involves running your eye very quickly over large chunks of text. It is different from
MO previewing because skimming involves the paragraph text. Skimming allows you to pick up some of the
main ideas without paying attention to detail. It is a fast process. A single chapter should take only a few

DU
minutes.
When to use it: to quickly locate relevant sections from a large quantity of written material. Especially useful
when there are few headings or graphic elements to gain an overview of a text. Skimming adds further

LE
information to an overview.
How to skim:
 note any bold print and graphics.
 start at the beginning of the reading and glide your eyes over the text very quickly.
 do not actually read the text in total. You may read a few words of every paragraph, perhaps the first
and last sentences.
 always familiarise yourself with the reading material by gaining an overview and/or skimming before
reading in detail.
3. Scanning
What is it? Scanning is sweeping your eyes (like radar) over part of a text to find specific pieces of
information.
When to use it: to quickly locate specific information from a large quantity of written material.
To scan text:
 after gaining an overview and skimming, identify the section(s) of the text that you probably need to
read.
 start scanning the text by allowing your eyes (or finger) to move quickly over a page.
 as soon as your eye catches an important word or phrase, stop reading.
 when you locate information requiring attention, you then slow down to read the relevant section
more thoroughly. 
 scanning and skimming are no substitutes for thorough reading and should only be used to locate
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 material quickly.
Exercise
A. Means looking at the readily visible parts of the text, like
Matching Type
titles and subtitles, and also visuals and graphs, pictures,
and charts.
_______SCANNING B. means looking for specific information and especially
useful when doing research. It is a useful strategy to
apply when searching for answers to questions.
_______SKIMMING C. means looking for the main point of the reading and
identifying the ideas that develop it. Physically moving
your eyes rapidly along the page and tracing your finger
_______PREVIEWING along the lines of the text to speed up your reading.

Assessment

RW Look for a book or any article (Newspaper or online blogs) and apply the EFFECTIVE READING
STRATEGIES

S Book Title/Article Name:

Author

MO Publisher:
Year Published:

DU What is the best reading strategy would you prefer? Explain.

Write a 50 words reflection.
Resources and Additional Resources

LE  UNSW Sydney, Reading Strategies, Retrieved from: https://student.unsw.edu.au/more-

reading-strategies