Developing Effective

Reading Skills
Overview
Reading 3
Reading Comprehension 4
Techniques & Strategies 6
Summarizing the Gist 16
Typical RC Questions 19
3 Reading is the Key

• According to Richard Steele, ‘Reading is to mind what exercise

is to body’.

• Reading helps to keep the mind active, develops creative

thinking, improves language and expands one’s learning
horizon.

• Students and professionals need to read a variety of texts in

order to understand concepts, enhance their knowledge and to
know what is going on around them.
 4 Reading Comprehension

• Reading comprehension refers to the ability to understand the

information provided in the written form.

• Improved reading comprehension skills can positively

impact many facets of a student’s academic
performance:

Better class participation, Performance in exams

and quizzes, self- esteem improves, interest in a subject
is fostered.
 5 How to Improve RC Skills

• Read a variety of materials.

• Read a fairly long portion of the material.
• Circle unknown or unfamiliar words as you read.
• After reading, recall as much of the information as possible. Jot down
points if you like. Then check the accuracy and completeness of your
recollections. If the main ideas are presented in a particular order, see if
you can recall the structure.
• Answer questions about the material after reading it.
 6 Reading Strategies and Techniques

• Skimming and scanning

• Close Reading
• Inferring
• Non-verbal signals
• Structure of the text
• Structure of paragraphs
• Author’s viewpoint (inference)
• Reader anticipation: Determining the meaning of words
• Summarizing
• Typical reading comprehension questions
 7 Skimming
Skimming is a quick reading
technique. It means reading a text
quickly to get the main idea.
• How to Skim?
• Survey the text before you start reading.
• Read the Title
• Read the Introductory Paragraph
• Read the First Paragraph
• Read quickly without stopping.
• Look at the first line or two of each
paragraph; often the main idea is found
there.
• Read the final paragraph completely.
 8 Scanning
• How to Scan?

• Know what you are looking for. This could

Scanning is again a quick reading
be a specific fact, such as a name, date,
technique. It means reading a text to number, or other piece of information.

find out a specific information. • Let your eyes drift down the page until
you see what you are searching for.

• Then, read that sentence or section

carefully to be sure you have the correct
information.
 9 Close Reading

Close Reading refers to the process of an in depth analysis of a text, by which

the meanings or layers are uncovered. This in turn helps to improve the

understanding of the text.

To close read a text, one needs to understand the non verbal signals, structure

of the text, structure of the paragraph and author’s viewpoint (inferences).

 10 Non-Verbal Signs

• Non-verbal signs may include certain style features, such as different

fonts, bold print, underlining, or italics.
• The meaning of these style features can vary from one text to
another.
• Examples:

(Heading, Title, Subheading, Photographs, Captions, Division into

paragraphs, Figures, graphs, bar charts, etc.)
 11 Structure of the Text

• Most texts start with a title and sometimes a subtitle.

• After that comes the introduction (General Information) and the
body (Subject matter), followed by a conclusion or summary.
• An important aspect of reading is prediction. The better you can
predict what you are going to read, the faster and more
effective you will read.
 12 Structure of Paragraphs

• A typical paragraph consists of three parts.

 The first part is the topic sentence.

 The second part of the paragraph contains sentences

which develop support for the topic sentence.

 The third part of the paragraph is often a summary of

the paragraph
 13 Author’s Viewpoint
• In reading a text you make inferences or assumptions about the
position of the author.
• Is the author neutral or does he/she have an opinion?
• The author often shows his or her opinion either by adding certain
phrases or by adding a value to a word.
• Authors can add words like luckily or unfortunately to show approval
or displeasure, respectively.
• For example ‘Only 40 per cent of the staff is female’ has quite a
different meaning from ‘As much as 40 per cent of the staff is
female’.
 14 Summarizing
• It is very difficult to remember the complete contents of
long texts. For that reason it is often advisable to make
notes of essential information in the text.
• The result is a short outline of the text containing all its
important aspects.
• The length of the summary largely depends on the density
of the text. (Average One-third)
 15 Typical RC Questions

• Reading comprehension questions usually take one

of three forms:

 questions based on the entire passage.

 questions based on sections of the passage.

 questions based on particular words or sentences.

16 Questions Based on the Entire Passage
17 Questions based on a Section
18 Based on words, Phrases
Thank
you!