READ! READ! READ!

A newspaper is better than a magazine. A seashore is a better place than the street. At first it is better to run than to walk. You may have to try several times. It takes some skill but is easy to learn. Even young children can enjoy it. Once successful, complications are minimal. Birds seldom get too close. Rain, however, soaks in very fast. Too many people doing the same thing can also cause problems. One needs lots of room. If there are no complications it can be very peaceful. A rock will serve as an anchor. If things break loose from it, however, you will not get a second chance.

Reading is…

• “…the transaction with a text. The reader brings meaning to a text in order to create meaning from it.” (Galda, 1993)

• “…to comprehend the meaning of something written, or printed by looking at or interpreting the printed or written characters.” (Hank, 1983)

Effects of Reading

• Instrumental• Prestige• Aesthetic• Respite• Reinforcement

Processes That Affect Reading

• Reading is a social process.– It is affected by one’s attitudes, loyalties, conflicts,

and prejudices. It is augmented by social acceptance, self-reliance, and cooperation in a group.

• Reading is a psychological process.– How he feels about oneself and about others

affects the reading process. Emotional stability determines one’s comfort in the reading situation.

• Reading is a physiological process.– One needs skills in auditory and visual

discrimination, verbal expression, syntactical maturity, eye-hand coordination, and motor skills to execute all the mechanical skills associated with reading.

• Reading is a perceptual process.– It utilizes perceptual

clues: size, shape, color, combination of sounds and letters, figure-ground relationships of the parts of a whole, ordering, and sequencing.

• Reading is a linguistic process.– It requires sound-symbol relationships,

understanding of intonation, stress, rhythm, pausing, and tone sequences.

– It is dependent on contextual meanings and grasping ideas in whole thought units.

• Reading is an intellectual process.– It is dependent on

vocabulary, memory, verbal reasoning, perceiving relationships, generalizing, critical judgment, and accommodation to extreme individual differences.

Reading Act

Perception

Understanding

Interpretation

Use

Reading Process

Word Perception

Comprehension

Reaction

Integration

Factors of Effective Reading

Effective Reading

Interest/Attitude

Intellectual Development

Emotional Stability

Language BackgroundAuditory Perception

Visual Perception

Physical Well-being

Skimming and Scanning

• Skimming– Means reading only small parts of a text in order

to get an overview of the organization of the text and its main idea.

How to Skim

• Make sure that you know what information you are looking for, ask yourself a question, and look for a keyword.

• Move your eyes quickly from line to line, and from sentence to sentence.

• When you think you have found what you are looking for, stop.

• Read slowly the part of the line or sentence that tells you what you want to know.

• Think about the question you were trying to answer.

• Does the information you found answer the question? If not, quickly read the passage again to look for the information you need.

• Jot down the answer to the question you’ve asked.

• Scanning– Involves looking quickly through a text to find a

specific word or piece of information. Instead of reading every word on a page, readers move eyes quickly, searching for what is needed.

Guidelines for Scanning

• Understand the organization of the material• Stay focused on what you are looking for• Use whatever clues are available to speed

your search• Confirm your information

• The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things into groups. Of course, one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities, that is the next step; otherwise you are pretty well set. It is important not to overdo things. That is, it is better to do too few things at once than too many. In the short run this may not seem important, but complications can arise. A mistake can prove expensive as well. At first the whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon, however, it will become just another facet of life. It is difficult to foresee any end to the necessity for this task in the immediate future, but one can never tell. After the procedure is completed, one arranges the materials into different groups again. Then they can be put into their appropriate places. Eventually they will all be used once more, and the whole cycle will have to be repeated. However, that is part of life.