Reading Skills Techniques:

Fast reading techniques Fast reading techniques help you to browse text and extract the key points. The skills require practice, but once you have got the hang of them youll find you can get through a substantial amount of reading in quite a short time. Scanning a useful first step before reading more deeply. Skimming handy when you're looking for particular things within a text, or trying to find out whether a text will be useful. Scanning Run your eye quickly over the text to locate specific words or phrases that are of interest. You can scan:

Skimming Read quickly to get an overview prior to in-depth reading. Although you may still need to read the entire text, by scanning first you can decide where you want to concentrate your time. Skim the text quickly to:

headings and subheadings images and artwork the body text for authors' names the contents page itself the index for specific words.

This will help you decide whether you should read further, and how useful the document might be for your study.

get an indication of the scope and content of the text read the first and last paragraphs to get the main points look at the first sentence of each paragraph to see where the content of the paragraph will lead note the key points in the summaries.

Literal Comprehension Overview Direct Locate Literal comprehension is seen as the first level of comprehension. It is the simplest form of locating information in texts because the information is stated directly in the text. Questions assessing literal comprehension skills examine how well students can identify and understand information that is directly stated in a text.

According to Carnine, Silbert and Kameenui (1997), literal questioning can vary in difficulty depending on:

the length of the text the order in which the questions are asked and how they match to the order of the text the use of pronouns, because the pronoun reference needs to be identified before finding the information in the text.

Connecting Literal Information If no interpretation is required to locate or connect the information, students are employing literal comprehension skills. Using key words, skim reading and scanning will help students to locate information efficiently. Key words Key words are the content words that carry the most meaning in a text. Students can underline or highlight the key words. Skimming Skimming is reading quickly through a text to get the gist or main idea. Students can skim read by looking at headings and subheadings, pictures, diagrams, captions, any italicised or bold words, and the first and last paragraphs of the text. Scanning Scanning is reading to locate particular elements or specific details in a text, such as key concepts, names, dates or certain information in answer to a question. Students can scan by looking through the text to locate key words to find the specific information quickly.

Inferential comprehension Inferential comprehension is often described simply as the ability to read between the lines. It requires a reader to blend the literal content of a selection with prior knowledge, intuition, and imagination for conjecture or to make hypotheses. Barretts Taxonomy of Reading Comprehension (1974) identifies the following eight subtasks that enable students to make inferences with facility. Inferring supporting details guessing about additional facts the author could have included in the selection that would have made it more informative, interesting, or appealing Inferring the main idea providing the main idea, general significance, theme, or moral that is not explicitly stated in the selection

 Inferring sequence guessing what action or incident might have taken place between two explicitly stated actions or incidents or making hypotheses about what could happen next Inferring comparisons inferring likenesses and differences in characters, times, or places Inferring cause-and-effect relationships hypothesizing about the motives of characters and their interactions with others and with time and place Inferring character traits hypothesizing about the nature of characters on the basis of explicit clues presented in the selection Predicting outcomes guessing the outcome of a selection after reading an initial portion of it Inferring about figurative language inferring literal meanings from the authors figurative use of language.