DEVELOPING COMPREHENSION SKILLS: Study Skills/ Reading and Listening Skills

By

Dr Alka Singh

Comprehension is to understand the ideas of the author or speaker completely. It is also to

understand not only the contexts but also the connotations and denotations. When we read some
text and understand it, is called Reading Comprehension, and when we listen something and
understand, becomes listening comprehension.

Comprehension skills may be defined as the ability to use context, prior knowledge and
understanding to support reading and to make out sense of what one reads and listens.

A successful reading comprehension accounts for the following aspects:

 reading
 readers' prior information on the subject concerned
 information presented in the text
 co-relation of context and text

The following abilities are required for a successful comprehension:

 Purpose
 Cause and Effect
 Ability to compare
 Ability to contrast
 Ability to understand clues
 Ability to draw Conclusions
 Facts and Opinions
 Hyperbole /reality
 Connotation/denotation
 Inferences
 Literary Elements
 Making Connections
 Point of View
 Sequencing
 Ability to summarize

MODEL PASSAGES FOR READING COMPREHENSION

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 1. STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight,
is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the
judgment, and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge
of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of
affairs, come best, from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is
sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by
their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by
experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning, by study;
and studies themselves, do give forth directions too much at large, except they be
bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and
wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without
them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to
believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and
digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not
curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some
books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that
would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else
distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full
man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man
write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a
present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know,
that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile;
natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.(Courtesy:
Francis Bacon’s ‘Of Studies’)

LISTENING COMPREHENSION

To understand any aural text makes listening comprehension.A successful listening

comprehension warrants the skills of bringing the background knowledge and linguistic
knowledge to associate with the information contained in the aural text.Different sorts of texts
require a different sort of listening capability .It is different to understand an academic lecture
from any public speech.Listening is a process ,not an event.In this process there is a sender (a
person, radio, television), a message, and a receiver (the listener) with an aspect of feedback . In
the process of listening ,a competent listener must show the ability to:

 cope up with the sender's selection of words

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 structure of delivery
 rate of delivery
 listening Strategies

MODEL TEXTS FOR READING/LISTENING COMPREHENSION

1. STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for
delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability,
is in the judgment, and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and
perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots
and marshalling of affairs, come best, from those that are learned. To spend too
much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to
make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect
nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants,
that need proyning, by study; and studies themselves, do give forth directions too
much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn
studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their
own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation.
Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find
talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others
to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books
are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to
be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by
deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less
important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like
common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a
ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had
need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and
if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know, that he doth
not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural
philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.(Courtesy:
Francis Bacon’s ‘Of Studies’)

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 2. Postmodernism is a term so varied, so massive and so fluid. Since it is a liquid
reality, it can never be defined and neither it can be fixed to a specific slot in
human history .The very moment where a step for experimenting the food habits,
apparels, and the architecture of the habitat for the human being on the Earth has
been taken, the trend of postmodernism would have been started to be
noticed .Those on the practices for the innovation would have challenged
modernity at that specific slot of time. Tensions, contradictions and conflicts of
identity formation and social approval of an innovative ripple in mind would have
provided an alternative community almost in every generation of human
history .They would have provided new language idiom and new spectacle. This
would certainly, have created an invisible divide in the grand worldview at that
time. Cultures of identities, forms of belonging, and facets of tribalism, localism,
parochialism, and communitarianism are not struck to one specific slot of human
history. What is modern for me shall become old fashioned for a person in my
younger generation .It is our tendency that we locate our seniors /our forefathers
cherishing the archaic values only but this is never logical .Modernity is time
related .I want to question –What after postmodernism? Here I will assert with
sufficient evidence that every generation has sustained a binary opposition of
modernity and tradition. As a human being fears death or loosing the decline of
youth, in the same way, always he keeps live fear of loosing his clutch on
modernity, and therefore, crops up the politics of postmodernism.Postmodernism
is not a tendency of post-war world, it is simply a coinage in the rat-race of
branding anything/everything.

3. Many ill matters and projects are undertaken; and private suits do putrefy the
public good. Many good matters are undertaken with bad minds; I mean not only
corrupt minds, but crafty minds, that intend not performance. Some embrace suits,
which never mean to deal effectually in them; but if they see there may be life in
the matter by some other mean, they will be content to win a thank, or take a
second reward, or at least to make use in the mean time of the suitor’s hopes.
Some take hold of suits only for an occasion to cross some other; or to make an
information whereof they could not otherwise have apt pretext; without care what
becomes of the suit when that turn is served; or generally, to make other men’s
business a kind of suits…Surely there is in some sort a right in every suit; either a
right in equity, if it be a suit of controversy or a right of desert, if it be a suit of
petition. (Bacon, Of Suitors)

4.The time present – the time present, in the present time is the time past and the time future.

Oh! It’s not here to begin the pun in the name of the difficult idea and the concept of time. But it
is sine qua non of life management. Proper management of time leads to the royal doors of

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success, and success? Success is not an event but it is the life long process. It has different forms
& features too. Like a postmodern reality in the present slot of time, it has multiple meanings to
different mind setup. What is required for the launching pad of success mission? For ultimate
success and making the big bango I suggest sthith pragyata, as enunciated in the Bhagwat Gita
to adopt.

The sthith-pragya persona, who has stabilizes the body, soul, vision and perception towards the
ultimate goal is worthy for the heroic achievement leading to success. And this sthith-pragyata
requires creative thinking which is a perfect blend of creativity, sustainable development and
confidence.

And note… it’s our pious duty & responsibility to provide ourselves with whatever form of
promotion is required to help us attain success in our preferred and selected field. In this
reference I cite here these beautiful lines by some anonymous poet —

Isn’t it strange that Princes and Kings,

And clowns that caper in sawdust rings,
And common folks like you and me.
Are builders for eternity?
To each is given a bag of tools,
A shapeless mass and a book of rules,
And each must make ere life has flown
A stumbling-block Or a stepping stone.
Self advancement & everlasting success cannot be built on a fear, bluff, shortcuts, illusions and
flattery.
So, how you envision your success matters a lot!

5. Possessing communication skill is an art. It is an important qualification for a person who aims
at offering anything to society. In case of preparing the environment- personnel it looms large.
When such a person is on work in the field different jostling problems and circumstances appear
to be managed by him, and for this communication skill, be it oral or written is the back bone.
We use a particular brand of toothpaste for brushing our teeth or use a particular brand of any
commodity, Why? It is because of the impact of the manufacturer’s persuasive advertising or the
salesperson’s spirit, both influencing us with effective forms of communication. Today, English

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has become the language of the professionals at their work place far and wide across the world.
Important phone calls, conferences, seminars, concerts, presentations, reports, circulars,
organizing meetings and various types of associated business correspondence and other
professional researches, proposals and projects are some of the essentials which demand
effective communication skills in terms of speaking as well as writing. It is a well-established
fact that effective communication is made possible through the easy, understandable, effective
and lucid language, and the skills to practically utilise that language as per the need and specific
purpose for whom it is meant to be received or consumed. For this it does not require someone to
be a linguist but would certainly require to equip and professionalize his/her skill in terms of
written and oral communication as a requirement associated with that particular technical or
professional field. For instance the drafting or framing of documents/legal documents regularly
taking place in day-to-day business of offices, companies and law firms is technically a product
of the modern and professional world that requires certain specific and specialized composing
and writing skills.