Lesson 01

Reading about Reading

Prepared by
MR. JONATHAN M. AYSON
How often do you read?
 Starter
Please answer the following informal reading inventory:
1. How often do you read?
a. All the time
b. More often that not
c. Sometimes
d. Almost never
2. Do you enjoy reading?
a. yes
b. sometimes
c. no

3. What is your usual purpose for reading?

a. to fill in extra time
b. to fulfill academic requirements
c. to gain new knowledge or information
4. What are the usual types of materials that you read?
a. textbooks
b. general reference books
c. newspapers
d. magazines
e. nonfiction like biographies
f. fictional stories/books
5. What reading materials do you find easiest to read?
a. textbooks
b. general reference books
c. newspapers
d. magazines
e. nonfiction like biographies
f. fictional stories/books
6. What reading materials do you find most difficult to read?
a. textbooks
b. general reference books
c. newspapers
d. magazines
e. nonfiction like biographies
f. fictional stories/books
7. What are the factors that affect your difficulties in reading?
a. content of material
b. structure of material
c. language used in the material
d. vocabulary used in the material
8. In general, how would you rate yourself as a reader?
a. excellent
b. very good
c. average or fair
d. poor
ENABLING TASK 01
There is really no such thing as best reading
style, strategy, approach or even attitude.
What is important is you should be aware of
what you can do and how you can improve
your skills.
 Reading flexibility is the goal of many reading classes. We
used to think that reading fast is not the only indicator of
successful reading. Reading flexibility is the ability to choose
appropriate reading skill and reading rate to meet one’s reading
purpose and to match text type, familiarity with the topic, and
the difficulty of the words in the reading text.
The following are characteristics of flexible readers:
 They have clear reading goals. They know when they need to read a text
to get the main idea or to get specific details.
 They adjust their reading pace depending on their goals and the
difficulty of the text.
 They are not bothered by difficult words, because they believe that they
can understand the passage even if there are some unfamiliar words.
 They match their reading strategies and reading goals.
 They know that they do not have to read all reading passages intensively.
 They know when to skim, scan, or preview certain texts.
 They read a lot, because they want to learn new things.
 Do you have the aforementioned characteristics? If not,
don’t worry, reading flexibility just requires practice. One way to
start developing it is to address your own READING BLOCKS (as
shown below). These are processes and perceptions that hinder
you from understanding the materials you are reading.
In order to address these obstacles, you need to be conscious of
the BUILDING BLOCKS in attaining reading efficiency and
effectiveness as can be seen below.
Another way to help develop reading flexibility is to become
familiar with different reading skills and their purposes. Please
refer to the table below:
Skills Purpose Examples

*Fast reading to get the main idea (skim) or to locate specific information *Skimming for the main ideas in an article
Rapid Reading
(scan) in a text *Scanning for specific names in a telephone directory

*Checking books you want to buy by predicting the contents through the title
Previewing *Surveying to get a bird’s eye view of a text and by checking the synopsis at the back
*Getting the overview of a textbook by looking at chapter headings

*Noting and relating details

*Distinguishing relevant from irrelevant points
Literal reading *Looking for context clues
*Using clues to understand meaning of words
*Identifying text patterns and development

*Drawing conclusions and predicting outcome based on information in the *Guessing motivation of a character in a text using the dialogue or description
Inferential reading
text *Generalizing ideas presented in the text

*Distinguishing facts from opinions and evaluating tone, implications, and *Questioning claims made by the author
Critical reading
propaganda tools *Expressing opinions about ideas in the text
 Try to familiarize yourself with the different skills and
purposes of reading in order to match them with your own
practice in reading.
Even though speed is not the #1 criterion in effective
reading, the rate or pace you read is still an important
consideration especially when trying to cope with your academic
load.
ENABLING TASK 02
 You will encounter again the concepts n this lesson as you
try to apply them in the succeeding ones. But for now, you may
want to jump-start your reading practice by reading and keeping
a reading log. The reading materials do not have to be long nor
academic. In fact, it is a good idea to start with the ones that
interest you the most or with topics you want to learn more
about. The purpose of this exercise it to get you to read materials
that are different from the ones you read in school. However,
regardless of what you are reading, it is a good habit to keep a
record of your thoughts, comments, and questions about the
text. The ideas you are going to put in your log may become a
good source for your writing or speaking tasks later on. You may
want to follow the reading log template provided.