Reading Comprehension

Part one
Teacher : Mesil. L Level : 3rd year .
What is reading comprehension ?
⚫ Comprehending (understanting) a text means extracting the recquired
information from it as effeciently as possible.

✔ Reading a scientific article Apply reading understanding the

information . strategies
But it is not enough to understand the overall meaning of the text; more
detailed comprehension is necessary. Therefore , it is important to take the
following elements into consideration:
⚫ What do we read ?
Novels, short stories, tales; other literary texts and passages (e.g. essays,
diaries,anecdotes, biographies) Plays Poems, Newspapers and magazines , etc.
⚫ Why do we read ?
For pleasure / for information
⚫ How do we read ? =
What are the different stratergies or effective techniques used by
students to succeed in reading comprehension ?

1) Predicting :
It is not only a technique but a skill considered as basic to reading process.
It involves the faculty of guessing what is to come next, involves thinking
ahead while reading and anticipating information and events in the text making use of
information from the text such as titles , headings , pictures and diagrams .Readers
confirm or deny predictions with support from the text.

2) Skimming :
It is used by readers to get “a general idea about the content of printed
materials through reading the text quickly i.e. in this strategy, readers will
look for something quite specific or get general ideas before putting effort
into close reading”( Grellet,1999, P, 2-25). For instance, One does not want to
read the whole texts or articles; s/he may use various techniques to skim:
 Use of quick glance through the pages (2) Notice the
titles and headings and subheadings (3) Read the
opening sentence and the conclusion carefully (4)
Read the first and the last sentence of each paragraph
in order to gain the main idea of the main points (As
Dinah Mack & Holly Epstein Ojalov, 2009 cited in The
article of New York Times,2014). So, skimming is one
of strategies that require readers to read quickly in
order to get an overview/the general idea or gist of a
section.
⚫Scanning :
we only try to locate specific information and often
we do not even follow the linearity of the passage to do
so. We simply let our eyes wander over the text until
we find what we are looking for, whether it be a name,
a date, or a less specific piece of information.
You know what you're looking for, so you're
concentrating based on finding a particular answer. It
involves moving your eyes quickly down the page
seeking specific words and phrases. In this way, we can
say that scanning is reading quickly to locate specific
information .
4) Inferring :
⚫ When using this strategy , the student plays the role of a
textual detective. It helps students to understand things
that are not made explicit in the text. It’s what we mean
when we say to students “Read between the lines!”
Rather than relying on what the writer has articulated
directly in the text, inferring meaning requires the student
to look for clues to figure out the meaning behind the text.
This demands critical thinking on the part of the student
and pushes the student to a higher level of comprehension

The inferences are the conclusions that a reader draws about the unsaid
passage based on what is actually said by the author.
5)Summerizing :
It is the last strategy that can be used by readers, it
requires the readers to organize or restate the
information or the main ideas of a given text by
his/her own style after their comprehension or in other
words, taking a lot of information and creating a
condensed version that covers only the main points.

Summarizing teaches students how to discern the most important ideas

in a text, how to ignore irrelevant information, and how to integrate the
central ideas in a meaningful way. Teaching students to summarize
improves their cognitive ability about what is read.”
References

1. Nathan Amstrong : Speed Reading (Increase Your

Reading Speed By 300% In Less Than 24
Hours).2015.
2. Françoise Grellet : Developping reading skills.
Cambridge University Press 1981.
3. Rouai Souhila: The Use of Reading Strategies in
Improving Reading Comprehension. Master
dissertation. UNIVERSITY KASDI MERBAH
OUARGLA. 2013/2014