FY026-Preparing for

Success: Knowledge
and Creativity
Reading skills
Learning Objectives
▪What is reading, why do people read, and what are the
advantages of it?

▪ To Identify your reading style, and to analyse and read texts to

better understand our reading styles

▪ To identify reading strategies to get the most out of our

reading
Reading skills
A man ought to read just as inclination leads him;
for what he reads as a task will do him little good.
(Samuel Johnson, n.d.)

Samuel Johnson 1709-94; James

Boswell Life of Samuel Johnson, (1791)

What do you think this means?

Activity in Class

On a piece of paper,
write down as many
things that you would
be able to read.
What is Reading?
How many did you get – did you mention that people can read:

▪ Body language (including gestures, eye contact, Etc.)

▪ What others think (intuition/what someone is going to do,

patterns of behaviour, Etc.)

▪ Texts (anything written – not just phone texts!)

Reading
For the purpose of this lecture, we are going to focus on
reading in English (although much of what we discuss
may be applicable to reading in a variety of contexts)

(I understand that for some of you English is a second

language, and have taken this into account)
What is Reading?
How important are symbols when reading?

Watch the video and discuss:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFt3xJ6
DvVE
What is Reading?

“Reading was invented only a few thousand years ago. And

with this invention, we rearranged the very organization of our
brain, which in turn expanded the ways we were able to think,
which altered the intellectual evolution of our species”.
(Wolf, 2007 :3).
What is Reading?
▪“Reading is an active process in which readers shift between
sources of information, elaborate meaning and strategies,
check their interpretation, and use social context to focus
their response” (Walker, P.4)

▪ Reading is a dynamic process in which the reader interacts

with text to construct meaning. Inherent in constructing
meaning is the readers ability to activate prior knowledge,
use reading strategies, and adapt to the reading situation

What do you think these definitions mean?

What is Reading?
▪Reading is not a simple passive process of linear reading of
words and internalizing their meaning one at a time.

▪ Reading is a complex interaction between the text and the

reader shaped by the readers prior knowledge and attitude, a
process of language acquisition, communication and sharing
information and ideas.
What do you think these definitions mean?
What is Reading?
▪ Reading is a cognitive process of decoding symbols to derive
meaning from a text. It is always an interaction between the
text and the reader.

▪ We read to gain and share information and ideas, whether

for academic, personal, or professional purposes

What do you think these definitions mean?

13
Reading
My (simple) definition:
Understanding and trying to make sense of information.

This can be verbal, mental, physical, or literal information that

you are trying to process and understand.

The aim of most of your reading will be to seek information

related to an assignment or course material.
What will I be expected to read for in UNI?

• Posters in the building

• Email from your college and from the University
• Module Handbook
• Lecture materials: You will be expected to do some pre-reading in order to
prepare for lectures
• Tutorials: Tutorials are often based on assigned readings. If you have not
read the material, you won’t be able to participate in group discussions.
• Assignments: You can’t write your assignment until you have done the
necessary research.
• Books, Academic articles, Online books, articles and news reports, Et cetera

• Feedback from your lecturers for your coursework

Reading
However reading is not straight forward.

Can you think of times when you have

struggled to read/understand something?
Activity : Challenge!

Can I have some volunteers to do a

task?
Stroop effect
▪Individuals that are better at reading words than naming colours
experience less interference than word reading than naming
colours. As learned experience becomes part of memory it
indicates that the meaning of words means more than the colours
that they are in

▪This affects people who try to identify words quicker than colours

▪Most people tend to read the word(s) rather than say the
colour(s). This is called ‘interference’.
Activity
I am going to ask you all a question following this video, so make
sure you pay attention on everything:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6vj8Ryu0LI
Play from 0:47s to 4:33
Task:
How many songs did you count? (answer on next slide)
Why did you struggle with this task?
Do you ever feel this conflict/confusion when you
read something too quick or don’t understand
something?
So what do you do/are you going to do, to manage
this?
Task (Answer was 23. Most are likely to have struggled because of interference)
1. Rihanna – Umbrella 13. Miguel – Adorn
2. Kevin Lyttle – Turn Me On 14. Kings of Leon – Sex is on Fire
3. Serani – No Games 15. Sia – Chandelier
4. Charlie Puth – We Don’t Talk Anymore
16. Sean Paul – Like Glue
5. Travie McCoy – Billionaire (ft. Bruno Mars)
17. Alicia Keys – No One
6. Daddy Yankee, Luis Fonsi & Justin Bieber –
Despacito 18. J. Cole - Power Trip
7. B.o.B –Airplanes 19. GOAT – Grenade
8. Cheat Codes & KKA –Sex 20. Anton Powers – Baby
9. Beyonce – Drunk In Love 21. 5 Seconds of Summer – She Looks So
10. Stevie Wonder –Isn’t she Lovely Perfect
11. Bill Withers – Lean On Me 22. Enrique Iglesias – Subeme La Radio
12. Blackstreet –No Diggity 23. Britney Spear Oops…I Did it Again
White Comedy (READ BY REPLACING THE WORD WHITE
WITH BLACK
White Comedy
I waz whitemailed
By a white witch,
Wid white magic
An white lies,
Branded by a white sheep
I slaved as a whitesmith
Near a white spot
Where I suffered whitewater fever.
Whitelisted as a whiteleg
I waz in de white book
As a master of white art,
It waz like white death.
People called me white jack
Some hailed me as a white ***,
So I joined de white watch
Trained as a white guard
Lived off the white economy.
Caught and beaten by de whiteshirts
I waz condemned to a white mass,
Don’t worry,
I shall be writing to de Black House.
Benjamin Zephaniah
(READ AGAIN REPLACING THE WORD BLACK WITH
WHITE AND VICE-VERSA)

White Comedy People called me white jack

I waz whitemailed
By a white witch,
Wid white magic
An white lies,
Branded by a white sheep
I slaved as a whitesmith
Near a white spot
Where I suffered whitewater fever.
Whitelisted as a whiteleg
I waz in de white book
As a master of white art,
It waz like white death.
Some hailed me as a white ***,
So I joined de white watch
Trained as a white guard
Lived off the white economy.
Caught and beaten by de whiteshirts
I waz condemned to a white mass,
Don’t worry,
I shall be writing to de Black House.
Benjamin Zephaniah
(REMEMBER THIS PERSONS NAME FOR THE
TASK LATER!)
Why is: spelling, punctuation, sentence structure,
grammar important?

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it

deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the
olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the
rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll
raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid
deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
Rawlinson, G. E. (1976) The significance of letter position in word recognition. Unpublished PhD Thesis,
Psychology Department, University of Nottingham, Nottingham UK.
Why is: spelling, punctuation, sentence
structure, grammar important?

Academically it shows that your writing is of a

pedigree.

What was the last thing you read? (before this

lecture)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkJfWciqKI8
What was the last book you read?

When did you read this book?

Scanning (Did you scan the text?)

This is when you looking for a specific piece of information.

When a student scans, they looks over the selection quick to locate
particular pieces of information and only focus on that.

This includes reading a passage based on a test, or reading a schedule to

see when a film is playing, or to check the weather in a newspaper. This is a
fast style of reading that does not pay attention to all details.

Before scanning you should think about how you intend to answer the
question.
Skimming (Did you skim the text?)
Skimming, is a quick style of reading, similar to scanning.

Aim is to learn the main points in a piece of writing rather than

answer one question. When you skim you only take essential
information.

The most efficient way to skim is to read the first paragraph, the
last paragraph, and the first sentences of each other paragraph
in-between.
Reading for Detail (Did you use this style when reading
the text?)
This is probably the most commonly used reading strategy.

This is a slow reading process starting from the beginning and proceeding to the end.

Here, students should read all sentences. But you do not need to know all words, but
you do not need to put too much pressure on yourselves by focusing on new
vocabulary

This style means students should aim to understand approximately 80% of the
information that is read. If they need an answer to a particular question that they may
have missed, they can always go back and scan for it.
Activity in class: Identifying your reading styles

Read text provided.

When you have finished, raise your hand (Your lecturer will
observe your time of reading-the fastest)

If you do not understand any words please feel free to use your phones to
translate/work out definitions

YOU MUST WORK IN SILENCE SO YOU DO NOT DISTURB ANONE ELSE.

THERE IS NO TIME LIMIT

Identifying your reading style

Based on that task, which is your reading style?

Though experts debate the subject it seems to be commonly agreed that

there are three reading styles:
▪Scanning
▪ Skimming
▪ Reading for Detail
Identifying your reading styles

Scanning
Skimming
Reading for Detail

Of the three reading styles highlighted, which do you think is

best?

If you finished quickly or slowly then you may be able

to identify what kind of approach you used when
reading the text
IN PAIRS:

Discuss: what do (did) you do, when

you struggle with a piece of text?
 Why Use Strategies?

Strategies are designed to help you ‘plan’ to solve any reading

issues

Strategies can help you learn how to better understand something.

If you know how to understand something…then you are in a
stronger position to understand.

Strategies may help you realise how you are ‘thinking’, so you can
think about a given topic more deeply and consciously.

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Recap

Today we discussed:
▪What is reading, why do people read, and what are
the advantages of it?

▪ To Identify your reading style, and to analyse and

read texts to better understand our learning styles

▪ To identify reading strategies to get the most out of

our reading
Thank You!!