Study Notes on Developing Reading Skills

Reading is the most important skill for a learner of Economic and Financial English. When you learn a foreign language, your reading may be INTENSIVE or EXTENSIVE.

Intensive reading is decoding the message of a text. In this case your attention is focused on the linguistic features. Intensive reading deals with the study of grammatical and lexical features of the language which help you to decode the message. To overcome grammatical and lexical difficulties while reading you often turn to grammar guides or consult a dictionary. The major objective of intensive reading is developing the ability to decode messages.

In extensive reading your approach is similar to that of reading in the native tongue. You read directly for meaning, for information. You actually learn to read by reading. Extensive reading is much more important for a university or college graduate. The major objective of extensive reading is developing the ability to extract the necessary information from a text. You should not worry much about all the words you don’t understand as long as you get the major outline of the reading. Extensive reading is primarily intended for your personal needs, personal interests and enjoyment. For many students of English extensive reading skills will stay with them long after they have finished their formal studies at college or university.

There are three types of extensive reading:

1. Previewing.

2. Highlighting.

3. Annotating.

When previewing an article or a book you SKIM a text (read it quickly noting only chief points), or SCAN a text (read it for specific information).

In SKIMMING or SCANNING a text you look for such signals as headlines, introductory and concluding paragraphs, repeated key words and key terms, pictures, names, places and numbers. A quick look at all these signals will help you to find out the information that may be important to you.

While skimming or scanning a text you also rely on its division into PARAGRAPHS. Most paragraphs have a TOPIC SENTENCE that summarizes the content of the whole paragraph. It is usually the first sentence in the paragraph, but not always. If you find out the topic sentences of a text, you can get its general idea.

HIGHLIGHTING is reading carefully in order to identify not only the key points of a text but also the relationship of one point to another. For this purpose you should give special attention to TRANSITIONAL WORDS that help to connect ideas. Highlighting is necessary, if you are going to make an oral report in class or write a paper.

ANNOTATING is very active reading. It means that you react to what you read. You record these reactions as annotations:

That’s a very interesting point.

I can’t agree with this point.

I don’t think the author is right here.

What the author mentions here is worth remembering.

I think I should follow the advice the author gives.

I don’t understand the reasons the author gives for ... .

My understanding of this term is a bit different.

WRITING

Exercise 14. When you are speaking, mistakes often do not matter, if people can understand what you mean. Unfortunately, this is not the case when you are writing. Correct the following letter. There are twenty one mistakes in it.

Dear Helen,

My name is Svetlana Pavlova. I come from very large family. I born in 1975 in small town not far of Kemerovo. When I was seven years I went to the school and I enjoyed it very much. My father is a military man and so my all life our family moves about from place to place. After school I started work. I got a job as secretary to the manager of a factory that products medical equipment. I done a short secretarial course before I applied on this job. Then I made my mind to enter Kemerovo University. The exams was competitive. I am very interesting for business accounting. I want to be a good specialist in business accounting. But I am also good at learning English. Now we speak in english a little. Is there any mistakes in my letter? I looking forward to meeting you soon.

With best wishes

Svetlana