8. Reading as an aim and means of teaching and learning a foreign language. Ways of reading

Reading is one of the practical aims of teaching a foreign language in schools. Reading is of great educational importance, as reading is a means of communication, people get information they need from books, journals, magazines, newspapers, etc. Through reading students get acquainted with the countries where the target language is spoken. Reading develops their intelligence, memory, will, imagination.

Reading is not only an aim in itself, it is also a means of learning a foreign language. When reading a text students review sounds, letters, vocabulary, grammar, memorize the spelling of words, the meaning of words and word combinations. If the students are fluent readers and their reading comprehension is good, they can easily acquire speaking and writing skills as well.

Reading is an interactive process that goes on between the reader and the text, resulting in comprehension. The text presents letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs that encode meaning. The reader uses knowledge, skills, and strategies to determine what that meaning is.

Reader knowledge, skills, and strategies include:

Linguistic competence: the ability to recognize the elements of the writing system; knowledge of vocabulary; knowledge of how words are structured into sentences.

Discourse competence: knowledge of discourse markers and how they connect parts of the text to one another.

Sociolinguistic competence: knowledge about different types of texts and their usual structure and content.

Strategic competence: the ability to use strategies for developing reading skills.

Ways of reading

We read different texts in different ways, depending on the purpose of reading. There are four ways of reading: skimming, scanning, intensive reading, extensive reading.

Skimming

When reading, for example, a newspaper we often glance over the headlines until we find an article that catches our interest. If we are in a hurry we read through the article quickly- probably not reading every word, may be reading only the first sentence of each paragraph. When we do this we are skim reading for the general sense or the gist of the article. We want to know what’s in the article but only on a rather superficial level.

Scanning

We may want to see what’s on television this evening at 8 o’ clock. We don’t start reading from the beginning of the list of programs. Instead our eyes move quickly over the page until we find 8p.m. and then we start reading the details of the programs. In other words, we scan the page until we find what we are looking for.

Intensive reading

For example, in the newspaper we may find something that we want to read in detail. Perhaps the article we skim read at first is really interesting and we want to read it again, more slowly, taking in the information and perhaps even making a mental note of some of the details to tell someone about later. Or we may do the crossword-paying close attention to the clues in order to solve the puzzle. In both these instances we are reading for detail.

Extensive reading

This is the way we usually read when we are reading for pleasure-perhaps a novel or a biography.