4. Reading as one of skills, ways and approaches to teaching reading

Reading is one of the important skills of a foreign language that is aimed to be taught to students in EFL courses. Also it is not an easy course to comprehend for the foreign language students because reading is a complex process. Reading “Reading” is the receptive skill in the written mode. It can develop independently of listening and speaking skills, but often develops along with them especially in societies with a highly-developed literary tradition. Reading can help build vocabulary that helps listening comprehension at the later stages, particularly. In other words, reading is the process of looking at a series of written symbols and getting meaning to them. When we read, we use our eyes to receive written symbols (letters, punctuation marks and spaces) and we use our brain to convert them into words, sentences and paragraphs that communicate something to us. Reading can be silent (in our head) or aloud (so that other can hear). Reading is an important way to of gaining information in language learning and it is a basic for a language learner. Therefore reading skills refer to the specific abilities that enable a person to read with independence and interact with the message. Reading is therefore a highly valuable skill and activity, and it is recommended that English learners try to read as much as possible in English. Moreover, reading is a complex cognitive process of decoding symbols in order to construct or derive meaning. Like all language, it is a complex interaction between the text and the reader which is shaped by the reader’s prior knowledge, experiences, attitude and language community which is culturally and socially situated. To sum up, reading process requires continues practice, development, refinement, creativity and critical analysis.

5. Scanning as a kind of reading

Scanning It is a quickly reading a text to get the gist of it. Scanning is a technique that  often use when looking up a word in the telephone book or dictionary. The students search for key words or ideas. Scanning involves moving eyes quickly down the page seeking specific words and phrases. Scanning is also used when the reader first find a resource to determine whether it will answer the questions. Once you’ve scanned the document, you might go back and skim it. When scanning, the students look for the author’s use of organizers such as numbers, letters, steps, or the words, first, second, or next. They look for words that are bold faced, italics, or in a different font size, style, or color. Sometimes the author will put key ideas in the margin. It's useful to scan parts of texts to see if they're going to be useful to you: -the introduction or preface of a book -the first or last paragraphs of chapters -the concluding chapter of a book.

6 Skimming as a kind of reading

Skimming is sometimes referred to as gist reading. Skimming may help in order to know what the text is about at its most basic level. You might typically do this with a magazine or newspaper and would help you mentally and quickly shortlist those articles which you might consider for a deeper read. You might typically skim to search for a name in a telephone directory.Skimming is one of the tools you can use to read more in less time.Skimming refers to looking only for the general or main ideas, and works best with non-fiction (or factual) material. With skimming, your overall understanding is reduced because you don’t read everything. You read only what is important to your purpose. Skimming takes place while reading and allows you to look for details in addition to the main ideas.