Approaches to Improving Students′ Reading Comprehension

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1、Approaches to Improving Students Reading ComprehensionContentsAbstract.1Key words.1I. Introduction.1II. Investigation.2III. Problems33.1 The students themselves.33.2 The reading materials.43.3 Teachers.4IV. Solutions.44.1 To be an efficient reader.44.2 Choose the right reading materials.94.3 To be a

2、 helpful teacher.94.4 Other aspects in teaching reading.13V. Conclusion.15References.15摘 要: 英语阅读作为外语教学是非常重要的。它有两个任务：阅读技巧的培养和阅读能力的培养。缺乏现代的英语阅读教学理论会削减中国人的英语阅读教学的效果。本文先是回顾了中国英语阅读教学的现状，再根据一份调查报告，从三方面分析了英语阅读存在的问题：学生方面、教材方面、教师方面。通过结合实际的教学经验，本文从四个方面提出了解决这些问题的建议。希望有了这些有效的途径，学生们能积极地阅读，并且能成为有效率的、独立自主的阅读者。关键词:

3、 途径、英语阅读、理解能力Abstract: The English reading course in the EFL class is of great importance. It has two major tasks: the development of reading skills and the development of reading ability. Lack of modern teaching-reading theories hinders the effect of teaching English reading in classroom. This arti

4、cle reviews the present conditions of teaching English reading in China first, and then, according to an investigation, it analyzes the problems which lie in the English reading from three aspects: the student, the English textbook, the teacher. Through combined real teaching experiences, this artic

5、le offers some suggestions on solving these problems from four aspects. It is expected that with some effective approaches, students can read actively and grow into effective and independent readers.Key words: approach, English reading, comprehensionI. IntroductionChinese pay more for English study,

6、 but gain a little. In colleges, CET4 and CET6 become the most difficult things to the non-English majors. “For many students, reading is by far the most important of the four skills in a second language, particularly in English as a second or foreign language” (Carrell, 1989). The teaching of readi

7、ng in the EFL class in China is important in that it fulfils two tasks: the development of reading skills and the development of reading ability. For years, however, the results from our reading class have neither satisfied the teachers nor the students. Reading is always an important subject in Eng

8、lish teaching. At present, any foreign language test requires good reading comprehension. The reading part covers 30% to 40% marks in a test paper. Furthermore, nowadays most of us still rely on our reading ability to gain information or expand our knowledge. When we think of English as a world lang

9、uage or language for world communication, reading plays a very significant role in most professions. Reading texts provide good models for English writing, provide opportunities to study language vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, and the way to construct sentences, paragraphs and texts. Good reading

10、 texts can introduce interesting topics, stimulate discussion, excite imaginative responses and be the springboard for well-rounded, fascinating lessons. How to improve English reading comprehension has become an interesting and popular field for many researches of various disciplines including ling

11、uistics, sociology and psychology.Researches of methods of improving reading comprehension started in 20th century. Many foreign researchers focused on reading strategies. They focused on teaching students to use different reading strategies in reading procedure to read faster and understand the tex

12、t better. These strategies include skimming, scanning, guessing the word meaning according to the context, using background knowledge, analysis of the sentence or text structure and so on. As the study goes further, the contents of reading strategies are larger and larger. Many researchers started t

13、he study in concrete teaching problems. In recent years, our Chinese researchers pay more attention on this area. Though they started late, they also get some effective results.Many students reading comprehension was still poor. They do not know what they should know or learn from the reading materi

14、al. The biggest problem that affects reading speed is the reading habit and reading skill. Some student read word by word. Some read with fingers pointing to the words or with head shaking. Those are all bad habits. They must be changed. So, to write something about reading can help students more or

15、 less in their study of English.II. InvestigationDuring my teaching practice, I did a small investigation aiming at the current situation of middle school English learning. I set 20 questions about the purpose of learning English, learning autonomy, your attitude of your teachers teaching methods an

16、d so on in order to know more on English learning. I had investigated two classes, 84 students. At last, I got the following:63% of them are not interested in learning English; 38% of them think that the purpose of learning English is for tests; 32% think it is for their future jobs; 18% for pleasur

17、e; the rest for other purposes. About 65% students are forced to learn English; because they want to study in universities. 57% of them think the reading part is the most difficult part in a test. 44% students think new words are the biggest problem during reading; 40% think complex sentences are th

18、e most difficult. Only 5%students do specialized exercises aiming at their weak points; 43% of them do not read other materials out class at all, because of too much homework; only 6% do it every day. There are 26% do pre-reading exercises by themselves. Only 23% do their English homework by themsel

19、ves. 34% students complain their teachers teaching methods, they think their teachers teaching methods are old and unsuitable for them, they suggest teachers to change their teaching ideas. 43% of them complain their textbook is bad; about 40% texts are too difficult for them to learn. 48% students

20、hope their teachers can use more new hi-techs in class. For example, the teacher can use teaching aids such as slide show etc. and download some materials from website to enlarge students knowledge and this can also develop students reading ability.III. ProblemsThough students had mastered many read

21、ing skills, their English reading comprehension is still bad. Now, though many middle school students can pass the college entrance examination, their reading abilities are much far away from the requirement of college English class. There are some problems as following.3.1 The students themselvesMo

22、st of the students read word by word, with lips keeping moving while reading silently; for a long time, the pattern “word-sentence-paragraph” teaching method is still used in English reading, though some reading skills are adopted, the teaching effect is not good as expected. Some students stumble o

23、n new words in reading process and try to analyze long sentences to comprehend them; they even dont know what they should know or learn from the reading materials. They cant understand the text as a whole and do not know how to infer something they want from what they read. The “word-sentence-paragr

24、aph” pattern makes some students accustom to analyze text word by word or sentence by sentence, when they use this kind of method in college, it wastes much time.3.2 The reading materialsThe English textbook in middle schools is not much suitable for students. Though it has been revised in topic, te

25、xt and vocabulary, it remains problems as un-enough reading amount, etc. These problems impeded the improvement of students reading comprehension. Some teachers recognized the importance of reading after class, but unfortunately, they only choose some exercise books matched with the textbook. They a

26、re afraid that if students did a lot of extensive reading, their time should be wasted.3.3 TeachersTeaching method affects students reading comprehension a lot. Many teachers remain on the surface of question-answer method; they thought if the students found out the right answers of his or her quest

27、ions, the aim of reading should be reached, his or her teaching would be successful. But actually, the students get a little. Even a few teachers have realized that they should teach students how to read between the lines; but they often failed in fostering students interests of reading.IV. Solution

28、sEvery problem has its own solution. To these problems, I have some suggestions as following:4.1 To be an efficient readerTo be an efficient reader, you have a lot of work to do. The most important thing to students is improving reading speed. Many students can not finish tests because they spend to

29、o much time on the reading part. If two readers understand a same text equally well, the reading speed is the efficient way to judge who is better. How to improve reading speed? First, think about the subject you are going to read about. What do you know about this subject? What do you want to learn

30、 about this subject? Christine Nuttall said the first requirement for efficient reading is to know what you want: if you are reading for fun, there is not much point in defining your purpose (although it is difficult to enjoy a book if it takes ages to finish it). However, if you are reading to lear

31、n, or for many practical purposes (finding a train time, checking how to operate a tool and so on), the more closely you can specify what you want from your reading, the easier you make your job. Second, skim the section you are going to read. Browsing is an important step while you are doing you re

32、ading comprehension. Some students begin to read at once when he gets a reading material, even without knowing its title. But after reading for many times, he wont understand what the article says. So, skim the whole text and think about that, do you see anything familiar; do you see anything new; w

33、hats your overall impression? Third, while reading, do as follows can help you be an efficient reader:a. seize the main ideab. think about what the author is sayingc. pay attention to whats being readd. remember as much as possiblee. apply what is being read to personal experiencef. be active, not p

34、assiveKathleen T. Me Whorter had compared active readers with passive readers. He said, active readers tailored their reading to suit each assignment while passive ones read all assignments the same way; active readers analyzed the purpose of an assignment, but passive ones read an assignment becaus

35、e it was assigned; active ones adjusted their speed to suit their purpose while passive ones read everything at the same speed; active ones questioned ideas in the assignment but passive ones accepted whatever is in print as true; active ones compared and connected textbook with lecture content whil

36、e passive ones studied lecture notes and textbook separately; active ones skimmed headings to find out what an assignment is about before beginning to read but passive ones checked the length of an assignment and then begin reading; active ones made sure they understand what they were reading as the

37、y went along while passive ones read until the assignment was completed; active ones read with pencil in hand, highlighting, jotting notes, and marking key vocabulary but passive ones just read; active ones developed personalized strategies that are particularly effective while passive ones followed

38、 routine, standard methods.There is a saying that interest is the best teacher. Christine Nuttall once said: there is a strong relationship between speed and interest or enjoyment, presumably because motivation spurs us on to get to the end of the story as quickly as we can. Again, the causal relati

39、onship is not clear, but these facts suggest that students will more easily improve their speed on material that is readily comprehensible and of interest to themA good reader takes in the sense of a whole chunk without pausing to consider the individual words. It is quicker to fit together the sens

40、e of two or three chunks than to do the same with all the separate words that compose them. So the larger the sense groups the reader can take in, the more easily he will turn them into coherent messages.To improve reading speed, we can choose special texts. At first, you can choose some simple text

41、s with few new words. In this way, you will find you can read and understand the whole text easily, and it can help you to build your interests of reading. Then you can choose some texts with more new words. As Christine Nuttall said, what you should do is to read a whole sentence without pausing to

42、 consider the individual words. Some times one word can not affect you to understand a whole paragraph or even a whole sentence. When we read, we need to find out the main idea of the text, or find out the top sentence of each paragraph but a single word. Even if, unfortunately the new word does aff

43、ect you understanding the sentence or the paragraph, we can guess its meaning according to the context. You should read phrase by phrase. Dont blink your eyes so often and dont shake you head. Just move your eyeball. Thats enough. If you want to get more word information, there must be a proper dist

44、ance between your eyes and the reading material. So, please do not waste your time on new words in the text, keep your eyes moving, but not only moving.Kathleen T. Me Whorter says that reading involves much more than moving your eyes across lines of print, more than recognizing words, and more than

45、reading sentences. Reading is thinking. It is an active process of identifying important ideas and comparing, evaluating, and applying them. While reading, you must focus your attention on the text. How to focus your attention? First, before reading, your reading environment must be quiet, materials

46、 that you need must be prepared well, too. Second, before reading, you may think about the subject you are going to read about. For example, think about what you know about this subject; think about what you want to learn about this subject, etc. Third, you should set goals. You can set a time limit

47、ation and try to finish your goals within. Concentrating on these goals and time limits will help you avoid distractions. Fourth, while reading, you may write or underline the important ideas in each section. These activities not only attract your attention, but also help you to identify important i

48、deas, and you can review what you have read from it. If there were some difficult sentences in the text, you can underline it, too. After reading the whole text, if you think it is necessary, you can re-read it to get further information. As mentioned above that when we come across new words, we can

49、 guess their meanings through context. This method is called contextual guessing. Tianying Qian, an associate professor of Department of Foreign Language, PLA University of Science and Technology, said, reading skill concept contains two components: (1) Mastery of relevant sub-skills; (2) Ability to

50、 estimate when each sub-skill is called for.” In his thesis, he put forward contextual guessing method. He thought that the technique of finding the meaning of an unknown word through its use in a sentence was known as contextual guessing or the use of context clues. He said when the students know t

51、he probable meaning of the word and have two or three synonyms in mind; it is easier for them to use structural and phonics analysis to identify the word. Contextual guessing was the most important skill used by most readers in attacking new words. It was closely related to comprehension and this is

52、 one of the most practical skills students learn. Context clues have several uses in reading. The four uses named below are of special importance to readers: First, context clues help readers to derive the meaning of a known word from its uses in a sentence. For example, the word “crafts”. We know i

53、t means occupation or boat, but in this sentence, “achieving by craft and guile what he could not manage by honest means”, it means cunning, we can infer from the words “guile” and “honest”.Second, context clues also help to determine the meaning of an unknown word from its use in a sentence. When c

54、ontext is used for this purpose, a student reads around an unknown word, gets the general meaning of the sentence and then guesses the meaning of the unfamiliar word from the way it is used. For example, the captain asked the seamen to throw the anchor. If students do not know the word “anchor”, the

55、re are enough clues for them to guess the meaning. What do seamen usually throw anyway?Third, context determines how the accentuation of similar words in different contexts or with different grammatical usages affects their meanings. Look at these two sentences below:(1) There was growing criticism

56、of the governments conduct of the war;(2) She was appointed to conduct the advertising campaign.The word “conduct” is a noun in sentence (1), it means manner of directing or managing. It is pronounced as kandkt. It is a verb in sentence (2), it means direct, control. It is pronounced as kndkt.Fourth

57、, context provided clues to the meanings of words that vary according to the subject area in which they are used. For example, in these two sentences,(1) Would you like a refill (i.e. another glass of wine, etc.)?(2) Two refills for a cartridge pen.“Refill” is a noun in both two sentences, and it is

58、 pronounced as ri:fil. But the former one means new material used to refill a container. The latter means something like pencil lead.Context clues can function only if the material is suited to the reader in terms of difficulty and familiarity or interest. If the context is too involved, or if there

59、 are too many unknown words, context is of little value. When the material deals with unfamiliar concepts or is dry and dull to the reader, he is not likely to be able to develop a continuous line of thought suitable for anticipating an unknown word. During my teaching practice, I had taught my stud

60、ents how to guess the meaning of a new word. (1) Use context clue:Peter doze off while his teacher was talking.Teacher: Peter! Tell us, what is the biggest in the world?Peter: Well, welleyelids.Teacher: What? Eyelids? Peter: Yes, sir. As soon as I shut my eyes, the eyelids cover everything of the wo

61、rld.According to the phrase “shut eyes”, we can see that “eyelid” is the upper or lower of two movable folds of skin that close to cover the eyeball.(2) Use the examples:Suffixes: such as -ing, -ed, -s, -ful and -less, may cause spelling changeswhen added to words. -ing, -ed, -s, -ful, -less are com

62、mon suffixes, so “suffix” is a letter or a group of letters added at the end of a word to make another word.(3) Use contrast method: Jack was thin while his wife was really obese.If there were words like but, while, however, yet, otherwise and so on in the sentence, we can use contrast method. In th

63、is sentence we know that “obese” is the antonym of “thin”, so it is equal to “fat”.(4) Through definition or appositive to guess words meaning:Meteorologists, people who study weather and weather patterns still have difficulty in predict the weather.In this sentence, “people who study weather and we

64、ather patterns” is the appositive and definition of “meteorologists”. After this class, my students told me that they got a lot. At usual, when they come across new words, they always seek help to dictionary, but when they were tested, it was forbidden to consult dictionary, they didnt know what to do. It always affects their reading. Now, they know how to deal with new words.4.2 Choose the right reading mat