5. Students' Anticipation(推測)
I let students know that even if you have a wide and flexible vocabulary you will encounter words of which they do not know the meaning. Very often there is not enough time to look up all those words in a dictionary. This means that students should be able to guess the meaning of the word. This is often possible if the student understands the relationships between words in meaning and form. I ask the student to notice the word formation if they meet new words. From the roots and affixes and conversion and compounding, they learn to try to guess the meaning of the word according to the content.
To make a good guess at the meaning of the word, I ask students to pay attention to the clues; indications that help him find that meaning. If you meet new words and try to find if there are synonyms and repeated ideas of the new words. I teach students to follow these steps: 1) Determine the word class, i.e. a verb, a noun, an adjective, an adverb, etc. 2) Determine its function in the sentence, i.e. is it an attributive or an adverbial? 3) Contextual clues, is the context in which we find this word positive or negative; what does the context tell us about the word? 4) Word formations, is there any relation between this word and a word that is familiar to you? 5) Guess the eventual meaning of the word logically and reasonably.
6. Punctuation
I teach the students to know punctuation is partly based on grammar. For example, commas are often used to separate clauses. If the student understands the meaning and usage of punctuation marks, it will be easier to understand the grammatical structures. Punctuation marks also indicate how the author wants the student to interpret a piece of passage. For example, if the author puts something in brackets, the part of the sentence should be interpreted as an addition to the sentence. Sometimes the parentheses indicate the author's point of view.
7. Summarizing
We know that it is very difficult to remember the complete contents of long passages. For that reason it is often advisable to make notes of information in the passage that is essential for the student. The result is a short outline of the passage containing all aspects of the passage. In this way students can grasp the main ideas of the passage. I ask the students to follow these steps: 1) Familiarize(熟習(xí)) with the material. After students have read the passage or a section of it, they can start summarizing. The length of the section read through depends on the structure and the complexity(復(fù)雜) of the passage. 2) Select important information. I ask the students to go through each paragraph, sentence by sentence, asking themselves which information is absolutely essential to the argument. They should point out complete sentences as much as possible. An alternative is to underline or highlight important sentences or phrases. Pay attention to these important points: author, title, reason why the passage was written, purpose, theme, key words, link words, all major aspects, explanations, author's opinion. Less important points: introduction, summary, repetition, examples, important figures and dates. 3) Paraphrase the information. I ask the students to point out the information of the previous step in their own words. And writing down information in their own words forces them to completely understand what they are writing down. They should try to shorten long and complex sentences into much shorter ones. 4) Insert links between sentences and paragraphs. Let students make sure that the connection between sentences is clear and logical and that each group of sentences smoothly fit in one paragraph. 5) Adjust the length of the summary. If they have to make a summary as part of an assignment and they are assigned a maximum number of words, count the words and leave out information that is not essential or add important information.
Through the training of the reading skills of skimming and scanning, author's viewpoint, structure of passages, structure of paragraphs, students', anticipation, punctuation, and summarizing, students know the steps of how to understand a passage and particularly how to deal with the comprehension questions in the examination. But we know reading is a practise of long period and we must have a lot of practice. In order to cultivate the reading ability, students need knowledge of grammar, a good master of vocabulary, a good ability of analysis and a good memory as well. So we must try to train the students enlarge their vocabulary, the skills of reading, broaden their background knowledge and cultivate the ability of question analysis and resolution. Only in this way can we raise the student's comprehension ability.
I let students know that even if you have a wide and flexible vocabulary you will encounter words of which they do not know the meaning. Very often there is not enough time to look up all those words in a dictionary. This means that students should be able to guess the meaning of the word. This is often possible if the student understands the relationships between words in meaning and form. I ask the student to notice the word formation if they meet new words. From the roots and affixes and conversion and compounding, they learn to try to guess the meaning of the word according to the content.
To make a good guess at the meaning of the word, I ask students to pay attention to the clues; indications that help him find that meaning. If you meet new words and try to find if there are synonyms and repeated ideas of the new words. I teach students to follow these steps: 1) Determine the word class, i.e. a verb, a noun, an adjective, an adverb, etc. 2) Determine its function in the sentence, i.e. is it an attributive or an adverbial? 3) Contextual clues, is the context in which we find this word positive or negative; what does the context tell us about the word? 4) Word formations, is there any relation between this word and a word that is familiar to you? 5) Guess the eventual meaning of the word logically and reasonably.
6. Punctuation
I teach the students to know punctuation is partly based on grammar. For example, commas are often used to separate clauses. If the student understands the meaning and usage of punctuation marks, it will be easier to understand the grammatical structures. Punctuation marks also indicate how the author wants the student to interpret a piece of passage. For example, if the author puts something in brackets, the part of the sentence should be interpreted as an addition to the sentence. Sometimes the parentheses indicate the author's point of view.
7. Summarizing
We know that it is very difficult to remember the complete contents of long passages. For that reason it is often advisable to make notes of information in the passage that is essential for the student. The result is a short outline of the passage containing all aspects of the passage. In this way students can grasp the main ideas of the passage. I ask the students to follow these steps: 1) Familiarize(熟習(xí)) with the material. After students have read the passage or a section of it, they can start summarizing. The length of the section read through depends on the structure and the complexity(復(fù)雜) of the passage. 2) Select important information. I ask the students to go through each paragraph, sentence by sentence, asking themselves which information is absolutely essential to the argument. They should point out complete sentences as much as possible. An alternative is to underline or highlight important sentences or phrases. Pay attention to these important points: author, title, reason why the passage was written, purpose, theme, key words, link words, all major aspects, explanations, author's opinion. Less important points: introduction, summary, repetition, examples, important figures and dates. 3) Paraphrase the information. I ask the students to point out the information of the previous step in their own words. And writing down information in their own words forces them to completely understand what they are writing down. They should try to shorten long and complex sentences into much shorter ones. 4) Insert links between sentences and paragraphs. Let students make sure that the connection between sentences is clear and logical and that each group of sentences smoothly fit in one paragraph. 5) Adjust the length of the summary. If they have to make a summary as part of an assignment and they are assigned a maximum number of words, count the words and leave out information that is not essential or add important information.
Through the training of the reading skills of skimming and scanning, author's viewpoint, structure of passages, structure of paragraphs, students', anticipation, punctuation, and summarizing, students know the steps of how to understand a passage and particularly how to deal with the comprehension questions in the examination. But we know reading is a practise of long period and we must have a lot of practice. In order to cultivate the reading ability, students need knowledge of grammar, a good master of vocabulary, a good ability of analysis and a good memory as well. So we must try to train the students enlarge their vocabulary, the skills of reading, broaden their background knowledge and cultivate the ability of question analysis and resolution. Only in this way can we raise the student's comprehension ability.