PURPOSE STRATEGY METHOD

To obtain a general outline

Surveying Use reference and non­text data including typographical and graphical information.

Read first and last paragraphs and topic sentences. To search for a

specific idea, fact, or detail

Scanning Run eyes quickly down the page looking for a clue, then return to normal speed.

To extract key ideas and gist

Review reading

Skimming Eyes hurry across the page picking out the central information only.

Reading for recall or total accuracy

Various + Intensive Reading

Survey structure, phrase read.

Close re­reading with note­taking and summary writing. Reading for

pleasure or relaxation

Phrase reading Use of wide­eye span and fewer fixation points Recognition of sense groups.



4. Read several movie reviews to decide which one to see this weekend. Students should notice the actors’ names, general plot information, and the reviewer’s overall opinion.

These exercises can be timed and assessed for accu­ racy. If students’ scores for speed and comprehension in them are similar, then they are approaching all these tasks in the same way. They have developed the habit of reading every text from beginning to end and need to be taught the advan tages of explicitly identifying their pur pose before starting to read.

Developing reading efficiency

Reading efficiently means approach ing every read­ ing task with a clear pur pose and with the flexibility to adjust reading strategy to the purpose at hand. The burden is therefore on the teacher to provide reading tasks that exploit differ ent techniques. Table 3 summa­ rizes the relationship between high­level purpos es and reading strategies.

Because there seems to be some con fusion about the main extensive reading skills—often because they are merged together and their features obscured—I will briefly review them below and suggest some class­ room approaches.

Surveying

Surveying is a strategy for quickly and efficiently previewing text content and organization using refer­ encing and non­text material. Although specific strategies depend on the type of text, surveying basi­ cally involves making a quick check of the relevant extra­text categories:

1. Reference Data—e.g., title, author, copyright date, blurb, table of contents, chapter or article sum­ maries, subheadings, etc.

2. Graphical Data—diagrams, illus trations, tables, maps.

3. Typographical Data—all features that help infor mation stand out, including typefaces, spacing, enumera tion, underlining, indentation, etc.

In addition, surveying can utilize skimming tech­ niques such as reading topic sentences and final paragraphs. The goal is to discover how the text is organized and what it is about.

Like most of the approaches to extensive strategies suggested here, the actual reading exercises should

involve time limits. In addition, students should at first work on texts below their ability level to give them the confidence to skip large chunks of text or develop the skills to pick out main points.

Approaches

1. Predicting content from titles (often tricky) and tables of contents.

2. Matching texts with the correct summaries or diagrams.

3. Predicting which chapters contain answers to given questions, based on chapter titles.

4. Deciding which article can best answer a given question based on a choice of article summaries.

5. Deciding which books on a read ing list would be most relevant for a particular researched essay topic. Skimming

Efficient readers unreflectively skim most of what they read to some extent. Skimming is a more text­ ori ented form of surveying and refers to the method of glancing through a text to extract the gist or main points. Generally speaking, about 75% of the text is dis regarded. This is a valuable technique for reviewing material or determining whether it is relevant for more detailed investigation.

Skimming involves knowing which parts of a text contain the most impor tant information and reading only those. More than most kinds of read ing, there­ fore, it requires knowledge of text structure. In partic­ ular, students should be able to learn something of the text topic from the title and any subheadings; they should know that the first and last paragraphs often con tain valuable background, summariz ing, or con­ cluding information; they should be aware of the importance of topic sentences and where to find them. Eventually, students can be introduced to the different functions of paragraphs (such as narrative, descrip tive, defining, explanatory, etc.) in order to more effectively sense the pat tern of the text and to recognize the rela­ tionship between main ideas and other information from lexical and grammatical indicators.

Approaches

1. Ask students to find the mis placed sentence in a paragraph. This develops awareness of topic sentences and paragraph coherence.



paragraphs from component sentences.

3. Provide several newspaper or magazine articles on the same subject, and ask students which ones deal with a particular aspect of the topic.

4. Have students match a short text with a headline or picture.

5. Ask students to give titles to short texts.

6. Have students fit topic sentences with particular paragraphs.

7. Provide texts with an increasing number of words removed to give con fidence in selective reading. Scanning

Scanning is a rapid search for specif ic information rather than general impression. Scanning demands that the reader ignore all but the key item being searched for. It is a useful skill for data gathering, review, using reference books, or judging whether a text con tains material deserving further study.

Although an easier strategy to mas ter than skim­ ming, many students do not scan efficiently, randomly search ing and allowing their attention to be caught by incidental material. The reader must therefore, more than in other types of reading, fix the reading purpose clearly, perhaps formulating specific questions before systematically dealing with the text. Having a clearly defined purpose means that the reader can anticipate where to find the infor mation and what form it will take, allowing rapid eye movements down the page searching for particular sections or clues, such as dig­ its, common names, discourse markers, and various signal words and phrases that assist pattern recogni tion and anticipation.

Approaches

Scanning exercises are familiar to all teachers and are easy to produce. As the essence of scanning is fast retrieval of specific information, exercises can be timed and competitively managed.

1. The student races to locate a sin gle item such as a word, date, or name in a text (e.g., indexes, dictionar­ ies, or pages from telephone directories). Columnar material is easier to start with, as readers can be taught to sweep down the middle of columns in one eye movement.

2. The student races to locate specif ic phrases or facts in a text.

3. The student uses key words in questions to search for indirect answers.

4. The student matches adjoining sentences, using supplied markers expressing relationships and logical patterns.

5. The student fills in missing link words from a text or reconstructs para graphs from sentences to help rhetori cal pattern recognition.

Phrase reading

While not strictly an extensive­read ing strategy, phrase reading utilizes what are essentially advanced scan ning skills and is a valuable reading strategy.

The two keys to proficient scanning and phrase reading are concentration and eye­span ability. Research has shown that actual reading is done dur ing the brief moment when the eyes fixate, or pause, as they travel across the page (Mitchell 1982). The effi­ cient reader is therefore one who makes few eye move ments, comprehending sever al words at once by grouping a text into sense units. With regular practice the mind can be conditioned to both accept more material at each fixation and react more quickly to the meaning it conveys.

Such fixations are, however, auto matically governed by the reader’s comprehension, and the foreign­lan­ guage learner is handicapped by a relative lack of pro­ ficiency in phrase recognition. More than physical eye movements, therefore, a certain amount of linguistic expertise is required, and stu dents should be taught to recognize sense units before building their peripheral vision control. This involves helping students see that ideas are expressed in groups rather than single words and that some words are commonly associated. Students should therefore practice dividing para­ graphs into meaningful groups of two or three words in order to develop their recog nition of sense groups. Later they can be presented with texts in columns of phrases to increase their eye span. Eventually, students come to see that phrase reading not only increases read ing speed over reading a word at a time, but actu­ ally aids comprehension.

Approaches

1. Encourage students to cover pre vious lines to reduce regression, i.e., rereading by backward eye move ments.



2. Get students to read down the middle of a col­ umn of figures, slowly increasing the number of digits in each line to six.

3. Do the same with letters, then words, building up to phrases. The point is for them to read by moving their eyes straight down the column, taking in each phrase in a single fixation.

4. Ask students to make and use a mask that reveals only two or three words in a line, gradually increasing eye span.

5. Provide a “pyramid” text of grad ually increasing width. This should be used with a card containing a centrally placed arrow pointing to the edge as a means of focusing the eyes on a fixed point while reading (James 1984:114).

6. Instruct students to identify phrases in a para­ graph using slash marks, then to concentrate on these groups when reading the text.

Text-organization awareness

In addition, recent interest in describing the rhetor­ ical structure of different text types or genres is direct­ ly relevant to improving extensive reading strategies. Findings in cogni tive psychology have established that effective comprehension depends on the reader’s abili­ ty to relate what is being read to a familiar pattern or schema (Widdowson 1983). By enabling the reader to correctly identify and orga nize information into a con­ ventional frame, knowledge of genres provides a kind of structural map that assists the rapid appraisal of a text and thereby increases skimming, scanning, and phrase­reading ability.

Although not a great deal of advice exists, we can begin to help students by examining the types of texts they deal with, enabling them to recognize the ways that material is commonly shaped and organized in those texts. With this knowledge of how content in particular text types is arranged in familiar stages, the student is able to anticipate and predict more accu­ rately. This allows faster and more selective reading for a general overview or to find specific information. Conclusions

Efficient reading is an essential pre requisite for suc­ cess in today’s world, where there is never the time to read everything leisurely and thoroughly. Creating an awareness of reading flexibility and developing the

strategies for this are therefore among the most use ful contributions we can make to our students’ futures.

This is not to suggest that we neglect intensive read­ ing skills. There are obviously many occasions when a close and accurate interpretation of a text is essential. But we cannot leave learners with the idea that reading a text always means understanding every word.

Different purposes demand appro priate compre­ hension and retention levels and therefore the use of different reading strategies. Teachers can do a lot to steer students towards efficient independent reading by making read ing tasks more explicit and helping them concentrate their efforts for a spe cific purpose.

Flexibility involves adjusting strate gy to purpose, and these strategies do not simply develop naturally from intensive reading work. They require a great deal of practice skills, which should be developed in EFL reading classes with plenty of out­ of­class follow­up. This means devel oping students’ linguistic awareness as well as setting reading exercises, and I have tried to suggest some approaches to different extensive strategies above. A central principle of our teaching, however, should be to bear our own purposes in mind. Our objective in reading classes must be to improve the skills that will best help our students to consciously select and effectively use the most appropriate tech­ nique for any reading task.

REFERENCES

Anderson, J., B. Durston and M. Poole. 1969. Efficient reading: A

practical guide. New York: McGraw­Hill.

Grellet, F. 1981. Developing reading skills. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

James, S. 1984. Reading for academic purposes. London: Edward Arnold.

Mitchell, D. C. 1982. The process of reading. Chichester, NY: John Wiley.

Nuttall, C. 1982. Teaching reading skills in a foreign language. London: Heinemann.

Widdowson, H. 1983. Learning purpose and language use. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

This article appeared in the April 1990 issue of the English



Teaching Reading