Abstract
Reading comprehension is very
important in English learning for senior students. Through reading learners can
develop their competence in understanding and receiving English accurately and
quickly. First of all, this paper raises some problems in reading comprehension
and the causes for the problems based on the teaching practice. The factorswhich influence reading comprehension mainly include the following: students
lack of vocabulary, interests and reading strategy. Then this paper put forward
some effective ways to solve them. First, to enlarge vocabulary. Second, to
cultivate reading interest by understanding the related background knowledge,
reading various kinds of material and teacher taking variouse teaching methods﹒ Third, to develop correct reading
strategy by training good reading habit and using different strategies for
different reading tasks and using English style to understand the context.
Key words: reading comprehension, competence,
vocabulary, interest, strategy
摘要
英语阅读在高中英语学习中占有重要地位。通过阅读可以培养学习者准确、快速的理解和获得英语的能力。首先本文联系教育实习的发现，提出了高中生阅读中存在的问题并分析了这些问题的原因。影响阅读的因素主要包括缺乏词汇量，对阅读不感兴趣及没有正确的阅读策略。然后本文提出了一些有效的解决方法。第一，扩大词汇量。第二，通过了解相关背景知识，根据学生的爱好选择不同类型的阅读材料及老师采取不同的教学方法培养学生的兴趣。第三，通过培养良好的阅读习惯，针对不同的阅读任务采取不同的阅读方法及抓住英文文体这一线索理解文章来培养正确的阅读策略。
关键词：阅读理解， 能力， 词汇， 兴趣， 策略
ⅠIntroduction
Reading is a creative activity
which get certain information actively and on one’s own initiative. Reading
comprehension means extracting the required information from the text as
efficiently as possible. Reading is a silent and individual activity since the
writer’s intention was that the text should be read not heard. There are two
levels in reading. One is visual signals from the eyes, the other one is a
cognitive task of interpreting the visual information, relating the received
information with the reader’s own general knowledge, and reconstructing the
meaning that the writer had meant to convey. However, most Chinese students
think learning reading is a dull process and the teachers also take teaching
reading as a thorny problem.
During
the three years of teaching, I got much useful information. First, there were
many problems in reading comprehension for senior school students. For example,
they cannot master the speed very well. Some students complained that although
they understand the passage, they cannot answer the questions correctly. Besides,
students do not have a proper reading method and someone are not interested in
reading. Second, for the teachers, they have fallen behind with teaching
concept, and most teachers use the
traditional teaching method that is ‘Explanation-Example-Practice’teaching method. Since
reading comprehension is very important for English learning and it is the
important part of English teaching, how to improve reading ability is a hot
subject. Aimed at the problems in reading, this paper put forward some
effective ways to solve them.
ⅡSome
problems in reading for senior students and the causes for the problems
1 Some problems in reading
Thepurpose of reading is to develop the learner’s competence in understanding and
receiving foreign language accurately and quickly. However, most students’reading
speed is too slow to finish the given tasks in fixed time. Especially while
having an examination, reading comprehension should be completed in fixed time.
The author found that when time is up, some students also stopped on certain
sentence. Maybe while reading, they pay more attention to grammar and the
structure of sentences, but neglect the requirement of the article. If students
do not cultivate reading speed, it affects reading ability. Another problem is
that the students do not want to read or they cannot read with eager attention.
While reading, their thought cannot concentrate on the material even more they
do not have the desire to read. Besides, many students complain that although
they can read the article without any barriers, they cannot answer the
questions correctly. Maybe they understand the apparent meaning, but do not
know the implication. They feel confused about it.
2 causes for the problems
The factor which influences reading
comprehension can be divided into too categories, that are knowledge barrier
and acknowledge barrier. Knowledge barrier includes vocabulary barrier, grammar
barrier and background barrier. However, psychology barrier, reading habit,
reading speed and reading skill belong to acknowledge barrier. In the following
parts, the author will list three reading problems of senior students.
Reading
ability has a close relationship with vocabulary. Unlike the controversial role
of grammar in foreign language learning, the role of vocabulary seems to have
received more consistent understanding. Vocabulary is the basic knowledge of
English. Nowadays, most senior students have rather little vocabulary; this is
the main factor which influences reading ability. For the students, perhaps it
is less difficult to learn vocabulary items for the first time than to
consolidate and remember them. It is too often that we hear students complain
that they keep learning and forgetting. Traditional reading takes reading
process as a decoding written symbol, which is from word to sentence, then from
sentence to paragraph. Many students devote large amounts of time and energy to
the learning of vocabulary, but they still complain that their vocabulary is
not large enough or they cannot avoid forgetting. Generally speaking, there are
two problems. One problem is that students treat vocabulary item
indiscriminately. Considering the large size of English vocabulary, there is no
wonder that students complain about their small vocabulary size. Another
problem is that many students learn vocabulary in ineffective ways such as rote
learning..
2.2 Lack of interest
Manystudents are not willing to read, the main reason is that they are not
interested in the material. Because the senior students have limited
vocabulary, if the material contains too many new words and it affects reading
speed, for a long time, the students must feel dull and they cannot persist in
reading. When practiced in NO.6 middle school, the author found that the
students did not like to read the scientific and technological passage, because
there are too many specialized vocabulary which they cannot remember and
recognize. Besides, they do not know the related knowledge, material is too
long, and they do not have patience to finish it. In the course of time, the
students are disgusted with reading.
2.3 Lack of learning strategy
Toimprove your English reading, you must master the proper strategy. However, for
most senior students, they cannot master the correct reading strategy. First,
they do not have a good reading habit. While reading, they always read too
slowly or look up every word they meet with, their eyes are constantly moving
from letter to letter, word to word. Thus after they finish the first time,
they may get little useful information but waste time in looking up new words.
Some students said that if they do not translate English sentence into Chinese,
they do not understand the passage. While reading, they do not use English
thinking but Chinese, so their English reading ability still stop on a low
level. There also are some students have a habit of pointing to the words by
pen or finger while reading. Others like to read voiced word by word. These arenot habits. Such kind of method must have a negative effect on speed. Second,
the students fail to use different reading methods according to different requirements.
Whatever they read, they just use consistent way, and no matter necessary or
not, they just read at the same speed. Students do not know what material need
intensive reading and what kind of passage need extensive reading. That is they
do not have a clear target. Third, English style is very important for
understanding the article. However, many students cannot have a good grasp of these
resources.
1 Enlarging vocabulary
1.1 Necessity of enlarge vocabulary
If
word recognition for a large number of words can be made ‘automatic’,then reading will be
easier and a reader will be more likely to keep up with peers as reading load
increases. A reader with a large sight vocabulary will be able to instantly
identify words without having to sound out the words. Instant word recognition
by sight greatly increases reading fluency and reading comprehension.
A good vocabulary is very helpful in improving
reading comprehension. It can shorten one’s reading time and help the reader
understand it easily and deeply, so possessing a big vocabulary can be said a
short cut for senior students. However, a traditional way of learning words by
heart is not acceptable. Words remembered in that way are not practical. Like
knowing a stranger, they just get this person’s appearance, but do not know the
inside of this person. They can not be said friends or familiar with each
other. Traditional words learning shares the characters of this example. The
words come into the mind of the students in traditional way are just their
appearance, that is what letters make up of this word and what is its basic
meaning. Students do not know its deep meaning and background. The aim of
English learning is to achieve its utilities-as a tool of communication, not a
method of taking exams. Knowing a word’s basic meaning is far from fully
understand it. Most of the words have several meanings and meanings are
different in different situations. Meanings what students remembered are just
superficial; they will be confused when the same words appear in the same
passage but with different meanings. So just knowing the superficial meaning of
a word is not enough. Students should grasp the deep meaning of a word and
enlarge one’s vocabulary through a deep way and with correct methods.
1.2 Methods of enlarge vocabulary
First,
students can guess the meaning of new words on the basis of word-building. It
is reported that, there are 1 million to 1.2 million English words, most of
them were consisted of word-building. Word-building includes derivation and
compound word. For the senior students, they would master the common affix. As
long as they know the meaning and usage of prefix and suffix, they would guess
the meaning of derivation according to the root, thereby, they attain the goal
of enlarge vocabulary. For example, prefix ‘super’ means ‘超越，超过’, so we can guess ‘supermarket’
means ‘超级市场’，‘supernatural’ means ‘超自然的’，‘superstar’means ‘超级明星’.
Second,
guess meaning of unfamiliar words or expressions from context is not a new
idea. The problem is how students can develop the ability to do so. Initially
students need the teacher’s help regarding with contextual clues to look for
and how these clues can contribute to the discovery of meaning. Generally
speaking, the topic, the grammatical structure, the possible meaning connection
between the given word and other words and the linguistic patens where the word
appears, all these may give hints to the meaning in one way or another . Look
at an example: “The captain asked the seamen to throw the anchor.” If students
do not know the word ‘anchor’, there are enough clues for them to guess the
meaning. What do seamen usually throw anyway? We can easily guess that anchor
means ‘锚’.
“To read well, you need a strong vocabulary.
To build a strong vocabulary, you need to read well.” This famous saying hints
that reading and vocabulary have a close relationship. If you want to read
smoothly, you must have a strong vocabulary. Meanwhile, wide reading can help
you to enlarge your vocabulary. Students should prepare a notebook, while
reading, you can take down the words you are not familiar with, and then group
them into different categories. Students should always reviewed by themselves,
that can strengthen memory.
2 Cultivating reading interest
There is a saying said that interest is the
best teacher. If you want to do something well, first of all, you must be
interested in it. It is also true for reading. Some students think that reading
is a dull process, because they do not find pleasure in reading.
2.1 Understanding the related background of reading
material
People
believe that one’s background knowledge plays an important role in reading
comprehension. Of course, improve reading ability not only need grammar and vocabulary,
but also need background knowledge and life common knowledge. We all have
experiences of reading something which does not contain any new words or new
structure, but we still find it is difficult to understand its meaning. In
other cases, we may read an article with some new word or new structures in it,
but we can guess the meaning of the article based on our knowledge about the
topic without too many difficulty. Therefore, it is believed that in reading
students should know the background knowledge first so that they equipped with
such knowledge will be able to guess the meaning from the printed page. For
example, there is a reading material which title is “Christmas traditions in Britainand around the world.” In this article it mentioned that on Christmas Eve, many
people like to go to Midnight Mass. To the inexperienced students, they may do
not understand what Midnight Mass. But if you know the background, you can
easily know Midnight Mass is a special service meeting at church which begins
at 11.30 p.m so that the worshippers can greet Christmas Day by candlelight.
Author suggested that students should better accumulate the knowledge of
society politics, history, culture, geography and custom of English speaking
countries especially Britain
and America.
2.2 Reading various kinds of reading material
Some
students believe that reading extracurricular is a waste of time and energy. In
fact, to improve your English reading ability, you should first of all, choose
something you feel important or interesting to read. Do not try to read
everything. You should begin with those written in simple English. Do not read
those which prove difficult for you at the very beginning. Senior students can
choose something such as fairy tale, fable or story to read according to their
vocabulary level. They also can read some English paper or magazine, such as 21 century and China Daily. The boys like sport, so they can
choose some passages related to sport to read so that they can wide knowledge
size and cultivate good reading habit. However, girls like literature and art
and dress, they can develop interest from these aspects. Generally, you may
find reading is a kind of enjoyment and you are willing to read. At that time,
you can read various kinds of material. No matter what kind of material you
choose, you can acquire surprised result. You not only enlarge vocabulary, wide
knowledge side, but further more you
enjoy to read.
2.3 Taking various teaching methods
Someone
think that reading is a individual activity. In fact, nothing in the world is
absolutely individual activity. Teacher also plays an important role in
reading. Different students have different knowledge level, so teacher should
arrange different tasks for different students. For the relative weak students,
teacher should let them read something which contain little new words and easy
to understand. However, for the top students, teacher should set out some tasks
that relative difficult. Besides that, if the reading material is dull for the
students, teacher should design some activities to enliven atmosphere and make
the class more active, cheerful and interesting. Teacher also can design some
competition to arouse students’ initiative. Let all students attend in the
activities. Teacher also can divide the students into several groups; the
members in each group can help each other to learn. They can exchange their
notebook that take down various kinds of vocabulary. They also can share some
background knowledge information which someone knows but others may do not
know.
3 Developing correct reading strategy
To
improve reading ability is not as easy as learning ride a bike. Besides
possessing a large amount of specialized knowledge and spending a lot of time I
reading, it is very necessary to take hold of proper learning strategy.
3.1 Training good reading habits
Havea good reading habit is very significant for improve reading ability. First,
you should not read too slowly or look up every new word you meet with. After
reading a passage and having its main idea in mind, you may turn back and read
it again. This time you read it slowly and look up some new words if necessary.
Some students think that we need to read and understand all the words in order
to understand a text. It is totally wrong. Each reading material has its own requirement,
some should find the main idea, some should understand certain concept, some
should to infer or judge, etc. Therefore, it is not necessary to understand all
words. You just read the article with a given purpose. It cannot affect you
understand the whole passage. If you have enough time and energy, after reading
you can use a dictionary to find the meaning of all new words, it is helpful to
enlarge your vocabulary. Second, many students have a wrong idea that when
reading in a foreign language, they mentally translate everything in order to
understand. If you always try to translate everything into Chinese, on one
hand, it affects reading speed, on the other hand, your English level will
hardly to improve to a high level. As a foreign language learner, you should use
English style to think while reading. That is to say, you should perceive the
information in the target language rather than mentally translate. Third,
reading aloud or silent reading is a problem for many students. Reading aloud
and silent reading are different in many aspects. Reading aloud cannot replace silent reading
as it involves only the skills of pronunciation and intonation. While one’s
real reading ability requires the reading skills of skimming, scanning,
predicting, ect. Silent reading just can develop such skills. Besides, reading
aloud is usually slow, while silent reading is usually fast. It is easy to
decide when you need reading aloud or silent reading.
3.2 Using different strategies for different reading
tasks
Effectivereaders use different strategies for different reading tasks. They have a clear
purpose in reading.
First,
how to master the gist of the passage quickly and exactly. Gist is the main
points or general meaning of the article. It is the core which runs through the
whole passage. The author always explains the gist according to the details.
However, how to find the main idea is a thorny problem for many students,
because they always want to find the answer from one word or sentence. In fact,
find out the gist need several steps. The sentence which can reflect the main
idea is in the different places in the passage. Usually the title, the first or
last sentence of the paragraph or the beginning part and last part of the
article are very important. Because these part always contain the main idea. So
the first step is glance over the whole passage, especially the important
sentences. This time you should have a general idea of each paragraph. Then you
can skim paragraph by paragraph and pay more attention to the verb, grab the
thesis of each paragraph. Since you have a general idea of each paragraph, you
can easily grab the gist.
Second,
how to answer the particular questions while reading. The particular questions
are the further description and the main facts of the thesis. It should find
out after skimming. When answering these questions, you should use the method
of scanning, because these details are used to illustrate, testify and analyze
the gist of the article. These kinds of questions usually answered by who,
what, where, which, when and how. The expression of the questions usually does
not use the exact word in the article. However, it uses the synonym to answer. Therefore,
before you choose the answer, please read it carefully. Then scanning with
clear purpose, you can find the key words related with question. At last, in
the fundamental of understanding the whole passage, you can fix the correct
answer.
3. Using English style to
understand the context
While
reading, you should pay more attention to different English style, because the style
affects the organization of information and overall arrangement. Taking hold of
the different style’s structure characteristic is useful for you to sum up the
article and deduce logically. For example, narrative mainly narrates something,
so it contains three essentials: characters, plot and setting. The development
of the story usually depends on the change of time and place. Therefore, while
reading such kind of article, you must grab at this clue, take character as the
core, understand the beginning, development, climax and ending of the story,
you can easily understand the context. Argumentation and exposition have a
common point that is almost each paragraph has a topic sentence, usually
appears at the beginning or the end of paragraph. When you read such article,
you should grab the topic sentence and explore the thesis statement of the
article, so that you can make a details forecast of the article.
Ⅳ Conclusion
In this
paper, it started with the possible problems in English reading of senior
students. Then the author put forward some effective method to solve the problems.
Reading is a
comprehensive process, reading ability is also a process which improved step by
step. As long as the students can learn persistent, better reading method and
develop reading interest, it is easy to improve English reading ability.
To sum up, a proficient reader should have
good language skills: recognizing words and phrases, understanding sentence
structure. Also, he/she should have relevant knowledge about the topic, the
organization of the type of text and general knowledge about world. Besides,
he/she should take hold of the correct learning strategy. Different students
may have different learning methods, whatever they use, as long as they can get
an effective achievement, which is ok. No matter what you do, please remember
do not be impatient to succeed. There is no royal road to learning. Knowledge
advances by step not by leaps. That is to say, improving reading ability is not
a thing which can accomplish overnight. Students should read more and practice
more. Meanwhile, during you reading and practicing, you should analyze the
reading strategy which is fit for you, with the correct reading strategy, you
may get twice the result with half the effort.
Table of Contents
Abstract……..…………………………………………………………………
1
Ⅰ Introduction
……………………………………………..……………………...…2
ⅡSome problems in reading for senior students and the causes for the problems………..…………………………..……………….………………..….2-4
1. Some problems…………………..…………………………….………………….2-3
2. Causes for the problems………………..…………………….………………...…3-4
2.1 Lack of vocabulary …………………………..……..……….…………………….3
2.2 Lack of interest in reading …………….….…………………….………………3-4
2.3 Lack of learning strategy………………………………..….…...………………....4
Ⅲ Solutions to the problems…………….……………….………………...……...4-10
1. Enlarging vocabulary…………………………...…………………………..….....4-6
1.1 Necessity of enlarge vocabulary…………………………………..…………….4-5
1.2 Methods of enlarge vocabulary…………………………………….……………5-6
2. Cultivating reading interest……….……...……….………………………………6-8
2.1 Understanding the related background of reading
material…………...….……..6-7
2.2 Reading various kinds of reading material………………………………………...7
2.3 Taking various teaching methods……….…………………………………….…7-8
3. Developing correct reading strategy………...………………...………………...8-10
3.1 Training good reading habits………………………...……..…………………...8-9
3.2 Using different strategies for different reading
tasks……….……………….…9-10
3.3 Using English style to understand the context……………………………...……10
Ⅳ Conclusion……………………………..………………………………...……10-11
Bibliography………………………………………………………………………….12
共12页，4221字
Bibliography
LiuYanshu & DingYongmei,
How to Develop senior Students’Ability
of Reading:
Journal of Chongqing Vocational & Technical
Institute, 2007
WangQiang, A course in English language teaching: High Education Press, 2004
William, E. Nagy. Teaching Vocabulary to Improve Reading Comprehension.
Beijing:
Pecking Unversity Research Press, 1998
任志鸿，十年高考分类解析与应试策略，南方出版社，2000
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