Question

If we are to help students develop reading skills in a foreign language, it is important to understand what is involved in the reading process itself. If we have a clear idea of how “good readers” read, either in their own or a foreign language, this will enable us to decide whether particular reading techniques are likely to help learners or not.

In considering the reading process, it is important to distinguish between two quite separate activities: reading for meaning (or “silent reading”) and reading aloud. Reading for meaning is the activity we normally engage in when we read books, newspapers, road signs, etc.; it is what you are doing as you read this text. It involves looking at sentences and understanding the message they convey, in other words “making sense” of a written text. It doesn’t normally involve saying the words we read, not even silently inside our heads; there are important reasons for this, which are outlined below.

Reading aloud is a completely different activity; its purpose is not just to understand a text but to convey the information to someone else. It is not an activity we engage in very often outside the classroom; common examples are reading out parts of a newspaper article to a friend, or reading a notice to other people who can’t see it. Obviously, reading aloud involves looking at a text, understanding it and also saying it. Because our attention is divided between reading and speaking, it is a much more difficult activity than reading silently; we often stumble and make mistakes when reading aloud in our own language, and reading aloud in a foreign language is even more difficult.

When we read for meaning, we do not need to read every letter or every word, nor even every word in each sentence. This is because, provided the text makes sense, we can guess much of what it says as we read it.

1.The passage is mainly about ____________.

A. reading skills B. silent reading

C. reading processes D. reading aloud

2.The underlined word “stumble” in Paragraph 3 means ____________.

A. step over something and fall

B. repeat something or pause for too long

C. walk with heavy movements

D. speak in a fluent and confident way

3. We can infer from the passage that the author will continue to ____________.

A. discuss in detail how to read aloud

B. introduce some more reading activities

C. tell how good readers read in their own language

D. explain why we needn’t say the words when reading for meaning

4. We can conclude that ____________.

A. reading silently is easier than reading aloud

B. to understand a sentence, you have to read all the words in it

C. silent reading involves looking at a text and saying the words silently to yourself

D. there’s no difference between reading in one’s own language and in a foreign one

Answer 1