INTRODUCTION
The ability to read is one of the characteristics of civilized society
and one of the factors that
separates man from other animals. The level of reading ability and skill in
reading also help us to gauge levels of civilization and industrialization. Experts
suggest that in order to pass from an agricultural society to an
industrialized society at least 45 per cent of the adults
should know how to read and write.
At the individual level, the ability to read places a
person above his illiterate companions, and among those who know how to read, the one who can grasp complex ideas ;or legal and technical ideas enjoys a higher
status than his friend, who can only
read newspapers, magazines or story books.
Even in the field of literature, the emphasis has now shifted
from the writer to the reader. Thus if one read all the novels
of Charles Dickens,
one would come to know how his
mind worked at different periods of his life. Today we think
differently, and are more
concerned with the impact that writing has on the mind of the reader. What an author writes will be just markings on a paper unless the reader is able to understand and absorb what is
written.
THE READING PROCESS
The mental process of understanding a writer’s message is known as reading. The message may be in the form of written or printed words or symbols. Reading is not merely ‘seeing letters, words and figures but also involves understanding, interpreting and responding or reacting. The reader must be able to recognize the words and symbols, he must know their meaning, must feel the tone and mood that the writer is trying to convey. At a more advanced level he should be able to judge the accuracy and correctness of the writer’s thoughts and also know how to apply or use them.
How a person reads :
We do not read
with our eyes but with our mind. In order to understand and interpret
the words and phrases our mind should
be alert and attentive. The ability to read well
does not depend so much on the sharpness
of one’s vision as the clarity and richness
of one’s mind.
According to an expert there are three types of
readers :
a) motor readers
b) auditory readers
c) visual readers
Motor readers
are those who move their lips while reading, and not only their
lips but also their tongues, vocal
chords and larynx.
Reading for such persons is a painfully slow process and the reading
is usually of a poor quality. Auditory readers are those who need to hear the sound of the word in their
minds in order to understand the meaning of words, even if they may not actually be using their lips and larynx. Again the speed and quality of reading needs much to be desired.
Visual readers can be very efficient
readers, though, it must be
admitted, all are not. Visual readers are able to understand words, phrases and entire sentences without having
to ‘say’ or ‘hear1 the words. For visual readers
the eye is merely an extension of the mind to which the message of the
written words, sentences, paragraphs, goes directly. Most readers tend to be oral readers
while adults who have received a good education tend to
be silent readers. In the early days of the development of the English language there were more oral readers
as books were few and expensive and the man who know how to read was expected to read aloud
to those who did not
know. Also in earlier centuries the English language
was more phonetic, making the task of oral reading
easier.
Whether a language is phonetic or symbolic has a direct bearing
on silent or oral
reading. In a phonetic language
each letter of the alphabet has only one sound and when voiced the word becomes a combination of the individual sounds. In English many
letters have more than two sounds and are sounded differently in different words. Thus the letter V
is differently voiced
in words like ‘god’ and ‘more’.
THE SPEED
AND PURPOSE OF READING
As a general rule one can say that silent reading is quicker than oral reading, otherwise
the speed at which an adult reads
depends upon the difficulty of the written material and the purpose
for which it is being read. An interesting and well written
novel can be read at a speed of about 300 words per minute.
If however one is reading an article on physics or economics, the
significance of every sentence has to be digested and, hence, the speed of reading slows down to about 200 words
per minute. In the case of technical or legal writing the speed may go down to just about 100 words per minute.
The purpose of reading can be any one of the following and sometimes
even two or more purposes can be fulfilled
by the same reading: 1) for information, 2) for education
3) for acquiring physical
skill 4) for instruction 5) for interest
6) for pleasure or entertainment 7) for acquiring better taste and refinement.
Reading with Fluency and Speed - Skimming and
Scanning
Inefficient readers read slowly and understand less of what they read than efficient
readers. Skimming and Scanning are the favorite tools of the efficient reader. To
skim means to take matter
from the surface
and scan means to look at all parts quickly.
Almost all written material can be skimmed. Understood at the simplest
level skimming would involve the ignoring of unimportant linking
words like the, a, it, to, on, therefore, etc and concentrating
on key important words. Since
skimming and scanning go together the efficient reader is able to understand the general import of a paragraph while being able to
concentrate on the one or two important ideas that it contains. Being able to
get at the essence of written
material by a judicious and selective
skipping of inessentials makes for faster reading with greater
fluency.
The secret of efficient reading, involving skimming and scanning is the ability to fixate on key words and phrases rather than on each word in slow progression. An extremely poor reader will concentrate (fixate) on each word painfully and even after doing so may fail to grasp the idea or message of the writer. The efficient reader, on the other hand, quickly scans a paragraph or a page and is able to grasp the main ideas of the writer.
How to Read Efficiently
a)
Get rid of bad habits that may have built up over the years, like reading with only half attention,
listening to the radio while reading, reading in bad light or while lying down.
b)
Test your
reading speed and also your powers of comprehension and then set about
improving both.
c)
Read more, you must make time for reading
d)
Learn to read for main ideas
by resorting to skimming and scanning
e)
Challenge your own comprehension. You will never become
an efficient reader
if you restrict yourself
to reading easy-to-digest material in magazines and novels. Read books
of non-fiction and occasionally legal documents or technical or philosophical books.
f)
Train your mind for
immediate concentration. This calls for a degree of mental aggression on the part of the reader.
g)
Improve your vocabulary. Only persons with a
large vocabulary make efficient readers
as the words they come across,
being familiar become quick conveyors of thought.
h)
Learn to fixate. Fixation
is the technical term for the brief moment during which your eyes focus on a word, phrase or a section of the line of print. During fixation
the eye pauses or stops and then again flies along the printed line.
i)
Get in tune with the writer’s
mind. Efficient readers know how to think along with an
author so that they are able to follow
the central theme of the written
material. At the
same time they should
not be carried away by the flood tide but should
be able to critically evaluate what has been written
and it is always helpful
to retain a sense of
healthy skepticism about
what has been written.
Acquiring Reading Skills
A.
Pinpointing
Arguments and Providing Logical Sequence
The student who wishes to acquire communication skills must be able to pinpoint
an argument and provide
a logical sequence
to an argument.
Pinpoint an argument
means being able to pick out the main topic or argument from a given passage (whether oral or written),
while providing a logical sequence
means being able to
give further arguments, conclusions or examples in line with the main argument.
Pinpointing an argument is only possible when the passage is
not of a purely descriptive or narrative nature. In purely
narrative or descriptive passages the writer
tells us what happened
in order to time or tells
us about an object, event
or scene, piece by piece and hence it is not possible to pick out the main argument. When a
passage consists of more than one paragraph the student should train himself
to pick out the main argument or topic of each paragraph and write it down in a sentence of his own. In a good piece of composition the student will find that the main point is usually expressed in the form of a
general statement and that this statement is supported by facts, figures,
examples and illustrations.
B.
How to Read and Listen Critically
In this section we shall briefly consider how a student can cultivate the habit of reading and listening critically. He should know not only how to be logical himself, but should be able to spot out the illogical approach of others. Logic is the science of reasoning, ie., the science of arriving conclusions with the help of thought. We are not concerned with the study of this science but will only touch upon a few aspects of it which play an important part in developing the communication of the student.
1.
Logical inclusion
and exclusion, ie., categorization and classification
A category is a division
in a complete system or grouping and to categorize means to
place in a category.
For eg., one may say that books are of three
kinds i) those that provide information, ii) those
that entertain iii) those that both
entertain and provide information. On the basis of this we can go further and say that a book on General Knowledge comes
in the first category,
a detective novel in the second and a historical novel or travelogue comes in the third category.
The process of arranging
into different classes is known as classification. Thus, in a library,
books are arranged on shelves or mentioned
in the catalogue according to the subject to which they pertain or according to the name of the author.
2.
Re-ordering Information
In oral and written composition there has to be logical order. By logical order we mean the way in which things are placed in relation to each other, ie., in order of time, importance,
cause-effect or by passing from the
general to the particular. When things
are arranged in proper logical order there will be no room for inconsistencies or contradictions.
Local implication means that on the basis of logic something is suggested or hinted at even if it is not plainly
expressed. Often writers do not present
relevant information in a proper logical order. The efficient
reader will have to do this himself
in order to get to the correct message or to get to
the facts that the writer
is trying to put across.
3.
Tautology
When in an oral or written composition, the same thing is said again and again, in a slightly different manner, without making
the meaning clearer,
is called tautology.
In other words it means
needless repetition. This should not be confused with deliberate repetition which is used by good speakers
and writers in order to emphasize
what they have been speaking or writing
about. The chief characteristic of tautology
is that it does not make the meaning clearer but performs
a kind of verbal ‘merry-go-
round’. A large number
of redundant phrases
are used. When tautology occurs in a
long passage it is a clear indication of an untidy, mind.
4.
Two Other Common Mistakes
a)
The mistake of the ‘non sequitur’, this is a kind of wrong or mistaken
reasoning. In this
we
come to a conclusion which does not tightly follow from the first statement.
For eg.,
i)
He plays golf; he must be a gentleman.
ii)
He reads many books; he must be wise.
In the sentences given above the second
half is made to depend on the first when, in
fact, there is no proper connection. A man who plays could be a ruffian and there
are many gentlemen who do not play golf.
b)
Sometimes trying
to be very logical in a literal
or mathematical sense can also lead us to
ridiculous conclusions. In the examples given below the mathematical application of reasoning leads to absurd
conclusions :
Statement: Jagdish’s father
ate dal and chapattis every day. He lived till the age of 100
Conclusion : To live till an old age one should eat dal and chapattis
every day.
A)
Understanding Complex Sentence Structures
The student is often frightened by a long and complex
sentence and he sometimes reads it twice or thrice without being able to understand it. If however, he goes about reading
the sentence by breaking it up into parts (analyse) he will be able to understand it quite well.
For eg., Sita has a book.
This is a simple sentence with a subject, verb and object. Now if we add some, more words or phrases to tell the reader
something more about Sita and the book,
we are giving more information to the
reader but the main sentence remains the same. So we may add:
‘Sita, the girl who lives next door to me, has a blue coloured book on botany
which formerly belonged to my sister’.
In this much longer sentence
we tell the reader something more about Sita-.
and also something more about the book. The original
simple sentence thus becomes
a complex sentence with the main clause
remaining the same.
A complex sentence is therefore a sentence
with one or more main clauses
(called co-coordinating clauses) and one or more subordinate clauses which tell something more about words in the main clause or in other parts of the sentence).
When two or more main clauses are joined together
by words like ‘but’ ‘and’ ‘yet’ the sentence is known as a Compound
Sentence.
D.
Isolating Facts From
Opinions
Good or bad writers often
mix their facts and opinions.
Bad writers do this because
they cannot help it, and good writers sometimes do this deliberately in
a skilful attempt to persuade readers to look at things from their point of
view. While it is always easy to separate
facts from opinions
in bad writing, it requires considerably
more skill and discernment on the part of the reader to do so in the case of good writers. Writers like GB. Shaw and Salman Rushdie
have to be read with care for they have messages to deliver and the
line between fact and fiction often gets blurred.
On a daily basis the problem of isolating facts from opinions
arises when we read
newspapers. According to journalistic theory, the newspaper
report is supposed to deal exclusively with facts while the editor’s
opinions appear
on the editorial page. But, in an age when newspapers are in stiff competition
with each other and sensationalism has to be resorted to by the best of papers, this never really happens.
E.
Multi-levelled Readings
A piece of written communication is to be understood at many
levels. First is the
meaning of the words themselves and their meaning
in the context of other
words within the sentence and the paragraph. Next, the reader
has to try to understand the nature of the situation
being described, the point of view of the writer, his personal philosophy or outlook (optimistic,
pessimistic, neutral or critical) and the writer’s vision of life.
And most important, the reader should be able to understand
the tone of the passage;
whether it is humorous, sarcastic, ironic, thought-provoking, dramatic
or poetic.
F.
Recognition of Register
When you read a passage of prose or poetry you should be able to make out if
the style is appropriate to the situation or not. Let us begin with words. A dictionary contains thousands of words, but all of
these are not to be used on every occasion. There is an active vocabulary and a
passive vocabulary. Words and phrases of the active vocabulary can be used by us on every occasion
without doubt or hesitation. Words and phrases
of the passive vocabulary must be known and studied
but need not be used at all except on very special
occasions.
The use of slang and colloquial words poses another problem. Slang and colloquial
words and phrases go out of fashion very soon.-It is frequently found
that the older
and younger generations use a different set of slang phrases.
Spoken and written English can be formal or informal in tone and style. The modern trend is towards informal writing. In formal writing the tone and style is impersonal and stiff and use is made of what is called the ‘them-language’ - or writing in the third person even when the communication is directly between two persons. Government notifications, letters and circulars are usually found to be in this formal style. Thus a government department will write a letter to a tax payer and inform him: ‘the assessed is required to note that interest at 12% per annum will be charged on late payment. Perhaps the most glaring example of the excessive use of formality is in business letters where, out of habit, the businessman continues to use ‘commercial jargon’.
Rapid developments in science and technology have led to
a different style of writing which one can come across in technical books or
journals. When scientists are
communicating with each other the language tends to be full of technical words and phrases. Gradually
this development has begun to influence language in general as more
and more people have started
reading popular science magazines
and science fiction.
Journalistic writing has a distinctive style of its own. As space
is money the journalist writes in terse and condensed
style. It has a special
style and approach
for the presentation of news.
The purpose
of literary writing
and speech is to create an effect by itself. It is the beauty of language, the turn or felicity of phrase that catches the eye and engrosses
the attention. While commercial correspondence, scientific
writing and formal communication use style in a functional manner
to convey the meaning clearly
and quickly, in literature
the reader is expected to derive pleasure from the style itself.
For the literary man, how he
says a thing is more important than what he says, while
for a technical man, what he says is
more important than the way he says.
G.
Figures of Speech
Figures of speech are rarely
used in everyday spoken and written English. When used,
they make the language flowery, bombastic
and sometimes unnatural. Poetry, however,
makes frequent use of these figures
and so does a certain type of poetic
prose. Accordingly the student should be able to recognize the commonly
used figures of speech.
SUMMARY
Reading can be defined as the mental process of
understanding a writer’s message. The message may be in the form of written,
printed words or symbols.
There are three types of readers - Motor readers.
they move their lips,
tongue, vocal cords and larynx. Auditory
readers. They hear the sound of word in their minds to understand it. Visual Readers. They understand the matter without
having to say or hear
the words. The speed and purpose of reading varies
in different cases. Acquiring reading skills. To do this, the following things
need to be kept in mind.
A]
Pinpointing arguments and providing logical
sequence.
B]
Reading and Listening critically develop the reasoning skills.
C]
Understanding complex sentence structures and simplifying them in your mind.
D] Isolating facts
from opinions from your own perspective.
E] Multi-Level readings - Levels indicate words - phrases - sentences - paragraphs. F] Recognizing the Register. This becomes easy when the vocabulary skills of the reader are developed. Also if the reader is exposed to various styles and forms of writing, reading becomes interesting.
G] Grasping the meaning of figures of speech.
CHECK YOUR PROGRESS - ANSWERS
1. Reading 2. Logic 3. Fixation 4. Skimming
and Scanning.
QUESTION FOR SELF - STUDY
1.
Define Reading
and explain the concepts.
2.
Describe the different types of readers.
3.
Define Tautology.
4.
Explain the steps essential for critical listening
and reading.
5. Name and explain the skills essential to develop reading.
SUGGESTED READINGS
1. Developing Reading Skills by Grellet, F.
2.
High School English Grammar and Composition - P. C. Wren, H. Martin (Edited
by N.D.V. Prasada Rao)