How to Foster Students’Reading Ability

余析悯

【Abstract】As reading is the main source of acquiring knowledge， the teaching of reading is regarded as the backbone of language teaching. This paper makes a proposal for a more effective approach to reading ability hazed on the requirements of the new syllabus and the needs of the society.

【Key words】reading； ability； teaching； effective approach

【摘要】阅读是获得信息的主要来源，因此阅读是教学中必不可少且至关重要的环节。该论文通过简介影响阅读的因素，探讨如何从各方面有效培养学生阅读能力已达到学习语言的目的。

【关键词】阅读 能力 教学 有效

I. Introduction

Reading could help cooperation and exchange with foreign countries in economy， culture， science and technology. And reading for relaxation and enjoyment can add to ones quality of life. So only people who have reading ability can master the knowledge and make full use of it. A schools goal should be to enable students to read independably. So how to foster the students reading ability is very important.

II. Some Factors Affecting Reading

There exist many factors affecting reading comprehension. Some are objective such as linguistic difficulty， organizational structure and its length， the two noticeable factors are background knowledge and culture. The simplest way to provide background knowledge is to introduce something about the text topic， source and author， etc. to students. In this way， students can connect their own experiences and provide more background knowledge for each other. Some are subjective residing in the readers， for example， physical factor， intellectual factor， emotional factor and educational factor.

III. Fostering The Students Reading Ability

Fostering reading ability depends not only on teachers but also students. Yet the teachers guidance through reading lesson mainly makes the students have reading ability. For teachers， we should arouse students interest， choose reading materials， foster students reading skills and so on.

1. Reading Interest

Interest is the best teacher. Emotion could arouse students enthusiasm. In a reading lesson， teachers should try their best to arouse students enthusiasm， help them to have an interest to read. The teachers enthusiasm could arouse and maintain students enthusiasm， so the students have driving force to learn the language. If the teacher knows to read and create classroom atmosphere that encourages reading， students would have more interest in reading.

2. Reading Material

Books should be well chosen. The reading material should have a great variety. It should be worth studying and include English society， history， religions， customs and so on. It could reflect the real world of the Western countries. Students could not only broaden their outlook and knowledge but also increase vocabulary by reading such material. But students will not keep reading unless reading brings satisfaction. The books offered must be enjoyable. The length of the book should be short that they can finish quickly without a sense of strain and without getting bored. It is a better way for teachers to administer inventories to identify attitudes toward reading and reading habits.

3. Fostering Reading Skills

Many students use the dictionaries too much having a harmful effect on reading. If the word is a key one and its meaning is not precise， we should first guess the meaning of the word. Firstly， guess the meaning through morphological information. The teacher can start making students aware of affixes as soon as they meet a simple word found in early text. Affixes are one thing， roots are another. Words stems， prefixes and suffixes are like master keys. A few of them will open the door to many meanings. The second way is to guess meaning of a word by context. Context is of great importance for the understanding of word meaning. The teacher should try to develop students ability to link word meaning with context. Here are some suggestions for the teacher to help students use synonyms， antonyms， further explanations， attributive clause and example sentence. Students could guess word meaning by using common sense. The last way is to use the dictionary.

It is advisable for teachers to guide the students to analyze the structure of a text and it can improve the students reading comprehension and enhance their reading abilities. Most English compositions begin with an opening paragraph that introduces the topic or the main idea to give the reader of English texts. Teachers should pay more attention to guide students to find out how the author presents the topic， help them to identify the relation-ship among paragraphs. Understanding the structure of a text can contribute to a clearer interpretation of its overall message. The knowledge about organization patterns of English text can help students get rid of the cross-cultural interference for their comprehension and production of English. It can also help students comprehend a text better.

We can often see such sentences as “From the passage we can infer that...”.“The authors attitude towards ...is ...”. “The tone of this passage is one of...”. The student could not understand such sentences well only through the surface information. In reading， they have to pay attention to the point of view of the writer， understand the title and find the real reason of some questions not surface questions precisely. They must focus on to the topic sentence and conclusion sentence and the tone of writer. Whats more they should understand ，the style of text and diction of the text， especially the tendency， attitude， emotion， tone of the writer from the adjectives which writer uses. Students should be familiar with some adjective words which often appear in the text， such as positive， negative， neutral， subjective， objective， etc.

IV. Conclusion

In recent years， many applied linguists and psychologists tend to describe reading as a complicated process which require an active involvement instead of a passive receptive activity. Teachers have become concerned about reading process rather than products. So fostering the students reading ability is a very important task for the teachers today. The ways to foster the students reading ability are different and so many， but students obtain reading ability mainly through reading lessons. Teachers should not only help students develop reading ability but also introduce some reading skills which are helpful for the relationship between native language and foreign languages. By doing so， the students might become independent， skilled readers， and finally become fluent readers.

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