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Reading Strategies

This document discusses various reading strategies and techniques. It begins with defining reading strategies as planned actions to facilitate the reading process, while reading techniques are the execution of strategies through specific steps. It then covers specific strategies like previewing, skimming, scanning, active reading, questioning, inferring, annotating, chunking and visualization. For each strategy, it provides the definition and how to apply the technique when reading a text. The document aims to provide an overview of different reading strategies and techniques to improve comprehension.

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Unes Brons
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48 views18 pages

Reading Strategies

This document discusses various reading strategies and techniques. It begins with defining reading strategies as planned actions to facilitate the reading process, while reading techniques are the execution of strategies through specific steps. It then covers specific strategies like previewing, skimming, scanning, active reading, questioning, inferring, annotating, chunking and visualization. For each strategy, it provides the definition and how to apply the technique when reading a text. The document aims to provide an overview of different reading strategies and techniques to improve comprehension.

Uploaded by

Unes Brons
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Reading Strategies

and techniques
PRESENTATION BY: ASMA ELHAIMER
General Outline

 Reading Strategies and techniques: A definitional framework


 Previewing
 Skimming
 Scanning
 Active Reading
 Questioning
 Inferring
 Annotating
 Chunking and Visualisation
What are reading strategies
and techniques ?
 Reading Strategies refer to the planned and explicit actions taken
in order to facilitate the process of reading; they are planned in the
sense that they are intentional and explicit in the sense that they are
consciously decided upon.
 Reading Techniques denote the performance or execution of these
strategies in the form of actual steps to follow when dealing with a
text.
 Take-away: Reading strategies and techniques are both clever
ways you tap into to deal with a given text more efficiently, but a
strategy is more of a plan while a technique pertains to application.
Bottom-up versus Top-down Strategies

 Top-down Strategies: These work by activating the readers’ background


knowledge about a text by asking them probing questions about their
experiences or opinions vis-à-vis the content of a given text before they
have even read it. In this sense, there is a transition from real-life
experience (top) to understanding the meaning of the text via making
some predictions about what its content.
 Bottom-up Strategies: These are the opposite of top-down strategies in
that you tap into an analysis of the smaller units of a text in order to
understand its content. In this sense, you are relying on elements of the
text in the process of understanding it.
Previewing

 Definition: Previewing is analogous to watching a movie trailer to


get a glimpse of what the movie might be about. When you preview
a text, the aim is to get what the latter might be about without
reading its main body.
 How: To preview a text, read the title and the author’s information
if any, pay attention to the layout of the text, look at the
accompanying illustrations if any, and read the parts that jump out
such as headings, sub-headings and highlighted parts.
Skimming

Definition: skimming refers to looking only for the general


or main idea of a text as the most important part of it
How: Read the title, the introduction, the conclusion and the
first sentence of each paragraph with the simple aim of
answering this question: What is the text about?
Scanning

Definition: Scanning is sweeping your eyes like a


radar through a part of a text in order to locate a
specific information that is relevant to you.
How: Run your eyes very quickly through the text
and –as soon as you come across an important
piece of information- you should stop and slow
down to properly read and understand it.
Active Reading and Questioning

Definition: Active reading refers to a technique of reading whereby a


reader’s genuine curiosity is activated. In this sense, the reader is
interacting with the text as he/she is reading it as a human product and
with many questions in mind. In this sense, active reading and
questioning are interrelated as questioning is the inevitable result of
active reading.
How: Read the text with a critical mind and develop questions whose
answers you target looking for while reading. Ransack the text for
these answers as you read.
Inferring and Annotating

Definition: Inferring refers to the process of


deducing information from a text despite it not
being clearly or directly stated. Annotating
denotes highlighting key information when
encountered
How: To infer information, you can ask yourself
questions such as: how else can I read this? How
else can this be interpreted? What does the author
mean by this? To annotate a text, you can
underline, highlight key information
Chunking and Visualisation

 Definition: Chunking refers to breaking the reading


material into manageable parts and reading these
with a particular purpose in mind. Visualisation
connotes representing the ideas garnered from a text
in a way that is more easily accessible to you such as
a chart, a graph, a diagram…
 How: To chunk up a text, you can use, sticky notes,
marking up a text… To visualise a text, you can use
charts, diagrams, graphs…
Application on a given text

 Do you think having a good pronunciation is important in the


context of language learners? Why/Why not?
 What do you think is the difference between pronunciation and
accent?
 What reading strategy are we trying to tap into by asking these
questions? What is the opposite of that strategy?
Application

 What is the title of the text?


 What parts of the text jump out to you? What are they called?
Read them out loud.
 Are there any visual illustrations here?
 What do you predict the text to be about?
 What reading technique are we trying to use?
Application

 Read the introduction, the conclusion and the first sentence of


the text, then answer this question:
 What is the text generally about?
 What reading technique are we trying to utilise?
Application

 What is the given definition of the halo effect?


 What is the difference between accent and pronunciation?
 How did you get the answer to these questions as fast as you could?
 What do we call this reading strategy?
Application

 What are some questions that you have about pronunciation, accent
and the halo effect?
 Are these questions answered in the text?
 By reading the text with these questions in mind, what techniques
are you using?
Application

 Underline the leading and final sentence in each paragraph.


 What is each paragraph about?
 Write a brief description of the content of each paragraph as a side
note
 What techniques are we trying to tap into with these?
Application

 What is the writer’s stance on the importance of a good


pronunciation?
 Deduce the writer’s viewpoint on the importance of adopting a
particular accent. Is it clearly stated?
 What technique have we used here?
Thank you for your attention

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