Lesson 2: Critical Reading

In your academic and professional undertakings you need critical or

evaluative literacy. Your content subjects demand reading, especially for board
courses. Reading any material enables you to amass knowledge and information
available in print and online sources.
Before you can read critically, however, you should equip yourselves with
basic reading skills such as fluency. Fluency pertains to your reading speed.
According to Crawley and Meritt (2009), fluency in reading means decreasing
reversals, omissions, substitutions, non-pronunciations, repetitions, and insertions.
Decreasing faulty reading habit as subvocalization, lip movement, finger pointing,
and head movement will also accelerate your reading.
Your vocabulary skills can be enhanced through learning morphology like
compound words, contractions, affixes, and root words. Strange words really hinder
comprehension so it is imperative that you know some strategies in determining
word meaning. It’s easy for you to say, “Look it up in the dictionary.” But what if
you do not have a dictionary at hand? Some strategies like using context clues and
determining word parts can help you expedite vocabulary building. Moreover, as
effective readers, you must recognize main ideas from supporting details, identify
facts from opinions, summarize important ideas, draw inferences, and form
conclusions.
Of paramount importance is critical reading or critical literacy. ). Critical
literacy is the highest level of comprehension. It involves analysis, synthesis, and
evaluation.
During critical reading, you may be asked to determine the author’s purpose
or competence, the authenticity of sources and facts. You may be asked to judge
whether events, incidents, or characters are real or fictitious, or evaluate the
suitability of a character’s actions.

By taking an actively critical approach to reading, you will be able to do the

following:

 Stay focused while you read the text

 Understand the main idea of the text
 Understand the overall structure or organization of the text
 Retain what you have read
 Pose informed and thoughtful questions about the text
 Evaluate the effectiveness of ideas in the text

Take a look at the sample text, then guided by the critical questions, criticize the
text.

Teams are not magic. They must have tasks that are achievable
within a specified time frame. The team charged with 'management'
has an impossible brief and will surely fail unless effort is spent
spelling out what the management task involves and what
constitutes success.

Neither are teams a cheap option. They inevitably consume

Steps to becoming a critical reader
1. Prepare to become part of the writer's audience.
Authors design texts for specific audiences, and becoming a member of the
target audience makes it easier to get the author's purpose. Learn about the author,
the history of the author and the text, the author's anticipated audience; read
introductions and notes.
2. Prepare to read with an open mind.
Critical readers seek knowledge; they do not "rewrite" a work to suit their
own personalities. Your task as an enlightened critical reader is to read what is on
the page, giving the writer a fair chance to develop ideas and allowing yourself to
reflect thoughtfully, objectively, on the text.
3. Consider the title.
This may seem obvious, but the title may provide clues to the writer's
attitude, goals, personal viewpoint, or approach.
4. Read slowly.
Again, this appears obvious, but it is a factor in a "close reading." By slowing
down, you will make more connections within the text.
5. Use the dictionary and other appropriate reference works.
If there is a word in the text that is not clear or difficult to define in context:
look it up. Every word is important, and if part of the text is thick with technical
terms, it is doubly important to know how the author is using them.
6. Make notes.
Jot down marginal notes, underline and highlight, write down ideas in a
notebook, do whatever works for your own personal taste. Note for yourself the
main ideas, the thesis, the author's main points to support the theory. Writing while
reading aids your memory in many ways, especially by making a link that is unclear
in the text concrete in your own writing.
7. Keep a reading journal.
In addition to note-taking, it is often helpful to regularly record your
responses and thoughts in a more permanent place that is yours to consult. By
developing a habit of reading and writing in conjunction, both skills will improve.
Critical reading involves using logical and rhetorical skills. Identifying the
author's thesis is a good place to start, but to grasp how the author intends to
support it is a difficult task. More often than not an author will make a claim (most
commonly in the form of the thesis) and support it in the body of the text. The
support for the author's claim is in the evidence provided to suggest that the
author's intended argument is sound, or reasonably acceptable. What ties these two
together is a series of logical links that convinces the reader of the coherence of the
author's argument: this is the warrant. If the author's premise is not supportable, a
critical reading will uncover the lapses in the text that show it to be unsound.
Content Area Reading
In college, you encounter reading materials in your respective disciplines,
hence you use reading as a tool for thinking and learning in your content subjects.
One goal of content area learning is to get students to think as they read (Faber,
2015). Your prior knowledge and experiences, language development, reading
ability, and attitudes toward school are all critical elements in content area learning.
Readers who prejudge reading materials as too hard and boring will have trouble
understanding texts.
One way to deal with content materials is to consider text features. Text
features differ from subject to subject, so the reading skills and strategies you use
will also change from subject to subject.
According to Faber (2015), authors often organize their text by patterns.
Common patterns found in textbooks are:
 Comparison/contrast
 Descriptive pattern
 Episode pattern
 Time sequence
 Process/ cause-effect
 General to specific
Reading Strategies
There are various strategies that you can employ in reading. As readers, you
might have encountered problems such as poor comprehension, slow reading
speed, regression, subvocalization, poor memory, and many other challenges. Your
positive attitude toward reading and your motivation will help you overcome these
challenges. Remember that if you are enrolled in a board course, you need to
improve your reading skills. The strategies below will hopefully aid you in your
reading tasks.

1. Previewing
Research shows that it is easier to understand what you are reading if you
begin with a general idea of what the passage is about. Previewing helps you form a
general idea of the topic in mind.
To preview, read the title, if there is one; the first sentence of each
paragraph; and the last sentence of the passage. You should do this as quickly as
possible.
Example
Directions: Preview the following passage. Underline the first sentence in each
paragraph and the last sentence. Can you identify the topic?
 A black hole is a region of space created by the total gravitational collapse of
matter. It is so intense that nothing, not even light or radiation, can escape. In other
words, it is a one-way surface through which matter can fall inward but cannot
emerge.
Some astronomers believe that a black hole may be formed when a large star
collapses inward from its own weight. As long as they are emitting heat and light
into space, stars support themselves against their own gravitational pull with the
outward thermal pressure generated by heat from nuclear reactions deep in their
interiors, but if a star eventually exhausts its nuclear fuel, then its balanced
gravitational attraction could cause it to contract and collapse. Furthermore, it could
begin to pull in surrounding matter, including nearby comets and planets, creating a
black hole.
Answer: The topic is about black holes.

2. Reading for main ideas

By previewing, you can form a general idea of what a reading passage is
about; that is, you identify the topic. By reading for main ideas, you identify the
point of view of the author; that is, what the writer’s thesis is. Specifically, what
does the author propose to write about the topic? If you could reduce the reading to
one sentence, what would it be?
Questions about the main idea can be worded in many ways. For example,
the following questions are all asking for the same information: (1) What is the main
idea? (2) What is the subject? (3) What is the topic? (4) What would be a good title?
Example
Directions: The main idea usually occurs at the beginning of a reading passage.
Underline the first two sentences in the following passage. Can you identify the
main idea? What would be a good title for this passage?
For more than a century, despite attacks by a few opposing scientists,
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection has stood firm. Now,
however, some respected biologists are beginning to question whether the theory
accounts for major developments such as the shift from water to land habitation.
Clearly, evolution has not proceeded steadily but has progressed by radical
advances. Recent research in molecular biology, particularly in the study of DNA,
provides us with a new possibility. Not only environmental but also genetic codes in
the underlying structure of DNA could govern evolution.
Answer: The main idea is that biologists are beginning to question Darwin’s theory.
A good title would be Questions about Darwin’s theory.

3. Using Context Clues for Vocabulary

 Before you can use a context, you must understand what a context is. In
English, a context is the combination of vocabulary and grammar that surrounds a
word. Context can be a sentence or a paragraph or a passage. Context helps you
make a general prediction about meaning. If you know the general meaning of a
sentence, you also know the general meaning of the words in the sentence.
Making predictions from contexts is very important when you are reading. You can
read and understand the meaning of a passage without stopping to look up every
new word in a dictionary.
Example
Directions: Read the following passage, paying close attention to the underlined
words. Can you understand their meanings from the context without using a
dictionary?
At the age of sixty-six, Harland Sanders had to auction off everything he
owned in order to pay his debts. Once a successful proprietor of a large restaurant,
Sanders saw his business suffer from the construction of a new freeway that
bypassed his establishment and rerouted the traffic that had formerly passed.
Answers: auction means to sell
proprietor means owner
formerly means in the past

4. Scanning for details

After reading a passage, you will be expected to answer questions. First, read
a question and find the important content words. Content words are usually nouns,
verbs, or adjectives. They are called content words because they contain the
content of the sentence.
Next, let your eyes travel quickly over the passage for the same content
words or synonyms of the words. This is called scanning. By scanning, you can find
a place in the reading passage where the answer to the question is found. Finally,
read those specific sentences carefully and choose the answer that corresponds to
the meaning of the sentences you have read.
Example
Directions: First, read this passage. Then, read the questions following the reading
passage, and circle the content words. Finally, scan the passage for the same words
or synonyms. Can you answer the questions?
To prepare for a career in engineering, a student must begin planning in high
school. Mathematics and science should form the core curriculum. For example, in a
school where sixteen credit hours are required for high school graduation, four
should be in mathematics, one each in chemistry, biology, and physics. The
remaining credits should include four in English, and at least three in the humanities
and social sciences. The average entering freshman in engineering should have
achieved at least a 2.5 grade point average on a 4.0 scale in his or her high school.
Although deficiencies can be corrected during the first year, the student who needs
additional work should expect to spend five instead of four years to complete a
degree.

1. What is the average grade point for an entering freshman in engineering?

2. When should a student begin planning for a career in engineering?
3. How long will a student, who needs additional work, expect to complete a
degree ?
4. How many credits should a student have in English?
5. How many credits are required for a high school diploma?
Answers: 1. 2.5
2. in high school
3. 5 years
4. four
5. sixteen

5. Making Inferences
Sometimes, in a reading passage, you will find a direct statement of fact.
That is called evidence. But other times, you will not find a direct statement. Then
you will need to use the evidence you have to make an inference. An inference is a
logical conclusion based on evidence. It can be about the passage itself or about the
author’s viewpoint.
Example
Directions: First, read this passage. Then, read the questions following the passage,
and make inferences. Can you circle the evidence for your inference in the reading
passage?
When an acid is dissolved in water, the acid molecule divides into two parts,
a hydrogen ion and another ion. An ion is an atom or a group of atoms which has an
electrical charge. The charge can be either positive or negative. If hydrochloric acid
is mixed with water, for example, it divides into hydrogen ions and chlorine ions.
A strong acid ionizes to a great extent, but a weak acid does not ionize so
much. The strength of an acid, therefore, depends on how much it ionizes, not on
how many hydrogen ions are produced. It is interesting that nitric acid and sulfuric
acid become greatly ionized whereas boric acid and carbonic do not.
1. What kind of acid is sulfuric acid?
2. What kind of acid is boric acid?
Answers: 1. A strong acid ionizes to a great extent, and sulfuric acid becomes
greatly
ionized.
Conclusion: Sulfuric acid is a strong acid.
2. A weak acid does not ionize so much, and boric acid does not ionize
 greatly.
Conclusion: Boric acid is a weak acid.

6. Drawing conclusions
A conclusion refers to information that is implied or inferred. This means that
the information is not clearly stated in the text.
Example
Directions: Read the passage and draw a conclusion.
Video gaming is one of the largest industries in America. Each day
more and more children are getting addicted to video games. There have
been many video game opponents accusing the industry of becoming too
violent. It is not uncommon to play a shoot’em up game where ten people are
getting killed every minute. Yet, despite societal pressures to eliminate
violent video games, as each day passes, more gamers are getting hooked.

Which conclusion can you draw about the video game industry?
Answer: As time goes on more and more children will play video games.

Questions for Discussion

1. How do you read critically?

2. What challenges do you encounter as a reader?

3. What reading strategies do you employ in comprehending content materials?

4. Which among the reading strategies below do you find effective?

KWL charts SQ3R

Anticipation guides Questioning the author

Graphic organizers Concept maps

Column notes Visual reading guides