江 汉 大 学 文 理 学 院

College of Arts & Science of JiangHan University

毕业论文(设计)

论文（设计）题目：如何提高大学生的阅读能力

（英文） How to Improve College Student’s Reading Ability

姓 名：XXX

学 号：XX

院 （系）： 外语学部

专 业： 商务英语

指导老师：XX

20xx年5月

Abstract

The most common problem college students have nowadays, including English majors, is that they have difficulty in understanding the long sentences, or sentences with complicated structures. Therefore, how to improve reading ability of college students draws more and more attention. Reading ability is very important in our daily life and studies. So the first thing we meet when we are reading is the vocabulary, that is, how to deal with the unfamiliar words will be a very important aspect in our discussion. Next, we must have a good knowledge of English grammar which will help us understand the English passages better. As the people said, practice makes perfect, so we should read a large number of English material except the textbooks. Finally, we should eradiate the bad reading habits and form good ones. The author of the paper has analyzed some common reading skills and put forward some suggestions to the further improvement of college students? reading ability with the authors? own learning experience, which may help to improve the students? reading competence.

Key words: Reading ability Vocabulary Grammar Reading habits

摘要

如今大学生面临的多数问题，包括英语专业的学生，就是在理解英语长句或者复杂结构句上有困难。因此，如何提高大学生的英语阅读能力引起了越来越多的关注。英语阅读能力在我们的日常生活和学习中都非常重要。然而，阅读过程中遇到的首要问题就是单词，如何处理阅读中不熟悉的单词在我们的讨论中是非常重要的一部分。其次，我们也必须掌握好语法知识以便我们理解文章。俗话说，熟能生巧，所以，除了我们的教材外我们还应该大量阅读英语材料。最后，我们应该摒弃坏的阅读习惯培养良好的阅读习惯。本文作者对常见的一些阅读技巧进行了分析，同时结合自身学习经验，为学生阅读能力的提高提供了一些建议，希望对他们有所帮助。

关键词：阅读能力 单词 语法 阅读习惯

Contents

I. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..…. 1

II. The significance of reading ability for college students ……………………..……………2

2.1 The definition of reading…………………………….……………………..….………2

2.2 The importance of reading……………………………………………………………..3

2.3 The problems that students have………………………………….….…………..……5

2.3.1 Lack of vocabularies……………………………………………………………..5

2.3.2 Weak at grammar…………………………………………………………...……5

2.3.3 No interests………………………………………………………………………5

2.3.4 Wrong reading habits and skills……………………….…………………...……5

2.4 Components and Solutions of English reading comprehensive ability………………..6

2.4.1 Enlarge vocabularies………….………………………………………….............6

2.4.2 Improve grammar ability……………………………………………………...…8

2.4.3 Change the reading habits………………………………………………….…….9

2.4.4 Skimming and Scanning…………………………………………………..……10

2.4.5 Read at a super speed……………………………………….…………….…….1

2.4.6 Extensive and Intensive reading………………………………………….…….1

III. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….17

Reference………………………………………………………………………………….....19

Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………..…………20

I. Introduction

Classes should be learner-centered, with meaningful, functional activities, classes begin by finding out what the students don?t know. These classes operate on the assumption that there is a great deal of information that students lack and that the teacher and textbooks will impact that information to the students. Teachers who hold this assumption view students as plants waiting passively to be fed and watered. But I think the students should be regarded as explorers, active learners who bring a great deal to the learning process and at the same time, draw from their environment as they develop new understandings. The basic principle will be used in the teaching of reading. And the teachers should cultivate the students? consciousness of learning how to improve these essential English learning skills.

The purpose of college English teaching is to improve the student?s skill of learning English by themselves, take reading for example, with the base of necessary phonetics, large vocabulary and good grammar.

Some people think that reading is a very simple matter. You move your eyes along the line, and the author's message appears somehow in your mind. When a person is highly skilled as a reader, it does seem that something like that takes place. However, the actual reading process is quite complicated. Try to think back when you were first learning to read, or observe a young child learning to read. It is a very difficult, complex, sometimes, painful process.

Reduced to its simplest elements, we might say that comprehension is a part of the communication process of getting the thoughts that were in the author's mind into the reader's, but how does one reader can get the idea clearly? It depends on the reading ability of the reader's. How can the readers make improvements in reading? Especially for the college students. There are many skills to improve one's ability of reading comprehension, this thesis will show the main idea of how to improve college students? reading skills.

II. The Significance of Reading Ability for College Students

2.1 The definition of reading Generally, reading is about understanding written texts. But understanding a written text is not simply looking. It is a complex activity that involves both perception and thought. It consists of two related processes: word recognition and comprehension. Word recognition refers to the process of perceiving how written symbols correspond to one?s spoken language. Comprehension is the process of making sense of words, sentences and connected text. Birkley (1970) defines reading as “the recognition and perception of language structures as wholes in order to comprehend both the surface and deep meaning which these structures communicate.” According to National Reading Panel (2001) that reading is a set of skills that allows readers to rapidly decode text while maintaining high comprehension.

For the purposes of The Partnership for Reading, the National Reading Panel, and the Reading First law, reading is defined as a complex system of deriving meaning from print that requires all of the following:

1) The skills and knowledge to understand how phonemes, or speech sounds, are connected to print

2) The ability to decode unfamiliar words.

3) The ability to read fluently.

4) Sufficient background information and vocabulary to foster reading comprehension.

5) The development of appropriate active strategies to construct meaning from print.

6) The development and maintenance of a motivation to read.

In a word, reading is the process of constructing meaning from written texts. It is a complex skill requiring the coordination of a number of interrelated sources of information.

2.2 The importance of reading

With the development of society, English reading not only appears in exams but also exists in looking information, getting Info, entertaining or chatting online. English articles are getting more and more, and the range of them is getting wider and wider. English, be the world nowadays international social intercourse language the success that it obtain is an unprecedented in history of. So improving students? reading ability is of great urgency.

The score takes about 40% in the college English test band 4. In a certain extent, doing well or not in the reading comprehension directly influences the grades of English tests. Moreover reading could maintain the interesting of learning English, strengthen knowledge and improve ability and be helpful for students to have a better understanding of the world. We can not study foreign language well without improving the reading ability.

On many of the other pages of advice on this point I have emphasized how important reading is as far as learning English is concerned. However, there is a further, very important reason why college students should try to develop their reading skills: Educational researchers have found that there is a strong correlation between reading and academic success. In other words, a student who is a good reader is more likely to do well in school and pass exams than a student who is a weak reader.

Good readers can understand the individual sentences and the organizational structure of a piece of writing. They can comprehend ideas, follow arguments, and detect implications. They know most of the words in the text already, but they can also determine the meaning of many of the unfamiliar words from the context ------ failing this, they can use their dictionary effectively to do so. In summary, good readers can extract from the writing what is important for the particular task they are employed in. And they can do it quickly!

Educational researchers have also found a strong correlation between reading and vocabulary knowledge. In other words, students who have a large vocabulary are usually good readers. This is not very surprising, since the best way to acquire a large vocabulary is to read extensively, and if you read extensively you are likely to be or become a good reader!

So if you want yourself to be successful at college or at work, encourage yourself to read. Reading non-fiction in English is probably the most important, but English fiction and any reading in the mother tongue - if done extensively - will help your college students develop the reading competence that is essential for academic achievement. Even though reading is so indispensable and useful, the consciousness of reading has been deteriorating rapidly. One of the prominent causes for this is the technology boom, wherein you can get whatever information you need with just a click! Reading, however, doesn't mean making it through your school texts to clear the approaching tests. Neither is it restricted to educational purposes only. You can read almost anything including encyclopedias, novels, dailies, magazines...the list is pretty long, but that hardly matters, as long as you like doing it. Whether you like fiction or non-fiction is not important, but whether you like reading or not is! Sadly, however, people nowadays seem to have totally lost interest in this activity. College students are too busy with their computer games and chatting on Internet to make friends, they are glued on to their computer screen, amassing the wealth of knowledge through Internet search engines. Reading does have its loyal fan following, but the fan base is rapidly decreasing.

It is a well-known fact that when there were no televisions or computers, reading was a primary leisure activity. People would spend hours reading books and travel to lands far away-in their minds. The only tragedy is that, with time, students have lost their skill and passion to read. There are many other exciting and thrilling options available, aside from books. And that is a shame because reading offers a productive approach to improving vocabulary and word power. It is advisable to indulge in at least half an hour of reading a day to keep abreast of the various styles of writing and new vocabulary.

Reading helps in mental development and is known to stimulate the muscles of the eyes. Reading is an activity that involves greater levels of concentration and adds to the conversational skills of the reader. It is an indulgence that enhances the knowledge acquired, consistently. The habit of reading also helps readers to decipher new words and phrases that they come across in everyday conversations. The habit can become a healthy addiction and adds to the information available on various topics. It helps us to stay in-touch with

contemporary writers as well as those from the days of yore and makes us sensitive to global issues.

To make a conclusion, reading is essential especially for college students. It is useful to have a strong consciousness of reading and own a good knowledge of reading skills.

2.3 The problems that students have

2.3.1 Lack of vocabularies

The English vocabulary, is the most basic part of English study and it?s dispensable. However, most college students? reading ability is not hopeful cause of the lacking vocabularies. The quantity of English words decides the quality of English study, so, we should know this and enlarge our English words day by day with certain plan and goal.

2.3.2 Weak at grammar

The grammar, is also the essential and difficult part of English study, it?s the students? weak segment of English study, let alone the reading part, so, we can?t neglect the grammar.

2.3.3 No interests

The vocabulary and the grammar are all the basic segment of English reading, if you don?t master them well, they will effect your reading quality, and then, the students? confidence of English study must be influenced, at the same time, the students may lose the interest of English study. Therefore, you should read the passages which you are interested in, and find more opportunity to practice your spoken English, communicate with foreign friends, so that you can improve your desire for English study. As the people say, interest is the best teacher of study, so , we should own the strong desire and interest for English reading.

2.3.4 Wrong reading habits and skills

When we have the good grammar and certain vocabularies, we should own the correct reading habits and skills. Good learning habits are the necessary premise of successful study. Lots of college students complain that reading is a difficult task. It can?t give them any

benefits and useful information. After an examination in reading, they often say that their reading speed is too slow; they can?t understand what the meaning of the materials is; their reading abilities are poor. If they have good reading habits, they can flexibly use various reading skills in a test to get high marks, and they can improve their reading abilities.

Some conclusions can be drawn that there are several reading habits which hinder students? reading comprehension: (1).sub vocalizing (forming the sounds of the words you are reading, and even murmuring them aloud); (2).finger-pointing; (3).head movements;

(4).regressions and so on. All of these are bad for them in reading. College students should aware that efficient readers do not have these habits. These habits are harmful.

The improvement of college students? abilities in reading comprehension can?t be isolated from the cultivation and training of reading skills and comprehension skills. In order to help college students to improve their reading abilities and master some reading skills, teachers should pay attention to the training of the following reading skills in reading teaching.

2.4 Components and Solutions of English reading comprehensive ability

2.4.1 Enlarge vocabularies

Many students probably consider that their main problem in reading is not having a big enough vocabulary. It has been suggested that a vocabulary of about five thousand words is needed to start independent reading. Students who meet a word they cannot interpret are first likely to ask what it means, which is fine as long as an informant is available, but not practical as the basis for interdependent study. After that, most of the students turn to dictionaries. This is very natural and in some circumstances advisable. But in fact, one of the first things to be said about a dictionary is “Don?t use it too much”. Students who keep looking up new words read not that effectively. Every time you break off to consult a dictionary, you slow down your reading and interrupt your thinking, which should be following the development of thought in the text. It would be idiotic to ban the use of dictionaries, but like many useful tools, they can be dangerous.

We must free ourselves from dependence on a dictionary or an informant. It is essential to realize that we can cope without one, and that it is wasteful to look up every new word, but

any students reading for a serious study purpose need to be able to look up new words. For them, they must learn to use a dictionary effectively and with discretion. The first step towards using the dictionary as a tool instead of a crutch is to decide which words to look up---and to accept that they should be as few as possible. Having decided to look up a word, we want to do it quickly and to make the best use of the information in the dictionary. Both skills need training.

In order to make reading more efficient and attracting, as the students say, one of the most important skills in reading is the knowledge of word .The number of the words you know determines the difficulty and complexity of the material you can read and understand. If you have an extremely limited reading vocabulary, you will be able to read only very simple material. Obviously, vocabulary forms a stumbling block for the poor reader. The more words you memorize, the faster you read the article. So, it is necessary to memorize words as much as you can. By the way, it should be realized that approximately half of all written English material is composed of the 300 commonest words. Certain words then have a very high occurrence and are used over and over again. Since the English vocabulary is so vast, you cannot hope to master vocabulary only by learning your lessons in the classroom. Reading of course involves much more than simply knowing the dictionary meaning of individual words. When coping with unknown vocabulary. You have to develop strategies, which will allow you either to discover the meaning of the words or at least to proceed further with the text in spite of not knowing the meanings of some new words. One of the efficient ways is guessing the unknown vocabulary. Guessing the meaning of words is a shortcut in reading. While reading in our own language, we usually have an unconscious habit of making logical inference as to the meaning of words based on the context. You can use the context to get the meaning and to help you develop the comprehension skills. To be a good reader, deducing the meaning of unfamiliar lexical items through contextual lines is necessary.

2.4.2 Improve grammar ability

English grammar is an important and useful tool in reading. It is a combination of the phonics and holistic argument. In order to see the whole we must see the parts. Grammar is an important tool especially for weak readers to help them see through the fog. It is an important tool for good readers to help them see how they see. Grammar is the mathematics of literature and composition. Grammar is also the skeleton upon which we hang the muscles and flesh of lit and comp.

So, knowing how to study English grammar and have a good knowledge of English grammar is essential. You may speak English comfortably, but still have some problems with English grammar? Maybe you "picked up" English from movies and songs or while living abroad and never had time to focus on correct grammar. The good news is that if you want to learn English grammar, there's a lot you can do to teach yourself

First, make a plan. Try to get an overview of English grammar from a text book or online resource. Note the grammar points you need to work on and plan to work on each for at least a few days.

Second, identify common mistakes. People who speak the same language often make the same mistakes in English grammar. For example, many Russian speakers have trouble using "a" and "the" in English.

Find out what grammar points are often difficult for speakers of your native language. Pay extra attention to learning those grammar points.

Third, Find some grammar exercises. To learn English grammar well, you'll need to practice each grammar point until you can use it easily. Look for a book of grammar exercises that also has answers. Online activities and quizzes can also help. Focus on just one grammar point each time you study.

Forth, pay close attention to grammar when you read English. When you're trying to learn correct English grammar, it's not enough to understand general idea of what you read. You'll need to understand exactly why each sentence is written that way. When you read a

sentence, ask yourself if can make similar sentences. If you can't or you're not sure, find text book exercises for those grammar points and practice.

Fifth, translate from your native language into English. When you write or speak your own thoughts, it's easy to avoid complicated grammar. When you translate, you have to work with whatever is on the page, even if the grammar is difficult. Start translating simple things like advertisements and then move to newspapers and magazine articles. Translating dialog in plays is another good way to practice.

Sixth, Ask native speakers for advice. If you know any native English speakers, ask if they could check some of your now and then. If there are no native English speakers near you, look online for language learning forums or language exchange sites. Just remember if the native speaker is not a teacher, he or she may not be able to explain grammar rules.

Learn English grammar in small steps and give yourself time to practice. Learn the basics of one grammar point, then move on to another. When you're comfortable with the basics, you can go back and study the details. If you have done these, you may improve your English grammar ability and improve your English ability. So, college students have to aware the importance of English grammar and know how to study it by themselves.

2.4.3 Change the reading habits

We have known clearly that good learning habits are the necessary premise of successful study. Lots of college students complain that reading is a difficult task. It can?t give them any benefits and useful information. After an examination in reading, they often say that their reading speed is too slow; they can?t understand what the meaning of the materials is; their reading abilities are poor. If they have good reading habits, they can flexibly use various reading skills in a test to get high marks, and they can improve their reading abilities.

From Christine? ideas in Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language, some conclusions can be drawn that there are several reading habits which hinder students` reading comprehension: (1).sub vocalizing (forming the sounds of the words you are reading, and even murmuring them aloud); (2).finger-pointing; (3).head movements; (4).regressions and

so on. All of these are bad for them in reading. College students should aware that efficient readers do not have these habits. These habits are harmful.

Therefore, it is necessary for students to cultivate their good reading habits, such as skimming, scanning, silent reading. From these they can do English reading word better .

2.4.4 Skimming and Scanning

As a senior, I want to give some suggestions of English reading to the college students, in order to let them do reading more efficiently. The first one is skimming and scanning.

Skimming is used to quickly identify the main ideas of a text. When you read the newspaper, you're probably not reading it word-by-word, instead you're scanning the text. Skimming is done at a speed three to four times faster than normal reading. Students often skim when they have lots of material to read in a limited amount of time. Use skimming when you want to see if an article may be of interest in your research.

There are many strategies that can be used when skimming. Some students read the first and last paragraphs using headings, summarizes and other organizers as they move down the page or screen. You might read the title, subtitles, subheading, and illustrations. Consider reading the first sentence of each paragraph. This technique is useful when you're seeking specific information rather than reading for comprehension. Skimming works well to find dates, names, and places. It might be used to review graphs, tables, and charts.

Scanning is a technique you often use when looking up a word in the telephone book or dictionary. You search for key words or ideas. In most cases, you know what you're looking for, so you're concentrating on finding a particular answer. Scanning involves moving your eyes quickly down the page seeking specific words and phrases. Scanning is also used when you first find a resource to determine whether it will answer your questions. Once you've scanned the document, you might go back and skim it.

When scanning, look for the author's use of organizers such as numbers, letters, steps, or the words, first, second, or next. Look for words that are bold faced, italics, or in a different font size, style, or color. Sometimes the author will put key ideas in the margin.

Reading off a computer screen has become a growing concern. Research shows that people have more difficulty reading off a computer screen than off paper. Although they can read and comprehend at the same rate as paper, skimming on the computer is much slower than on paper.

Concerning the subject of Academic Reading, the most important thing is for you to be aware of different strategies that are available to you and to use the correct one in the correct situation. This article is about skimming and scanning. It is a bad habit to start to read an academic text just by going right to the beginning and then continuing to read every sentence one after the other, looking up every word you don?t know in a dictionary. Imagine you want to move to a new house, or you want to buy a new car and you go to see this new house/car to see if you want it. What is the first thing you do? Well, I think the first thing you do is look at it from the outside to see if it is what you want. Don?t you stand back and look at it from different angles to see if it meets your needs? If it looks OK, then you go inside and start to investigate it carefully. Similarly with an academic text you have to make sure that it is what you want before you go inside it – that is, before you start reading it carefully. The „stand back and look at it from different angles? is essential. This is when you look at the title, the author, when it was written (what we sometimes calling ?surveying? the text) and you skim and scan it. When you scan a text you are looking through it quickly to find key words or information. After scanning a text you should know if it has references to things you want to know about. Skimming is looking quickly through a text to gain a general impression of what it is about. You can often do this by reading only the title and sub-titles of a text, and the first sentence of each paragraph. You can do all this type of reading without using a dictionary! Remember the house – you haven?t stepped inside it yet, you are still looking at it from the outside. Surveying the text (title, author, date, etc) and skimming and scanning are essential academic reading skills for you and for native English speakers too who also need to develop these skills. The trick is to have the confidence to jump through a text ignoring whole bits of it. It may seem strange to you to do this. It may even feel like you are cheating! But it is an essential element to being an active reader.

So, if you want to improve your reading ability, learning skimming and scanning is indispensible when you going through a text.

2.4.5 Read at a super speed

Rapid reading is good, but not good enough. Of necessity, you should also know and use three super speeds---surveying, skimming, and scanning. Too many people become poor readers precisely because they set up speed as their sole objective and race through materials without knowing what to look for and without any real purpose. They always read with the same speed or the same procedure because they know no other way. So you can see that it would be very important to train yourself to adopt one set of procedures for regular reading and simultaneously practice another set of speed reading techniques.

Surveying is specialized technique for getting a mountaintop view of an article, chapter, or entire book. With surveying, you catch a broad, overall picture of basic essentials. It will make you reading easy. When you know in general where the writer is going, you can follow more easily. It will increase your subsequent reading speed. It should also improve comprehension because you catch the essentials and writer?s plan. A quick surveying provides an ideal basis for deciding intelligently where to taste, swallow, or chew and digest the material. Then how can we survey? Written communication has certain characteristics that make surveying possible. Usually, the title of an article provides a concise indication of article content. The first paragraph normally suggests more exactly what is to follow. From that point on, major divisions are often marked with sub-titles. Other especially important points are apt to appear in italics, graphs, or tables. Finally, more often than not, the last paragraph will summarize or suggest key implications or applications. So read the title, the first paragraph, all sub-headings, italicized words, graphs, tables and the last paragraph.

Skimming is not the kind of reading you have been told to do to achieve full comprehension, you just past over the text lightly and hastily. Skimming generate your reading speed. It helps you review and keeps you informed. But how can we skim? When you are skimming, you eyes begin to slide down a column of words, names, or figures; you don?t actually read each entry. As your glance moves down a page, you are vaguely aware of

other words, but you react positively only when the right one comes along. When you do reach the desired point, you read all that is necessary with your normal attention to detail. If you want to develop skimming ability, you must do some drills: set a goal first, and then re-skim frequently when you don?t understand until you comprehend the text fully. Skimming drills should be followed by comprehension tests. At last, skim regularly. Once you are accustomed to skimming and have established the habit, it will be proved valuable throughout your life.

Scanning is the special technique you use to find one specific bit of information within a relatively large body of printed matter of all the super speeds; this is the highest gear of all. It uncovers relevant information, accelerates your reading speed and flexibility. There are some ways to scan: If you are searching for a date, you should move your eyes down the page looking for numbers. If you are looking for a person?s name, use the inevitable capital letter as an aid. With other problems, use quotation marks, hyphens, or italics. In the other situation, you are looking for something unknown. Here, you won?t know until you find it. With practice, you can soon develop outstanding ability to apply the right technique at the right time.

2.4.6 Extensive and Intensive reading

According to the requirement of the New English Course Standard of University, the goal of English teaching in college in our country is developing students listening, speaking, reading and writing, mastering the basic skills of speaking and writing in practice, laying particular emphasis on the students reading skills so as to pave the way for their further learning and using the language properly. Especially, in college, students are required to master the basic skills of reading and writing in practice; to be able to use 3,500 vocabularies with a certain number of phrases and idioms to read independently the popular materials easier than the texts with help of a dictionary. Meanwhile, with our country science and technology developing quickly, English is getting more and more important and required to be learned in colleges all over the country.

Considering that cultivating the skills of reading has been a major task being discussed among students to improve their reading comprehension. Here, so I will put forward the

methods of my own experience on how to train students to improve their extensive reading comprehension ability in my teaching experience.

Above all, as is well-known to all, interest is the best guide in whatever a student does. Thus we should obey the following reading rules in mind when preparing extensive reading materials: (1) we should take the students? interest and enthusiasm for reading into consideration first, so the selected materials should be interesting in order to encourage students? reading motivation. (2) The extensive reading materials must be within the students? understanding level to make students feel confident of themselves.

Next, we should take a right attitude towards extensive reading. Any ability can not be improved without a great deal of practice. Students must read more to broaden their knowledge, Extensive reading will help them to turn all this into realities and make them know the purpose of learning to read. Moreover, extensive reading will help students to deepen the impression on what they have learnt in intensive reading because the words, the phrases, the grammars and many other things in the materials will frequently appear. This is the importance and necessity of extensive reading.

Then, we should develop students reading comprehension ability and review the reading skills learnt before in extensive reading class frequently. Because extensive reading is quite different from intensive reading, we should emphasize on fostering students extensive reading comprehension. (1) We should have students master not only the meaning of a sentence or paragraph, but the logical relationship of the whole passage and carrying out reasoning and judging. (2)Students should understand not only the literal meaning but also the inference of the idea taken literally, also including the attitude and intention of the writer and so on. (3) Let students catch not only the contents of the materials but also the common connected knowledge out of the materials. Therefore, in my opinion, our aim of giving extensive reading class should be clear on how to cultivate and improve the students reading comprehension. In extensive reading class, we should adopt the reasonable methods, require students to read the prepared materials before class and in class we will check their reading results in different ways. Most of all, we should encourage them to consider and discuss the materials or problems then bring out their own thoughts. All these can do good to cultivating students reading ability. Thus, we can not only foster the students? ability to study on their

own but also help them to reinforce what they have learnt before.

Finally, by extensive reading, we should bring up students? reading skills and speed up reading, an important task in our teaching course. To improve students reading comprehension, we should develop their reading skills in extensive reading class, check their reading homework, and give the students some advice on reading skills in a planned way and help them to master such skills as follows: skimming, scanning, summarizing the main idea, guessing words, word building, logical inferring and figuring out the intention of a paragraph. After that, we should be ready for some reading materials for students ahead of time to require them to finish reading materials within the limited time according to the advice we have given them. At the same time we had better keep a record of each student?s reading work to help students realize their shortcomings in reading and improve their ability. In addition, another aim of extensive reading is to give the students as much information as possible throughout the world. As the result, we must impact students about the cultural background knowledge that is related to the materials before reading to help students understand the materials thoroughly. Only in this way can we not only improve their interest but also help them enlarge their range of knowledge to reach the goal of the new English course standard of senior high school.

All these above are my experience in extensive reading teaching, which are of great help to our school students, but there exists some weaknesses in it more or less. We will try to improve students reading comprehension ability with more reasonable teaching methods in future.

Nearly anyone who has taken a foreign language class in college is familiar with intensive reading. In either case, you?d be reading something with a great deal of vocabularies and/or grammar that is beyond your current reading ability. If your instructor is kind, maybe the vocabulary and grammar that is new to you will be glossed page by page. If not, you?ll be spending more time looking up a dictionary than reading. Assuming vocabulary is supplied for you, the most efficient way to do this kind of reading is to first drill yourself on the new vocabulary for an hour or so, and then read. Diligent students will be able to use the reading to learn 10 or maybe even 20 vocabulary words within a couple of

hours. However, even they will probably be reading word by word rather than taking in the language a phrase at a time as they would read in their native languages.

Intensive reading refers to reading for accuracy. It involves approaching the text (passage) under the guidance of a teacher or with a specified task which forces the learners to pay close attention to the materials to be read.

Intensive reading aims at giving the reader a deep and detailed understanding (comprehension) of the text and how its meaning is transmitted or carried. Intensive reading is used to develop specific reading skills. In intensive reading the reader pays attention to the contents of the text and also to how it is written. We expect readers in middle and upper primary classes to learn to analyze written material in three ways:

1.Read and learn literal or stated information that is written, e.g. who, what, where, and when …..facts and the sequence of events. When the words are taken at their face value, we say that they are interpreted literally. The kind of comprehension is often referred to as reading the lines.

2. Read and recognize the author?s silence and interpret the writer's thoughts for the purpose of drawing inferences or getting implied meaning. This kind of comprehension often referred to as reading between the lines.

3. Read and analyze what is written to try to gain new insights by applying what is read to other situations:

A. Drawing generalizations that are not stated explicitly (directly) by the writer.

B. Deriving implications or making speculations (guesses) about facts that are not stated by the writer.

This kind of comprehension is referred to as reading beyond the lines. This kind of reading can help children develop the ability to generalize from the given text and apply ideas to personal and social situations outside the text.

Intensive reading therefore is intended to train students in higher level thinking skills as they develop reading strategies.

So, if you want to improve your intensive reading ability, you can use the strategies: 

● Relate the topic to your experience.

● Show a related object or picture to stimulate discussion on the topic.

● Present new vocabulary from the text.

● Ask and answer general questions about the topic.

● Refer to previously taught lessons in other subjects that may relate to the topic.

● Give guide questions to learners for purposeful reading, then have them turn to the reading passage.

● Learners read as they note down answers to the questions.

● Have learners meet in pairs or small groups to discuss their answers. Then have whole class reports on answers from the groups

● Clarify general points not understood by learners.

● Give more detailed work and practice e.g. in writing, role playing activities, etc

It is easier to deal with short texts that can be covered in one lesson. However, college students need to read longer texts, include full-length books.

III. Conclusion

Such are the skills in the reading. You should pay attention. In a word, reading involves much knowledge and common sense. And everybody has a kind of special reading skills of him .It is necessary to generalize the skills in the process of reading, and then we can improve our reading ability quickly.

Most of the reading skills such as how to deal with the strange words, how to find the main ideas, how to do critical reading, and how to comprehend better by various kinds of resources are trained by studying short texts in detail. But others require the use of longer texts, including complete books. Of course there are not just two contrasting ways of reading but an infinite variety of interrelated and overlapping strategies. Intensive and extensive reading is complementary and both are necessary, as well as other approaches, which fit into neither category. Not only the English edition of materials. We should read in our daily study and life, but also the

Chinese edition is within the scope of materials we should read to broaden our knowledge so that we may feel much easier to understand the English ones while we are reading them. These two approaches are described

Anyway, practice makes perfect. As long as we have done enough practices, we can improve our reading

..

Reference

[1] David Nunan, Language Teaching Methodology P.70 Lexican relationship

[2] David Nunan, A Discourse Perspective Language Teaching Methodology.P.67 Reading: A Discourse Perspective.

[3] Jones, S.L. Megginson, R.C. Nash, & J.M. Netter (1999). Share Issue Privatizations as Financial Means to Political and Economic Ends, Journal of Financial Economics. Vol.53

[4] Gibbon, H. (2000). How to Read. Privatizations Yearbook, London: Thomson Financial

[5] Allington, R.L. “How Policy and Regulation Influence Instruction for At-risk Learners: Why Poor Readers Rarely Comprehend Well and Probably Never Will”. In L. Idol, & B.F. Jones (Eds.). (1991). Educational Values and Cognitive Instruction: Implications for Reform. Hillsdale. NJ: Erlbaum

[6] Anderson, R.C., Osborn, J., & Tierney, R.J. (Eds.). (1984). Learning to Read in American Schools:Basal Readers and Content Texts

[7] Anderson, R.C., Spiro, R.J., & Montague, W.E. (Eds.). (1977). Schooling and the Acquisition of Knowledge. Hillsdale: 35

[8] 宋玉琳，陈君. 影响大学生英语阅读能力的提高及对策[J]. 辽宁高职学报，2002，4（2）

[9] 林承章. An Introduction to English Lexicology[M]. 武汉大学出版社，1997

[10] 刘会民，杜光民. 如何学好《英语阅读一》[J]. 英语知识，2004，（1）

[11] 王丹. 如何处理阅读中的词汇问题—英语专业四级阅读理解技巧谈[J]. 英语知识，2003，（4）

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation to my supervisor, other teacher and my dear friends who had helped me in completing this paper.

Special thanks to my supervisor Professor Wang Yan for her constant encouragement and help, great support and patience during the whole process of my thesis writing. I am also grateful to all the teachers from Foreign Language department who had taught me during the four years of study for their help, support and instructions.

At last , I would like to thank my parents who give me the precious opportunity to go to the university , my friends who have given me a perfect life which I am enjoying and will enjoy all my life long.