Learners report two main difficulties in reading, which may be linked. There are

    Learnersreport two main difficulties in reading, which may be linked. There are toomany unknown words and as a result reading is simply not a pleasure. For somestudents, even reading in their own language is a chore.

Havinga wide vocabulary is essential to making sense of written language. Of course,this is a circular argument, because the more you read the more vocabulary youlearn and the more words you know the more easily you can read. Don’t make themistake of reading with your dictionary beside you, looking up every single newor doubtful word. This is laborious and prevents you from practicing the skillof prediction.

Sometimesin reading you find a word you know but the sense doesn’t seem to fit in. Thisis not surprising because words have so many meanings and degrees of meaning.What is more, part of their meaning is shaped by the words around them. Keeplooking at the surrounding words and asking yourself “what sort of meaningwould make sense here?”

Themore that people study the reading process, the better they can pass on tolanguage learners a range of advice to choose from. People have learned to readin all kinds of ways. Here is some information that could help you plan to be abetter reader in the foreign language you are studying.

1）Work out the general meaning first

Whenpeople read in a new language they often feel they must take a detailedapproach, focusing on every word, particularly those they don’t know. They readas if they were using a microscope, looking carefully at each of the smallpieces（the individual words）,but not necessarily seeing the whole picture at first. This is called the“bottom-up” approach. Other readers try to look first at the big picture（the “top-down” approach）, attending toindividual bricks only as necessary, a process that involves some intelligentguesswork. Generally this second approach is recommended by successfullearners.

2）Interactive reading

Anotherway of thinking about reading is to describe it as an interactive process,where the text brings something to you and you bring something to the text.Readers bring together all their knowledge of the world with what they see onthe page in front of them. That is why, when reading in our own language, wedon’t need to read every word. We add meaning which is not actually stated.

3）From supported reading to independent reading

Languagelearners start by needing considerable support as they read. Textbooks supplythis support in the form of introductions that summaries the contents,glossaries, pictures, explanations of new grammar points. In your reading youneed to move gradually from this support to reading more the text itself.

1.Accordingto the author, ________.

A.looking up the dictionary is of great help for the understanding

B.reading more promotes the gaining of vocabulary

    C.the more you read, the less useful the dictionary will be

    D.the amount of vocabulary is the key to reading

2.Successfullearners recommend ________.

A.trying to look first at the big picture  B. looking carefully at each ofthe small pieces

C.focusing on every word       D. “bottom-up”approach

3.Theword “chore” in the first paragraph maybe means ________.

A. animportant aspect      B. a difficult and tiring thing

C. aneasy question     D. something special

4.Youcome across a new or doubtful word when you are reading, you can ________.

A. justmiss it and let it be       B. keep looking atthe surrounding words

C. lookit up in the dictionary each time   D. make sense of it with the helpof dictionary

试题答案

【答案】

1.B

2.A

3.B

4.B