Hello my name is Shawna.
Today we're going to look at some strategies to help improve your ability to
read academic texts.
Do you like to read for pleasure?
Think about the types of texts you read in your language in your free time.
Now think about whether you read for pleasure in English.
Reading English materials is a good start to foster a love of reading and can
also help make reading academic texts more manageable.
Now we're going to look at seven important steps to help improve our academic
reading. Are you ready? Step one, skimming. Step two,
predicting. Step three, scanning. Step four,
identifying main ideas. Step five,
identifying supporting ideas. Step six,
vocabulary attack and step seven, summarising.
Step one is skimming. Skimming is where you read a text very quickly.
By skimming, you just want to identify the topic of the text,
any main ideas,
the genre and decide whether or not it's going to be useful for your study
purposes. When you're at university,
you will receive a long reading list and having the ability to skim is going to
help you decide whether or not you're going to need to read that text for your
assessment or assignment. Skimming involves looking at titles,
subheadings in a journal article or a chapter book.
If there's an abstract,
I recommend that you read the introduction and conclusion to get some clues.
You can also read thesis statements and topic sentences to help provide very
helpful clues. Step two: it's time to start predicting.
This means using existing knowledge about the topic to help better understand
it.
Predicting is an important part of English language learning and reading.
What you already know about a topic and what you want to learn from the texts
can help you guess the contents of the text and its usefulness.
Step three, scanning. When you scan a text,
you're looking for certain information,
you might be looking for certain keywords or symbols in the text.
You can also focus on smaller parts of the texts without the need to read every
word. And when you're scanning and you do find a keyword or symbol,
you should underline or circle the information. If you do use the text later,
you'll be able to find that information quickly. Next, step four:
identifying main ideas.
This involves understanding the writer's main ideas.
This may be possible by skimming,
but with a longer or more complex text, it probably isn't.
When you start to identify main ideas,
you're going to start by underlining key terms and annotate.
Try using the margins for this.
Then write down the main ideas in your own words.
That takes us to step five. We've identified the main ideas.
Now we need to identify the supporting points.
This involves recognising the difference between the writer's main ideas and the
points used to support or back up these ideas.
So be sure to look out for evidence and examples to support the author's main
points.
You might see signposting language used here like for instance,
or the first benefit is so look out for these clues. Step six:
vocabulary building or what I'm calling vocabulary attack.
One thing that's very important as an English language learner is to always have
a vocabulary list. For any reading you do,
you may encounter words that you're not sure of. In this case,
you should be keeping a separate journal of new words. Note the words,
translation to your language, the definition,
part of speech and challenge yourself to use it in a sentence.
You should try to use those new words within the first week of learning them
because it helps you become more comfortable with them. And finally, step seven.
After you finished reading, summarise the main concepts,
findings and results into your own words.
This will help you connect deeper with the text.
It also helps to talk about it with a classmate and compare your ideas.
Now we're going to use our seven steps with the text.
Let's say you need to write an essay about ways to reduce stress and improve
your mental health.
You've done your research and you have a list of texts to read.
Perhaps one article you've identified is this:
five ways to enhance your mood and mental health.
Let's go through our steps now.
Step one, let's skim the article.
Look at the title of the article.
How many ways do you think the article will talk about to reduce stress?
If you thought five, you're correct. Now,
let's see those five ways to improve our mental health.
Notice the headings in the article as you skim. One,
improve your diet and start moving. Two, reduce your vices.
Three, prioritise sleep and get some rest. Four,
get a good dose of nature and five reach out when you need help.
Step two, predicting.
Using what you already know can help you decide if you want to use this article
in your essay. And if it is, you can keep going with the next step.
If you're unsure, the next step can help you as well.
Step three, scanning.
Let's scan the introduction to see if the article connects with our essay topic:
ways to reduce stress and improve your mental health.
Can you spot any key terms related to your essay? Yes.
I can see key terms: improve mood,
reduce stress and manage mental health.
Now from steps one, two,
and three, we are quite sure the article's useful for us.
So we can now move on to the remaining steps: four, five,
six and seven.
If you decide the articles not useful,
you can stop and go on to the next item on your reading list.
Remember to become a better reader in English, you should read for pleasure.
Use the seven steps we went through today to decide the usefulness of the texts.
Talk about what you've read with a classmate to help make a deeper connection
with the material. Most importantly, practise.
Find some articles online and practise skimming and scanning.
I hope you had fun learning the seven steps to improve your reading.
Now you're all set to explore some texts and enjoy reading. Have fun.