Unit – 7

Reading Skills

Q1) What are all the common difficulties while doing Reading Comprehension?

A1) We should make our pupil an efficient reader. An efficient reader is like a bus driver who knows when to go slow, when to accelerate speed, how to negotiate hair-pin bends on ghat roads etc. An efficient reader knows there are different levels of comprehension too as these are different reading materials. To become an efficient reader one should be able to employ different study techniques Reading is an act of communication between writer and reader. It is an act in which the reader grasps the information the writer passes on to him.

Comprehension is the correct association of meanings with word symbols. It is the selection of the correct meaning suggested by the text It is a thinking process. It is thinking through reading. Students should lead and get complete meaning. There are two situations that arise while reading a passage. The pupils may find a reading comprehension passage difficult for them. The teacher should know about the difficulties before hand and prevent their occurrence.

Some common difficulties are:

Q2.Give few points on Reading for the main idea.

A2) Pupils should develop skills to identify the main idea or the central idea in what they read.This skill is necessary to get the main idea, identify the theme and get the implied meanings of the paragraph.

Activities to identify the main idea:

Q3) Write about Reading for detains in detail.

A3) Along with reading for and stating the main idea the pupils must learn to read for details.

Activities to accomplish reading for details ask the pupils to;

Q4) Describe about Reading for organization.

A4) Good readers will understand the organisation of what is being read.They arrange the ideas in logical order. The key helps to recall the information is organization. Reading the content areas depends upon proficiency in organisation skills. AGood reader knows how paragraphs are organized.

Activities that help pupils learn in a logical order what they are reading:

Q5) Explain briefly about Reading for summarizing and outline.

A5) Summaries help to pressure the essential facts and ideas in capsule form. Theyretain important information. So the pupils should develop summarizing skill. Outlining is another way of organisation. It is closely related to summarising activities to develop summarizing skills.Summarise a message to be sent as a telegram. Selecting the main idea from the choices you give them. Do exercise for writing an outline.Read a small poem and select the best summary from the choices you give them.

Read the following comprehensions and answer the questions:

In the 16th century, an age of great marine and terrestrial searching, Ferdinand Magellan led the first journey to sail around the world. As a young Portuguese noble, he worked for the king of Portugal, but he became involved in the quagmire of political conspiracy at court and lost the king’s good deed. After he was removed from service by the king of Portugal, he started to serve the future Emperor Charles V of Spain.

Apapal decree of 1493 had allocated all land in the New World west of 50 degrees W longitude to Spain and all the land east of that line to Portugal. Magellan afforded to provide evidence that the East Indies fell under Spanish power. On September 20, 1519, Magellan set sail from Spain with five ships. More than a year later, one of these ships was searching the landscape of South America looking for a water route across the continent. This ship sank, but the outstanding four ships searched along the southern peninsula of South America. Lastly they found the passage they wanted near 50 degrees S latitude. Magellan called this passage the Strait of All Saints, but today it is recognized as the Strait of Magellan.

One ship abandoned while in this passage and came back to Spain, so fewer sailors were advantaged to look at that first panorama of the Pacific Ocean. Those who stayed back crossed the meridian now identified as the International Date Line in the early spring of 1521 after 98 days on the Pacific Ocean. During those long days at sea, many of Magellan’s men died of hunger and disease.

Later, Magellan became worried in an insular disagreement in the Philippines and was murdered in a tribal battle. Only one ship and 17 sailors under the authority of the Basque navigator Elcano survived to finish the westward voyage to Spain and thus show once and for all that the world is round, with no cliff at the border.

1. The 16th century was an age of large ______ exploration.

2. Magellan lost the favor of the king of Portugal when he became involved in a political ________.

3. The Pope separated New World lands between Spain and Portugal along with their location on one side or the other of an made-upphysical line 50 degrees west of Greenwich that extends in a _________ direction.

4. One of Magellan’s ships searched the _________ of South America for a passage across the continent.

5. Four of the ships sought after a passageway along a southern ______.

6. The passage was found near 50 degrees of ________.

7. In the spring of 1521, the ships crossed the _______ now called the International Date Line.

Q6) Read the following comprehensions and answer the questions:

A6) It is almost impossible to escape from advertisements. Hoardings stare down at us from the sides of the roads; crude neon signs wink above shops; jingles and slogans assault our ears; in magazines, pictures of washing machines and custard-powders take up more room than the letter press. All these are twentieth century developments which have grown side by side with the spread of education and technical advances in radio and T. V.

Advertising assaults not only our eyes and ears but also our pockets. Its critics point out that in this country 1.6% of national income is spent on advertising and that this advertising actually raises the cost of products. When a housewife buys a pound of flour, 5% of what she pays goes to some advertiser or other, even if she has not bothered to ask the shopkeeper for a particular brand. If she buys a named brand of aspirin, up to 29% of what she pays may represent the cost of advertising the name.These amounts seem a great deal to pay for the questionable benefits of advertising, but there are a few things to be said in its favour. Although some things cost more because of advertising, other things cost less.

Newspapers, magazines, commercial radio and television all carry advertisements, and the money received from the advertisers helps to low the cost of production. In this way we get information and entertainment lower prices than would otherwise have to be charged, and so what we toon the swings we gain on the roundabout. Apart from this very important consideration, advertising to some extent ensures that a product will maintain its quality. It also gives rise to competition among manufactures, which benefits the customer by offering him a wider choice. Competition may even succeed, in some cases, in reversing the influence of advertising and causing a reduction in price.

Questions:

1. The author regards advertisements

(a) as an evil necessity

(b) as an unmixed evil

 (c) with mixed feelings

(d) as highly beneficial to the consumer

2. Find out three examples from the passage of verbs and adjectives, which indicate the author's negative view of advertisements.

3. In how many ways does advertising affect the consumers adversely?Elaborate.

4. What inference can one draw from the clause 'even if she has not bothered to ask the shopkeeper for a particular brand in the sentence in which itoccurs?

5. Pick out from the text a part of a sentence which directly expresses the author's doubts about the value of advertising.

6.Explain what is meant by what we lose on the swings we gain on theroundabouts.

B) By far the most common difficulty in study is simple failure to get down to regular concentrated work. This difficulty is much greater for those who do not work to plan and have no regular routine of study. Many students muddle along, doing a bit of this subject or that, as the mood takes them, or letting their set work pile up until the last possible moment. Few students work to a set time-table. They say that if they did construct a time-table for themselves they would not keep to it, or would have to alter it constantly, since they can never predict from one day to the next what their activities will be.

No doubt some temperaments take much more kindly to a regular routine than others. The…There are many who shy away from the self-regimentation of a weekly time-table, and dislike being tied down to a definite programme of work. Many able students claim that they work in cycles. When they become interested in a topic they work on it intensively for three or four days at a time. On other days they avoid work completely. It has to be confessed that we do not fully understand the complexities of the motivation to work. Most people over about 25 years of age have become conditioned to a work routine, and the majority of really productive workers set aside regular hours for the more important aspects of their work. The “tough-minded' school of workers is usually very contemptuous of the idea that good work can only be done spontaneously, under the influence of inspiration. That most energetic of authors, Anthony Trollope, wrote:There are those who think that the man who works with hisimagination should allow himself to wait till inspiration moves him. When I have heard such doctrine preached, I have hardly been able to repress my scorn.

Not many people are gifted with Trollope's great energy and physical strength, but he was undoubtedly right in declaring that a person can always do the work for which he is fitted if he will give himself the habit of regarding regular daily work as a normal condition of his life. Many creative writers have in fact disciplined themselves to perform a daily stint.The great Italian dramatist, Alfieri even made his servant to him to his table.

Questions:

1. What does the author mean by the phrase 'muddle along'?

2. What is the common objection to working to a set time-table?

3.What is meant by 'working in cycles'?

4. Point out evidence from the text to prove that the author is not given to claiming universal knowledge.

5. What would be the best opposite of the word 'spontaneously' as used in the third paragraph?

6. Point out an example from the text where the author overtly expresses agreement.

7.What extreme example of regular concentrated work do you find in the passage?

8.The best heading for the above passage will be

(a) Advantage of a Set Timetable

 (b) The Organisation of Study

(c) Motivation to Work

Q7) Explain about Analogy phonics:

A7) Educating students unknown words by analogy to recognized words (e.g., identifying that the rime segment of an unknown word is equal to that of a common word, and then joining together the famous rime with the new word onset, such as understanding brick by recognizing that -ick is restricted in the acknowledged word kick, or reading stump by analogy to jump).

Q8) What do you mean by Analytic phonics?

A8) Instructing students to study letter-sound connections in formerlywell-read words to avoid pronouncing sounds in segregation.

Q9) Describe Embedded phonics.

A9) Instructing students’ phonics skills by embedding phonics teaching in text analysis, a more understood approach that relies to some degree on incidental knowledge.

Q10) Define Synthetic phonics.

A10) Training students clearly to change letters into sounds (phonemes) and nextcombine the sounds to form familiar words.

Q11) What is the role of intonation in reading?

A11) Without intonation, our voices are flat and monotone. There is little interest generated in the audience. As a listener, the voice is bland to listen to. You tune it out. You may even fall asleep. Even if the speaker has great content, there is little desire to listen or to get passionate about the speaker’s message.

Without intonation, you cannot comprehend the speaker’s approach and the speaker’s attitudes. Are they in factcontent or are they very irritated? Is there something thrillingoccurrence or perchance a shock of some sort? Is the person sure in what they think or say, or are they hesitant of what they are thinking or saying?

Here are few things that are to be remembered during the paragraph reading:

Q12) Explain about pitch in intonation.

A12) Whereas a number of people in nature have superior voices than others, and women have a tendency to speak in an advanced pitch than men, we do have a tendency to change our pitch to express emotions.