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12.3.3.1. Reading strategies

Grauberg maintains that “reading strategies should help pupils to make sense of a text a whole and to deal with unknown vocabulary” (1997:197). He suggests the foliowing summary of them, howeyer, they should not be understood as hard-and-fast rules:

1.    reading the entire text as a whole to get the gist, resorting to the title, any present illustrations and subtitles for help in achieving this task,

2.    going through the text reading every paragraph again to gather morę information,

3.    Corning across an unknown lexical item, the reader ought to decide whether it seems vital for the text comprehension or if it could be ignored,

4.    on deciding that the word or expression is of paramount importance for text understanding, the learner should look for context clues as to its meaning,

5.    addressing other tips consecutively, such as word grammar, resemblance of other items, similarity of form,

6.    if the item still poses a threat to passage understanding, it should be checked in a dictionary,

7.    working on longer texts one must realise that they are composed of a significant number of paragraphs, each of which often corresponds to “a step in the argument or story, with the first sentence acting as signpost to the topie of the paragraph” (1997:197),

8.    finally, leamers are encouraged not to yield to the difficulties.

12.3.3.2. Good reader strategies

Good readers are said to use a certain strategy when they approach a reading task. Firstly, the text is read slowly with pauses taken by the reader to consider what has been read. Secondly, the text is reread and while this is being performed, different points of the text in ąuestion are connected in order to form a summary of what has so far been worked on. The author of these research findings, Walter, claims that “most of the people who read in this way remember both the generał points and the details of what they have read better than those who use other strategies” (Nunan, 1991:71-72),

Gough (the lecture on Reading Skills: 08.01.1994) believes that not everybody reads a lot in their native language, and some people do not see much need to read in the target / foreign language. There are various reasons for reading: it makes one think in the FL,

—    to have contact with foreign language through written sources to

compensate for the lack of ability to converse with the native speaker,

—- it helps with memorising spelling, structures — for later writing,

—    if someone needs to be able to write in the L2 - they cannot write

without models, which have to be read,

-7- reading texts can be used as a model for writing a similar piece of writing, for enjoyment,

—    the need to read in the L2 - e.g. EAP (i.e. English for Academic

Purposes) students, those involved in current events, some professions,

—    as a source of input pn L2 and its culture -which is of particular

importance for leamers whose access to the

—    L2-speaking community is limited,

—    if someone needs to read to pass an examination,

—    if someone is learning within an academic environment, generał

education (English taught through English); (similarly, Rivers W. M. 1968: 214-215).

Reading and writing are also communicative - language is used to receive and convey messages, while reading or listening leamers are actively participating in a communication act. When we read we participate - read actively and try to understand, sińce we have morę time to think about it .^we can go back and reread so it is done actively.

“Reading with direct comprehension and with fluency must be taught in progressive stages”, claims Rivers (1968:215), adding that carefully chosen materials need to be used regularly in order to practise the skill. Similarly, Cross believes that

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