SELF-PRACTICE READING COMPREHENSION SKILLS
FOR STUDENTS AT UNIVERSITY LEVEL
ABSTRACT
This paper is a small composition in the study of reading comprehension. In this essay
I mentioned some selective basic skills that are essential for a student’s competence in
comprehending a written text, also point out the corresponding techniques to help
students improve those skills by themselves. To be clear, I neither dived into every
aspect of this subject nor made any complicated analysis on every element and factor.
The paper can be considered as an introductory instruction of an English reading skill
for students at university level.
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CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................3
2. ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION SKILLS...............................................3
2.1. DEFINITION.......................................................................................................3
2.2. SKILLS REQUIRED FOR READING COMPREHENSION............................4
2.2.1. Language abilities..........................................................................................4
2.2.2. Background experiences................................................................................6
2.2.3. Ability to identify main ideas and draw inferences.......................................7
2.3. SELF-IMPROVING READING COMPREHENSION SKILLS........................9
2.3.1. Reading with a purpose..................................................................................9
2.3.2. Developing and activating background knowledge.....................................10
2.3.3. Improving vocabulary and grammar............................................................11
2.3.4. Identifying topic and main ideas..................................................................13
2.3.5. Making inferences........................................................................................14
3. CONCLUSION........................................................................................................16
4. REFERENCES.........................................................................................................17
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1. INTRODUCTION
Reading has long been an indispensable skill of human in learning information, and
does not limit to any groups of age. It is known that acquiring a reading efficiency is
beneficial for absorbing knowledge, especially in the era of speed development of the
world.
Of all age, university students are those who probably gain the most benefits from
reading since they are in an academic study environment and have a high potential of
accessing plenty of materials with instructions from teachers. However, how much
knowledge students can earn depends on how proficient their performance is in
reading and comprehending texts. They will have to know what skills needed to
acquire a good level of reading comprehension, and the ways to improve those skills.
So, the aim of this paper is to examine some aspects of reading comprehension skills
and suggest the techniques for students to improve those skills by themselves.
2. ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION SKILLS
2.1. DEFINITION
According to Dolores Durkin, reading comprehension is the “intentional thinking
during which meaning is constructed through interactions between text and reader”
(1993), as cited in “Factors that influence Reading Comprehension: Developmental
and Instructional Considerations” by Dr. Joseph K. Torgesen. That means reading
comprehension is a mentally interactive process concerning the reader’s thoughts and
abilities to catch ideas from the text he or she is reading. The reader is not just
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‘reading’ but also ‘thinking and cognizing’ information. Comprehension requires
loads of mind working, thus necessitates the reader’s competence in analyzing and
perceiving so that he or she does not need to make too much effort to fully understand
the text. Besides, for a student, the amount of study resources is too large to access all
without spending too much time. So, in order to gain efficiency in materials searching
and learning, students should equip themselves with essential skills of reading.
2.2. SKILLS REQUIRED FOR READING COMPREHENSION
Researchers have found that the efficiency of a student’s reading comprehension
depends on many factors and so they based on those factors to point out what skills
are required for reading comprehension. In this session of my paper, some selective
points from their results are presented.
2.2.1. Language abilities
When a student has language abilities, he or she is capable of using the language. In
this way, a student can understand vocabulary and sentence structures built in every
passage. In fact, language abilities of a person will critically affect his or her
competence in comprehension. Here I would like to discuss the influences of two
elements: vocabulary and grammar.
2.2.1.1. Knowledge of word meanings
Alderson has stated (2000): “Measures of a reader's vocabulary knowledge routinely
correlate highly with measures of reading comprehension, and are often, indeed, the
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single best predictor of text comprehension” (p. 35). Surely, having a large vocabulary
is an advantage in reading. Knowing many words helps students grasp the literal
meaning easily. If in a text, a student’s vocabulary covers about 90 to 95 percent of
the words appearing, especially terminologies, his or her comprehending process may
be more quickly since they do not need to waste too much time looking up words in
the dictionary. Also, students who have difficulties recognizing words will have to
struggle a lot during their reading.
Some people may think that the meaning of words is less important than other aspects
because they can rely on tips or other skills of comprehension to go through the text.
Still, there is a mutual relationship between knowledge of word meanings and
comprehension skill. “Word meanings are instrumental in comprehension on logical
as well as theoretical grounds. Nevertheless, the more one reads, the more
comprehension brings along increases in the knowledge of word meanings.” (Charles
A. Perfetti, Nicole Landi, and Jane Oakhill, 2004). In other words, when students
encounter unfamiliar words in a text, they will try to access the meaning of those
words and the relations between them and the context, thus enlarge their vocabulary
and experiences. From that point, taking vocabulary into account when reading is a
very good way to improve both their lexicon knowledge and comprehension ability.
2.2.1.2. Knowledge of grammar
While it is important to have a good size of vocabulary, students also need to know
how words are constructed in order to get the full meaning of a text. That is when they
need to develop their knowledge of grammar. In every language, grammar has a
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substantial role since it is used to combine words and convey ideas in a structured and
well-organized form. Grammar rules help the writer arrange words and sentences
neatly and strategically, so that readers will find it easy to decode the underlying
meaning. Of course, to be able to do that, the readers must have the ability to identify
and parse grammatical syntax. Here is a simple illustration for the role of grammar in
reading comprehension. As we know, the conditional sentences include three basic
types: the first one indicates the probability of the action in the “if” clause in the
present or future tenses; the second type implies the unreality or improbability of the
action with the similar time as type one; and the last one also indicates the unreality or
improbability but in the past tense. Each type comes with its respective syntax. If the
students can distinguish among the three, they can also point out what the implied
meaning is in a context. If the students can achieve higher levels in this point of
grammar, type four and five of conditional sentences perhaps, they will have fewer
problems with these structures when encountering.
2.2.2. Background experiences
Besides language abilities, effective reading comprehension also requires the ability
“to integrate text and background information appropriately and efficiently” (Grabe &
Stoller, 2002, p. 28). Moreover, according to Anderson & Pearson (1984), a reader’s
background knowledge strongly influences the meaning construction. Truly, students’
background knowledge is important in reading and comprehension as students can
relate their own experiences to the topic they are reading. How efficient a student’s
reading is is based on his or her familiarity with key concepts and his or her previous
acquaintance with a subject. Reading about a topic that students have already known
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about or have experienced will also increase the chance to anticipate the writer’s
message. The following example is used by Anderson and Pearson (as cited in
“Second Language Reading and the Role of Grammar” by Jookyoung Jung) to
illustrate this point:
a. Princess Anne broke the bottle on the ship.
b. The waitress broke the bottle on the ship.
If the readers are familiar with “ship christening”, they will understand the difference
between these two actions. The first sentence describes a princess’s breaking the
bottle on the bow of the ship to bless its launching, and the second one describes a
waitress’s breaking the bottle probably in the ship’s dining room. Nevertheless, if
readers are unacquainted with the term “ship christening”, they may equate the two
different actions or get confused. That said, the meaning of a text cannot always be
retrieved within the text per se, but requires a knowledge base from the readers and
their capability to recall it. (Jookyoung Jung, 2009)
2.2.3. Ability to identify main ideas and draw inferences
When writing a piece of text, the writer has to develop his or her writing from a point
of view, organize and construct paragraphs and sentences to support the thesis
statement. An essay or a book is a complete piece of writing with built-in main ideas,
intent and illustrations, and seems to have nothing different from a complete building
with full rooms and interior decoration. Of course, in order to explore how the
building was constructed and what it has in its internal space, people cannot just stand
outside and look but they have to enter it and visit every room until the dead end of
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the building. Similarly, in the comprehending process, students must be able to
decompose the text, identify the body structure and find out where the main idea lies
in the text. Being able to locate the main idea will help readers get access to the
author’s conception and purpose.
On the other hand, the ability to draw inferences from contexts is also required.
“Reading comprehension depends on the reader filling in blanks and silently
supplying enough of the unstated premises to make coherent sense of what is being
read” (E. D. Hirsch, Jr., 2003). The readers in fact do not need to make inferences that
explain the described actions, events or situations, but “these inferences include the
superordinate goals, causal antecedents, emotions, and perhaps traits of people”
(Arthur C. Graesser, Peter Wiemer-Hastings, and Katja Wiemer-Hastings, 1999). That
is to say, when reading, the students have to discover the invisible parts of the text. At
this point, background knowledge will play its role in making references. The
following is an example taken from “Constructing Inferences and Relations during
Text Comprehension” by Arthur C. Graesser, Peter Wiemer-Hastings, and Katja
Wiemer-Hastings (1999):
A diner. A couple sits down at a table. The young woman has a distressed
look on her face. She takes a letter out of her purse. She slides it to the young
man. The young man lifts up the letter. He reads it. Soon he is stunned. He
sits motionless. The tears start to fall. The young woman gets up from the
table. She stares at the floor. She leaves.
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From this piece of text, a range of inferences can be made. Readers can infer ‘a couple
sits down at the table’ as that they are going to have food and a conversation, which is
the ‘superordinate goals’. ‘She slides it to the young man’ can be inferred that the
woman wants the man to read the letter. ‘Soon he is stunned’ is a ‘causal antecedent’
which can be inferred that the letter has some bad news to the man. This inference will
be established and reinforced with the two sentences ‘He sits motionless’ and ‘The
tears start to fall’. Now most of the readers can deduce a reasonable antecedent event
that this couple breaks up when or before comprehending “She leaves”. During the
inference process, a background knowledge that may be obtained from watching films
or observing real life appears as a medium. If the background knowledge has not been
obtained yet, it will now be generated.
2.3. SELF-IMPROVING READING COMPREHENSION SKILLS
Reading comprehension is a skill that can only be improved through continual
practice. Students should start practicing and raise their skill to a higher level as a
habit every time they read a piece of text.
2.3.1. Reading with a purpose
“A student who does not read because of lack of motivation does not get the practice
he needs in reading skills” (Stepherd, in Simanjuntak, 1988:2). Really, a purpose for
reading is important for the comprehension task of a student. Reading without
knowing the goal is like sailing a ship to the faraway ocean and being stuck in the
water. Also, according to Carnine, Silbert, and Kameenui (1990:45), a purpose for
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reading will affect the way the reader reacts to a passage and which comprehension he
or she applies.
Hence, before grabbing a text to read, students should ask themselves why they are
reading certain material and determine what exactly their intention of reading is.
According to Anderson (2003), purposes of reading can be classified into two general
groups: “reading for information and reading for pleasure”. As said, how students read
a text depends on their purposes, for example, the way they read a newspaper or a
magazine is different from the way they read academic materials. With different
purposes, a student may only scan the text for main ideas and key information, or
critically read the whole text and then review it for deeper insights, or he or she just
reads the whole text without reviewing it for relax. Clearly identifying purposes of
reading will help students use their time and serve their interest effectively.
2.3.2. Developing and activating background knowledge
Students need to build and broaden background knowledge to prepare for their
acquisition of comprehension. They can try reading different kinds of materials and
try not to limit themselves to any types of documents, so that various kinds of
information can be obtained. Having knowledge of a wide range of topics will
increase the degree of comprehension in texts. Besides, students should read as many
texts as possible, from entertaining, topical to academic ones, especially newspapers
to have the latest updates about the world and materials related to the student’s field of
study.
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Before starting to read a text, it is necessary to recall prior knowledge related to the
topic and integrate it into the text when reading. Students should look at the title and
raise some questions such as “What am I going to read about?”, “What is the text
likely to mention?”, etc., then find the answers as well as evoke previous knowledge
or experiences to link to what students are going to read. During reading, students can
try to make associations, comparisons, and match what they knew to what is written.
After reading, students should recall as much as possible the information they have
read and consider how interested they get and how much they already knew about the
subject as well.
2.3.3. Improving vocabulary and grammar
It is not easy to deal with a large amount of vocabulary, especially that in a second
language. However, students can still expand their vocabulary as much as possible to
have an advantage in reading comprehension. In vocabulary building, the use of
dictionary is always valuable. Most students at university level use advanced
dictionaries which provide extensive meanings of words besides the original ones, as
well as related words and phrases and grammatical correlations. Furthermore, students
should not skip unfamiliar words or they will fail to fully understand the text, and
even fail in future reading as well since there are chances that they encounter those
words again.
In addition, students should identify how the words are used to describe or express a
meaning, an event or an action in various contexts. “When a person “knows” a word,
he knows more than the word’s definition—he also knows how that word functions in
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different contexts” (E. D. Hirsch, Jr., 2003). Below is an example provided by Hirsch
in his book “Reading Comprehension Requires Knowledge of Words and the World”:
(a) He smoked a cigarette.
(b) The psychologist smoked his pipe.
(c) The hippie smoked a marijuana cigarette.
(d) The 13-year-old smoked his first cigarette
These are illustrations for the use of the word “smoke”, which has the definition of
verb as “to inhale and puff the smoke of (a cigarette, etc.)” (Random House, 1978) as
quoted by Hirsch. Although in the sentences above the meaning of the verb “smoke”
fits its definition in general, the actions described are various: in (a) it is “a typical
smoking action”, in (b) it is “a puffing in”, in (c) it is “a deeper and longer inhaling
in”, and in (d) it is “an inhaling followed by coughing and choking” (as explained by
Hirsch). That said, only by considering the verb “smoke” in different contexts will
students be able to see how its meaning changes and shifts.
In general, students coming into universities have already had an intermediate level of
English grammar they obtained from high schools. Unlike vocabulary, which is large
and increasing from time to time, grammar does not enlarge itself but has rules and is
complicated. Students still have to review their knowledge of grammar regularly, and
try to learn as many as possible grammar points that they have not already known.
Sometimes just recognizing words is not enough because the students do not
remember or identify the sentence structures, and get confused about some kinds of
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clauses and phrases. So, when reading students should also learn grammar from the
text, look closely at how the sentences are constructed, as well as verb forms and
tenses used in the passage. If students encounter difficulties, they can try breaking a
long sentence into smaller parts, underlining key words and then try to figure out the
function of each word or phrase. For instance, the following sentence can be separated
like this (example by Charles A. Perfetti, Nicole Landi, and Jane Oakhill, 2004):
A cat is / holding hands with a man / that is / holding hands with a woman.
Of course, efforts need to be made to struggle with too complex structures, but it is
worth it since the knowledge that students gain is more valuable.
2.3.4. Identifying topic and main ideas
Identifying the topic of a text is essential to reading. The topic is the general theme or
the subject of writing. To foreshadow what is presented in the text, students should
start with the title and ask themselves “What is this about?” When reading paragraphs
in the text, students keep asking that question until they find a clear answer.
Sometimes the topic can be pointed out from one or two words repeated, or from the
structure of some specific forms of text; for example, in an essay the topic lies in the
thesis statement in the introduction.
To successfully comprehend a text, students have to locate mean ideas of each
paragraph. Understanding paragraph structures will help a lot in this task. As we
know, the central topic of a text is developed by paragraphs, and sentences in a
paragraph must support its main idea. In every paragraph, there is a topic sentence
stated at the beginning, in the middle or at the end. This sentence contains the focus
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for the writer while writing and the readers while reading. When the topic sentence is
found, students can underline or take note so that it comes to the front not only now
but also in future reviews.
2.3.5. Making inferences
The process of inference is important for deep comprehension of students. A writer
does not always tell us directly what he or she wants to mean. In fact, the meanings
are not exposed on the surface but implied under the written words. Students have to
“read between the lines” for deeper understanding based on hints or clues offered by
the author. Theoretically, students can rely on some modes for making inferences.
2.3.5.1. Inferring from general sense
Some words may have meanings covered by a general sense of its context. For
example, consider the word “incarcerated” in the following sentence:
Murderers are usually incarcerated for longer periods of time than robbers.
Students can try inferring the meaning of “incarcerated” by answering to the question
“What usually happens to those found guilty of murder or robbery?” If the answers are
like ‘they are put in jail, or imprisoned’ then students have correctly inferred the
meaning of this word.
2.3.5.2. Inferring from examples
Sometimes the author will provide certain examples in the context and the meaning is
implied by them, like in the sentence below:
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Those who enjoy belonging to clubs, going to parties, and inviting friends often to
their homes for dinner are gregarious.
Answering the question “What words describe people who belong to clubs, go to
parties a lot, and often invite friends over to their homes for dinner?” will help
generate an inference for the meaning of “gregarious”. If students’ answers are like
‘social’ or ‘people who enjoy the company of others’ then they have had the right
answer.
2.3.5.3. Inferring from antonyms and contrasts
In other cases, the meaning of a word may be implied by an antonym or a contrasting
point. For instance:
Ben is fearless, but his brother is timorous.
Again, students can answer the question “If Ben is fearless and Jim is very different
from Ben with regard to fear, then what word describes Jim?” to find the meaning of
“timorous”. This word has the meaning close to ‘timid’, ‘afraid’, or ‘fearful’.
Below is an example to illustrate for drawing inference from a contrast thought:
Dad gave credence to my story, but Mom's reaction was one of total disbelief.
Similarly, students now try to infer the meaning of “credence” by answering the
question “If Mom's reaction was disbelief and Dad's reaction was very different from
Mom's, what was Dad's reaction?” They can easily think of ‘belief’ as a contrast to
‘disbelief’ in the sentence, and that is the answer.
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3. CONCLUSION
Coming to this part, readers should have been informed about some basic skills
required for a student’s reading comprehension and how to improve those skills on
their own.
Still, this paper is only a small portion in the study of reading comprehension and
needs to be developed further. After all, I hope that the paper can accompany the
students like a handy material and aid them in enhancing their proficiency in reading
comprehension.
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4. REFERENCES
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from <http://journals.tc-library.org/index.php/tesol/article/download/483/298>
3. E. D. Hirsch, Jr. “Reading Comprehension Requires Knowledge— of Words and
the World.” American Educator, journal of the American Federation of Teachers.
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<http://www.iapsych.com/wmfhcaarchive/LinkedDocuments/DAVI11.pdf>.
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14. “Identifying Topics, Main Ideas, and Supporting Details.” Academic Support.
Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA. 02 Jun. 2010 <
http://academic.cuesta.edu/acasupp/as/308.HTM>.
15. “Making Inferences and Drawing Conclusions.” Academic Support. Cuesta
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http://academic.cuesta.edu/acasupp/as/309.HTM>.
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THE END
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