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READING is essential in all learning. The ability to read makes it easy to understand all forms of learning. You need to see the words you are reading, thereafter, make sense of what they mean.
Train yourself to read accurately and at a reasonable speed. Reading with jerks makes understanding of the given content very difficult. Reading enables you to comprehend the text you are reading.
Once you have understood the text then you can be able to answer questions set on it.
The same applies to understanding literature texts. Read the novel or play from the beginning up to the end to get the gist of the matter.
You are trying to have a rough idea of the story line before getting into the finer details of the story. Practise proper reading for any eventualities, be it for ordinary comprehension exercises or literature responses.
Today, we are talking about reading from a wider perspective not just looking at reading prescribed class texts. Reading widely helps you acquire vast knowledge of things.
You get numerous ideas from various texts, which improve the depth of your answers. There should be a clear distinction in quality between a piece of writing produced by a junior and a senior student.
All this is influenced by what you read. A senior student who reads material meant for juniors does a disservice to himself. She or he will produce substandard work for his level. Move with your level of learning and you will mature in your presentations.
A well-read student participates well in class discussions. She or he does not run short of ideas when answering questions.
If you are well-read, you become a better writer. Better writers think about the impact they want their writing to have on the reader.
They carefully consider, which language choices and, which language devices will help them achieve that effect, choosing every word intentionally.
As students read, at times it is very necessary to try and retell stories in the correct narrative sequence.
They should understand time and simple sequential relationships in stories (what happened when). With teacher’s guidance, students can explore and map out simple story plots.
They record, in order, the main incidents of a story. The methods suggested here work well with slow learners or those who might find themselves behind the syllabus.
These should start answering questions like what a story means to them. In all their reading, students should try to identify their favourite stories.
Such an approach will encourage students to always read different kinds of books. Class reading at times is necessary to gauge the general standard of reading in class. Students can be asked to read a number of paragraphs one after the other.
While such reading is going on, some learners would be listening, for questions will be asked at the end to see if they will be following. They need to tell what happened in the story?
As they read, they should be listing the events in the story. If they are writing notes, they could leave spaces between each one to add events in the right places as it is unlikely, they will remember them in perfect order.
Learners need to understand terms such as plot as they read. In short, plot is the plan of the story, the design of the story, that is how it is constructed or made – what happens in the story.
As the learners read, they need to know what happens at the beginning of the story, in the middle of the story and at the end of the story.
Understanding such facts on reading translates into the students’ ability of writing their own stories and other types of essays.
At times when reading, it is important to pay particular attention to characters.
Understanding different characters will help you make use of that knowledge to build your own characters when you write essays.
As part of reading, you can identify and discuss characters. For example, appearance, behaviour and qualities. Speculate on how characters should behave.
You could evaluate behaviour in those stories. Compare characters from different stories. As you read, you could write simple character profiles from other stories read, describing characteristics and behaviour.
Reading can be done from many sources today. In the past, talking about reading meant compiling piles and piles of novels but today through just a touch of a button you can access hundreds of books and magazines.
The choice of reading material is wide, so there is no reason for learners to be found wanting. Wide reading opens the mind.
Take advantage of that and improve your performances right across the curriculum.
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