HOW TO TEACH ENGLISH READING SKILLS EFFECTIVELY
English Reading Skill is an integral part of all types of learning particularly language
learning. It precedes and strongly determines the quality of all important skill, the skill
of writing. Proper development of reading skill ensures a sound base for not only
writing but also other skills.
Firsly, it is important to establish the main aim of teaching reading as there are
several reasons why a learner can read. For instance, one can read in order to
develop his/her knowledge of the language of instruction or for fun. An individual
may also read for the purpose of gathering information or for confirming the
authenticity of the knowledge at hand or even to critically assess someone’s
thoughts or style of writing.
Secondly, establishing the intention of reading affects the most effective method of
comprehension reading. For instance, in case a person is reading a particular poem
for the purpose of gratification, he/she is only required to make out the words used
by the poet and the manner in which they are presented and has no need to classify
the subject of the poem.
One more evidence is that my main failure in teaching reading was mainly attributed
to my presumption of the aim of learning how to read in a language, which I viewed
as merely to get the content written in a given lingo. During that time, I mainly
restricted teaching reading to literary texts that indicated a deep affiliation to culture.
However, this approach was wrong because it presupposed that students learn to
read in a particular language only through learning its terminologies, words and
sentence structures, but not by actually reading it, which ignores the aspect of
communicative competence.
To sum up, even though a teacher is crucial in instructing effective comprehension
skills, the benefits can only be achieved through cooperative learning. Learners
should work hand in hand with each other in order to comprehend texts. Besides,
they should also employ the given strategies of comprehension reading.