Imajinita: November 2012

A. Definition of Reading

Reading is something you can not do in the dark. You need illumination, some print in front of you, your eyes open, and probably your spectacles on. In other words, reading depends on some information getting through the eyes to the brain, we may call this information as visual information, it is what goes away when the lights go out.

Access to visual information is necessary part of reading, but it is not sufficient. You could have a wealth of visual information in a text before your open eyes and still not be able to read. For example, the text might be written in a language you don’t understand. Knowledge of the relevant language is essential for reading, but cannot expect to find it on the printed page. Rather it is information that you must have already, behind the eyeballs. It can be distinguished from the visual information that comes through the eyes by being called non visual information or prior knowledge.

There many others non visual information apart from knowledge of language, such as: knowledge of subject matter, knowledge of how to read. Non visual information is easily distinguished from visual information, it is carried out around by the reader all the time, and it does not go away when the lights go out.

The distinction between visual and non visual information may seem obvious, is simply stated there is a reciprocal relationship between the two. Within certain limit, one can be traded off for the other. The more non visual information a reader has, the less visual information the reader needs. The less non visual information that is available from behind the eyes, the more visual information is required.

Anyway, reading is an activity that always involves a combination of visual and non visual information. It is an interaction between a reader and a text. Reading is a way to get information from a text and to form an interpretation and to draw a conclusion of that information.

B. Purpose of Reading

1. Reading to search for simple information

Most people said that reading to search for simple information is a common reading ability, though some researchers see it is a relatively independent cognitive process. It is used so often in reading tasks that it is probably best seen as type of reading ability. In reading to search, we typically scan the text for a specific piece of information or specific word. Sometimes we slow down to process the meaning of a sentence or more to find out if we are reading the right page, section, or chapter. Skimming is also including in this type of aim. It is a common part of many reading tasks and useful skill in its own right. A combination of strategies for guessing where important information might be in the text and then using basic reading comprehension skill on those segments of the text until general idea is formed is involved in this skill.

2. Reading to learn from texts

It usually occurs in academic and professional contexts when people need to learn a considerable amount of information from a text. It requires abilities to:

· Remember main ideas as well as a number of details that elaborate the main and supporting ideas in the texts.

· Recognize and build rhetorical frames that organize the information in the text.

· Link the text to the reader’s knowledge base.

This purpose usually carried out a reading rate somewhat slower than general reading comprehension ( mainly due to reading and reflection strategies to help remember information). It also, sometimes make stronger inferencing demands than general reading comprehension to connect text information with background knowledge.

3. Reading to integrate information, write and critique texts

This purpose requires additional decisions about the relative importance of complementary, mutually supporting or conflicting information and the likely restructuring of a rhetorical frame to accommodate information from multiple sources. These skill definitely require critical evaluation of the information being read so that the reader an determine what information to integrate and how to integrate it for the reader’s goal. Meanwhile reading to write and reading to critique texts require abilities to compose, select and critique information from text and they represent common academic tasks that call upon the reading abilities needed to integrate information.

4. Reading for general comprehension

We can say that the general reading comprehension is the most basic purpose for reading, underlying and supporting most other purpose for reading. It is actually more complex than commonly assumed. The term general does not mean simple or easy. It requires very rapid and automatic processing of words, strong skills in forming a general meaning representation of main ideas and efficient coordination of may processes under very limited time constraints. These abilities are often taken for granted by fluent reader because they are usually occur automatically.

The difficulties for students in becoming fluent readers of longer texts under time constraints reveal the complexities of reading for general comprehension. Even sometimes it is more difficult than any other reading purposes.

C. Models of Reading

1) Metaphorical models of reading

There are three ways of this models:

a. Bottom up models, suggest that all reading follows a mechanical pattern in which the reader creates a piece-by-piece mental translation of the information in the text, with little inference from the reader’s own background knowledge.

b. Top down models, assume that reading is primarily directed by reader purposes and expectations. These models characterize the reader as someone who has a set of expectation about text information and samples enough information from the text to confirm or reject these expectations. To accomplish this sampling efficiently, the reader directs the eyes to the most likely places in the text to find useful information.

c. Interactive models seem try to compromise to satisfy everyone. In these models, one can take useful ideas from a bottom-up perspective and combine them with the key ideas from a top down view. Therefore we can say that word recognition need to be fast and efficient but background knowledge is a major contributor to understand the text, as is inferencingand predicting what will come next in the text. But even these models is not enough to satisfy everybody, there are still many contradictory processes such as that the key processing aspect of bottom-up models is incompatible with strong-down controls of reading comprehension.

2) Specific models of reading as research syntheses

These models serve as alternative approaches to generalized metaphorical models of reading. They are to consider recent accounts of reading comprehension and determine which ones, at least for the present, provide good explanations for what we know about reading.

D. Three Ways to Read Faster

1. Preview-If It’s Long and Hard

Previewing is especially useful for getting a general idea of heavy reading like long magazine or newspaper articles, business reports and non fiction books. It can give you as much as half the comprehension in as little as one- tenth the time. For example, you should be able to preview eight or ten 100 page reports (or which parts of which reports) are worth a closer look.

Here’s how to preview: Read the entire first two paragraphs of whatever you’ve chosen. Next read only the first sentence of each successive paragraph. Then read the entire las two paragraph.

2. Skim –If It’s Short and Simple

Skimming is agood way to get a general idea of light reading-like popular magazines or the sports and entertainment sections of the paper.

You should be able to skim a weekly popular magazine or the second section of your daily paper in less than half time it takes you to read it now.

Skimming is also a great way to review material you’re read before. Here’s how to skim: Think of your eyes as magnets. Force then to move fast. Sweep them across each and every line of type. Pick up only a few key words in each line.

Skimming can give you a very good idea of this story in about half the words and in less than half the time it’d take to read every word.

3. Cluster-To Increase Speed and Comprehension

Clustering trains you to look at groups of words instead of one at a time-to increase your speed enormously. For most of us, clustering is a totally different way of seeing what we read.

Here’s how to cluser: Train your eyes to see all the words in clusters of up to three or four words at glance.

Learning to read cluster is not something your eyes do naturally. It takes constant practice.

Here’s how to go about it. Pick something light to read. Read it as fast as you can. Concentrate on seeing three or four words at once rather than one word at a time.then reread the piece at your normal speed to see what you missed the first time. Try a second piece. First cluster, then reread to see what you missed in this one. Whwn you can read in clusters without missing much the first time, your speed has increased.

E. Reading Habits That Slow You Down

The first vocalizing is mouthing or saying the words aloud as you read them. It is easy to spot someone who has this problem. And vocalizing is a problem, because the act of mouthing or speaking slows you down. It takes too much time to say the words with your lips. There are several ways to help you stop vocalizing. Try to chewing gum or holding a pencil clenched your teeth as you read. Or put your hand over your mouth or keep it at your throat to feel for vibrations of vocalizing.

The second problem reading habit is much harder to detect. It is called sub-vocalizing, and it is characterized by a reader’s forming the words in his or her larynx. In order to avoid pronouncing internally the words you read, practice reading rapidly under timed conditions, or talk about the material to yourself.

The third problem of reading habit is pointing. When you point with your finger or a pencil or a ruler, you add another mechanical step to the reading process. This can only slow you down. The solution is to make pointing impossible by folding your hands in your lap.

The last problem reading habit is head movement . following the lines of print with your head does not increase reading speed. Like pointing, it adds another mechanical step to the reading process. To avoid it, hold your chin in your hand, or place your hand against the side of your head.

F. Metode to Find Out What Words Mean

One common reason for poor reading speed and comprehension is a poor vocabulary. If you don’t understand many of the words in a chapter or article, you will not be able to grasp important concepts without taking the time to look up the words. You have to understand that one basic way to better reading is to build up your vocabulary. The more you recognize and understand the easier it will be for you to read without stopping and wondering, “what is going on here?”

The first step to improving your vocabulary is, of course recognizing that it is not possible for you to know the meaning of every word you see. Sometimes you may say “I sort of know what this means,” or “I can get by without figuring this one out.” But often you really need to find out exactly what those words mean. In the short run not to paying attention the words you don’t know may save you some work. But in the long run you just won’t know as much as you should.

Upon encountering an unfamiliar vocabulary item in a passage there are several strategies readers can use to determine the message of the author. First, they can continue readning, realizing that often a single word will not prevent understanding of the general meaning of a selection. If further reading doesn’t solve the problem, readers can use one or more of three basic skills to arrive at understanding of the unfamiliar word. They can use context clues to see if surrounding words and grammatical structures provide information about the unknown word. They can use word analysis to see if understanding the parts of the word leads to understanding of the word. Or they can use a dictionary to find an appropriate definition.

Here are some ways to find meanings of difficult words:

a. Sentences and Context Clues

Learn to use the clues sentences sometimes give about the meaning of new words. You learned most of the words you know by hearing or seeing them in a particular context. When you find a new word in your reading, take a time a moment to see whether you can figure out its meaning from the sentence or the paragraph that it’s in. Each time you read information for your courses you discover new words. Sometimes you take time out to look up a strange word in the dictionary, but doing that too many times slows your reading down.

You should realize however, that you can often figure out meanings of new words without using dictionary. You might find that hints and clues about the definition appear in the sentence that uses a word you don’t know. Guessing the meaning of an unfamiliar word from context clues involves using the following kinds of information:

a) Knowledge of the topic about which you are reading

b) Knowledge of the meaning of the other words in the sentence ( or paragraph ) in which the words occurs

c) Knowledge of the grammatical structure of the sentences in which the words occurs.

b. Word Part Clues ( Word Analysis )

Another way to discover the meanings of unfamiliar vocabulary items is to use word analysis, that is, to use knowledge of the meanings of the parts of a word. Many English words have been formed by combining parts of older English, Greek, and Latin words. Occasionally, two words may be put together to form a new word that might not be familiar to you. If you look at each word unit, though, you can recognize the word in some cases. Then you can try to understand the meaning. For example, look at these words:

Longboat (long + boat)

Offshore (off + shore)

c. Denotations and Connotation

The actual meaning of a word –what you find in the dictionary- is its denotation. What a word suggests to you, or what it makes you feel, or what it makes you think of is called the connotation of the word.

For the word darkness, for example the denotation is “lack of light.” But the word darkness may suggest you to a number of other things, such as “fear’, “mystery”, “evil”, “even”, “love” or “sleep” or “silence.”

Often words with similar denotations have very different connotations. In any English activities –readinng, speaking, even writing-, you need to be aware of connotations of words in order to understand fully their meaning. Writers can make you feel the way they want you to feel about ideas and people through connotations. And dictioanaries do not usually include in their definitions all the connotations of a word. That’s where your own thinking comes in.

The more you get a sense of connotations, the more you can understand how w writer wants you to feel. Of course, connotation I a large and complex issues, and in literature classes when you are discussing poems, you will go much further into this subject.

d. Dictionary

Sometimes the context does not provide a clue to meaning or sometimes you cannot understand the ideas being presented without finding out what a word means. In such cases, you will have to use a dictionary. Most people know how to look words up, but very few know how to make the most out of the information that a good dictionary provides.

Senin, 19 November 2012

miss the old moment when we were together

Sabtu, 17 November 2012

reading