Basic Reading Strategies
S. Kathleen Kitao
Kenji Kitao Eichosha Tokyo, Japan Copyright 1997 S. Kathleen Kitao and Kenji Kitao. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the authors. Printed in Japan. This textbook is accompanied by a tape and a teachers' guide which includes an English explanation of how to use the textbook and answers for the exercises. For class adoption, we offer a complimentary tape and teachers' guide. Please contact us at the following address. Eichosha, Kusaka Bldg., 2-28 Kanda Jimbocho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101 Phone 03-3263-1641 Fax 03-3263-6174 Introduction Many Japanese students learn to read English by replacing English words with Japanese words. This is not a good way to read English passages for several reasons. It is slow and inefficient. It does not help you distinguish between more important and less important information. It does not help you use what you already know to understand the meaning of the reading passage. When you read something, you should not just start at the beginning and read through to the end. This is not a good way to read, either. There are a number of reading strategies that you should use to read more efficiently and to understand what you read better. For example, you should first look over what you are going to read. You should look at the pictures, the title, etc., and think about what you already know about the subject. You should try to find the main idea and the ideas that support it. You should think about how ideas in the reading passage are related to one another. You should also think about your purpose for reading. Are you looking for some specific information? Are you gathering general information? The different purposes you might be reading for influence how you read. All of these things will help you read better. In some reading textbooks, you are asked to read passages and answer comprehension questions about the reading. While such books have their usefulness, the design of this book is different. The purpose of this book is to make you aware of good strategies for reading. You should choose appropriate strategies to apply when you read. At the beginning of each chapter, you will be given an explanation of the strategy you are learning in that chapter. There are reading passages and exercises to help you learn to understand and apply that skill. In some cases, there are exercises that review strategies introduced in previous chapters. There are comprehension questions after each reading, so you can check your understanding of the reading. In addition, there are three review chapters. In these chapters, there is a reading passage and exercises to review strategies that you learned in the previous chapters. Reading passages include information about various countries. We hope that you will be open to learning about other cultures and interested in learning more about them. To the Teacher You can begin each chapter by going over the strategy with the students. The first exercise is generally a short one using sentences or short passages. It helps students understand the strategy better and see how it is applied. You should make sure students understand what the strategy involves when they do the first exercise. The following exercises usually use paragraphs or essays, which help the students apply the strategy to longer passages. Before reading the passage, students should do the pre-reading exercise, if there is one. Even if they are not specifically instructed to do so in the exercise, students should look over the passage before they begin to read it. They should look at the pictures, the title, etc., and think about what the passage will be about. It is important to do the chapters in order. Review Exercises within each chapter cover material introduced in previous chapters, so if the chapters are not done in order, students will not be able to do these exercises. * * * * * * * * * We would like to express our appreciation to Morag Samson, Julia Glass, and Tania Horak of Lancaster University for reading this textbook and making valuable comments. S. Kathleen Kitao, PhD Kenji Kitao, PhD Table of Contents Introduction Table of Contents 1. Pre-Reading Preparation 2. Scanning 3. Understanding Referents 4. Synonyms and Antonyms 5. Distinguishing Facts from Opinions 6 Transitions (additional information, examples, causes, order) 7. Transitions (contrasting information, consequences, restatements, conclusions) Review I 8. Outlining 9. Finding the Main Idea 10. Finding Supporting Ideas 11. Paragraph Organization 12. Organization of Essays 13. Types of Paragraphs 14. Making Inferences Review II 15. Understanding Chronological Order 16. Meaning from Context 17. Summarizing 18. Skimming 19. Predicting while reading 20. Asking yourself questions 21. Visualization Review III Chapter 16 Meaning From Context When you read in English, you often see words that you do not know. Each time you do, you probably reach for a dictionary to look the words up. However, this slows down your reading. It makes it more difficult for you to understand the reading passage as a whole. It is better if you can guess the meaning of a word from the context, that is, from the words around it. This is what you do when you read Japanese, and it is what English speakers do when they read English. While this strategy is not perfect--you cannot always tell the exact meaning from the context--there are many situations in which it is useful to try to guess the meaning rather than look a word up in the dictionary. Even for easy words, you often have to make use of the context to understand the meaning, because many words in English have more than one meaning. For example, a "party" can be a political group or a social gathering for food and amusement. However, in the sentence "The party is supporting this candidate," we can see that "party" is used here with the first meaning--a political group--because of the use of "supporting this candidate," which is related to the first meaning. As you can see, even with easy words, it may be impossible to understand the meaning of a word without looking at the words around it. There are several strategies you can use to understand the meanings of words that you do not know. In this chapter, you will learn about some of these strategies. You will see examples and do exercises that help you understand and apply them. Strategy Exercise--Meaning from Context I. A writer might give the meaning of a difficult word in the passage itself. The II. explanation might follow a comma or a dash after the difficult word. This is III. especially used for place names, technical terms, and other words that even IV. native English speakers might not be familiar with. For example, in the sentence, V. "'New' and 'knew' are homophones--words that sound the same but have a VI. different spelling," "words that sound the same but have a different spelling" is the meaning of "homophones." In the following sentences, put parentheses ( ) around the words that mean the same as the underlined word. 1. The conference was held in Cluj, a town in Romania. 2. John pulled his hamstring, a muscle in the back of his leg, playing football. 3. In Middle Eastern countries, falafel, deep fried balls made of mashed peas, are very popular. II. Another way you can guess the meaning of a word is through the relationships of the words around it. For example, in the sentence, "After the heavy rain, the ground was saturated with water," you should be able to guess that the word "saturated" means "completely wet," because that's what happens to the ground after a heavy rain. Try to guess the meanings of the underlined words in the following sentences. 1. Conforming to the rules is very important. You should be sure to do so. A. following B. deciding C. writing D. predicting 2. The policy is a barrier to our plan. If it is changed, we can go ahead with our plan. A. something which requires thought B. something which is under the ground C. something which involves politics D. something which prevents an action 3. That bird is close to becoming extinct. Once it disappears, it will never come back. A. singing a song B. dying out completely C. sitting on a tree D. increasing in number 4. The new watering system will transform this area from a desert into a garden. A. change B. damage C. dry D. claim III. The writer may refer to the same thing using a different word or phrase in another part of the sentence, or in a later sentence. In that case, if you know the meaning of the second word, that will help you understand the meaning of the word that you don't know. "That vase looks very fragile. With young children in the house, I have to be careful with breakable things." In these two sentences, "breakable" and "fragile" seem to mean something similar. Therefore, you can guess that something that is fragile must break easily. In the following sentences, find the word that means the same as the underlined word. 1. I don't know why I have such an aversion to fish, but I really dislike it. 2. We cannot consider modifications of the plan now. Changes should have been considered last month. 3. This book is about etiquette. You can learn about American manners from it. 4. Dr. Jones is an esteemed researcher. The conference organizers were happy to get such a respected speaker. IV. A writer might also contrast the word that you do not know with a word or idea that you already know. In that case, since you can see the opposite of what the word means, you can guess what the word means. "That statue is in a precarious position. Please move it somewhere that it won't fall." Here, "precarious" is contrasted with "somewhere that it won't fall." Therefore, a precarious position is somewhere that (something) is in danger of falling. Try to guess the meanings of the underlined words in the following sentences. 1. Japanese culture is thought of as being monolithic, but it actually has regional differences. A. inside the country B. difficult to learn C. of one piece D. unable to change 2. According to one side, the settlement was equitable, but the other side thought it was unfair. A. better B. expected C. decided D. even 3. The painting is a bona fide original. That dealer would never sell you a fake. A. genuine B. expensive C. beautiful D. colorful 4. This car is enormous--you'd do much better to get a smaller one. A. cheap B. huge C. attractive D. old V. Your knowledge of cause and effect is useful in helping you understand words that you do not know. "Your statement of purpose is ambiguous, so we don't understand what you intend to do." If the result is that the reader does not understand, the cause may be that the statement was unclear, so "ambiguous" means "unclear." Try to guess the meanings of the underlined words in the following sentences. 1. It is said that the United States is a nation of immigrants, because all Americans once came from other countries. A. people who once lived in the United States B. people who belong to one nation C. people who live in the United States D. people who move to a new country to live 2. This computer is obsolete, so I'm going to buy a new one. A. useful B. outdated C. large D. fast 2. You need to learn to be more autonomous, so I think you should take care of the problem yourself. A. independent B. comfortable C. important D. surprising 3. We will need to postpone the meeting. We are not ready to discuss this issue yet. A. pull over B. cover up C. decide on D. put off VII. A writer might give an illustration related to the word that might help you understand the word. For example, in the sentence, "Harry is so parsimonious that he won't spend an extra penny if he doesn't have to," not spending an extra penny is an illustration of being "parsimonious." You can see that parsimonious means "too careful with money." Try to guess the meanings of the underlined words in the following sentences. 1. The tower was so colossal that we could hardly see the top of it. A. unusual B. huge C. interesting D. bright 2. The judge made him pay a $10 fine, which was akin to no punishment at all. A. like B. more than C. below D. less than 3. The balloon floated aloft as if a hand were holding it up. A. heavily B. down C. overhead D. colorfully 4. The gradient of the road was so steep that the bus could not make it up. A. driver B. surface C. side D. slope VIII. In some cases, the writer will mention the purpose or use of an object, and this tells you what the object is. For example, in the sentence, "I used a cherry pitter to remove the seeds from the cherries," the writer tells you that a cherry pitter is something used to remove seeds from cherries. In the following sentences, put parentheses ( ) around the words that tell what the underlined object does. 1. Watch the speedometer. It will tell you how fast the car is going. 2. Jeanne used an ice pick to chip off some pieces of ice. 3. The scientist used a calipher to take measurements of the bones.
sample request Chapter 17 Summarizing It is sometimes useful to be able to summarize a reading passage, that is, to write a short version of it with the most important points. A summary should give only the most important points of a reading passage. It should not include the less important information. A paragraph can usually be summarized in one or two sentences. When writing a summary of a longer passage, each paragraph should be covered in only a sentence or two. Exercise A Strategy Exercise--Summarizing Match the summary sentence below with the short reading passage that it summarizes. ___ 1. The two types of ethnic Jews in Israel are Ashkenazi Jews (from Central and Eastern Europe) and Sefardic Jews (from Asia and North Africa). ___ 2. Italy's economy depends on manufacturing, including the manufacture of cars, shoes, clothing, and chemicals. ___ 3. The people of southern Italy were dark, and the people of northern Italy were fair, but now they are more mixed. ___ 4. Israel has been able to develop a good economy in its southern desert by growing crops and taking minerals from the Dead Sea. ___ 5. The Irish government has encouraged manufacturing related to agricultural products, which has been helpful to agricultural regions. ___ 6. Irish people were once divided between English and Celtic language speakers, but today there is no such difference. (A) Manufacturing in a major part of Italy's economy. One out of five workers in Italy are in manufacturing. Most of the manufacturing goes on in the northern part of the country. Among Italy's important manufactured products are cars, shoes and clothing, and chemicals. (B) A large part of Ireland's industry is related to its agricultural products. Its major industries involve the processing of food. This includes dairy products, beer, and whiskey. Such industries have been encouraged by the government since the 1950s, and it has been helpful to the agricultural regions of the country. (C) In Israel, there are two ethnic kinds Jews. One type are Ashkenazi Jews. They originally came from Central and Eastern Europe. The other type is Sefardic Jews. They originally came from Asia and North Africa. There are great cultural differences between these two groups. D) The original inhabitants of Ireland were Celtic speakers. The more recent immigrants are mostly English speakers. Today this difference has almost entirely disappeared. Only a few people in Ireland are native speakers of the Celtic language, although the language is taught in schools. Almost everyone speaks English as their first language. (E) The southern part of Israel is a desert, but in the past 40 years, the people of Israel have been able to develop a good economy there. They have been able to grow cotton, fruit, and peanuts. In addition, they have been able to take valuable minerals from the waters of the Dead Sea. (F) The people of Southern Italy tend to show the influence of Greeks and Arabs. They are dark and relatively short. The people of Northern Italy tend to be taller, blond, and fair. However, since the end of World War II, there has been a tendency for people from southern rural areas to migrate to the industrial cities of the North. Therefore, the difference is no longer so clear. Exercise B Peru (1) Peru is a country located on the west coast of South America. It is probably most famous for its mountains and for the Incas, Indians who lived there in the 15th and 16th centuries. In this essay, I will discuss Peru's geography, history, and economy. (2) The Andes Mountains run through the country from north to south. At their highest point, they are more than 6700 meters high. Even though Peru is near the equator, the mountains have a very cold climate. To the west of the mountains is a narrow plain. It is mostly dry, like a desert. To the east of the mountains are deep valleys and rainforests. They are hot and humid. Most people live on the west coast, since it is difficult to live in other parts of the country. (3) Various types of societies have lived in Peru. Small groups of Indians lived there until the 15th century. In the 15th century, Peru was taken over by the Incas, an advanced Indian society. The Incas founded cities such as Cuzco and Machu Picchu. They developed a highly organized society. Their wealthy empire was overthrown by the Spanish in the 1500s. Peru became a Spanish colony. A great deal of mineral wealth was sent from Peru to Spain. In 1821, Peru became an independent country. Since that time, the country has sometimes had military governments and sometimes elected governments. (4) Peru does not have a very strong economy. Its economy depends mainly on export of minerals such as copper and oil. Peru has good natural resources. However, its forests are too remote for logging. Peru does not have good transportation in the central or eastern parts of the country. Also, it does not have very much land where crops can be grown. Comprehension Questions T F ? 1. Peru is famous for its mountains. T F ? 2. The Andes run from east to west. T F ? 3. The Andes are warm, because they are near the equator. T F ? 4. Peru has flat land near the coast. T F ? 5. The rainforests are hot and humid. T F ? 6. Most people in Peru live in the mountains. T F ? 7. Indians lived in Peru before the Spanish came. T F ? 8. About half of the people who live in Peru today are Indians. T F ? 10. Peru produces copper and oil. T F ? 11. Peru produces a lot of food. Strategy Exercise--Summarizing Write summaries of paragraphs 2-4. Put them together to make a summary for the whole essay, using the first sentence below.