泛讀閱讀技巧-Reading Skill

1、Reading Skillpeed vs. Comprehension(Unit 8, Book II)Passage 1People around the world are becoming more and more concerned about the population explosion. Some are holding that there can be some control of the number of people that are born; but population control is a subject which touches on the mo

2、ral and religious beliefs of many people. Even if many families have fewer children, the speed of the population explosion will only be reduced - not stopped. There will still be problems of food supply, water, and power.Passage 2In 1992 Derrida was involved in a much publicized row at Cambridge Uni

3、versity when he was nominated for an honorary doctorate and a number of dons - notably the formal logician W V Quine - signed a letter of objection. Derrida eventually received his degree. With his olive skin and mop of coiffed silver hair usually offset by a dark shirt and a stylish suit, Derrida c

4、ut a striking figure. But he was reserved and wary of publicity; between 1962 and 1979 he demanded that nothing appear in print about him other than the texts he and his interpreters had written, and he refused to be photographed.Reading Skill: Choosing reading speeds(Unit 8, Book II)Reading speeds

5、are determined bythe readers goal / the percentage of understanding required;the difficulty of the vocabulary / sentences;the readers readiness to read the material, (how much he knows about the content or the topic of the material and how well he can use the reading skills).Before beginning reading

6、, consider your goal / the percentage of understanding required.choose a slow speed when your purpose calls for 100% understanding.choose a faster speed when your purpose does not call for 100% understanding.When do you need 100% understanding and when not?While reading, the difficulty of the vocabu

7、lary / sentences can influence your reading speed.choose a slow speed when the material has a low level of readability.choose a fast speed when the material is very readable.PredictingDoes reading mean starting at the beginning and going word by word, stopping to look up every unknown vocabulary ite

8、m, until the end?If your answer is “yes”，then you are relying exclusively on your linguistic knowledge.Reading is a guessing game”.Reading - Guessing / Predicting - Reading - Proving / DisprovingWhat is “predicting”？Thinking in advance about what to be read.Why is “predicting” so important?It enable

9、s us to be aware of our goal in reading.It activates schemata: that is, it calls into mind any experiences and associated knowledge that we already have about the topic and the text.It helps us to focus in the reading process.It improves comprehension.How to Predict?Before Reading:Using the skill of

10、 “Previewing、predict what information you may find in the text, before you begin to read it in detail.For example, after looking at the title, you can ask yourself what you know and do not know about the subject before you read the text. Or you can formulate questions that you would like to have ans

11、wered by reading the text. These exercises will help you focus more effectively on the ideas in a text when you actually start reading.Using knowledge of the subject matter to predict about content;Using knowledge about the author to predict about writing style and content.e.g. Acting against the wi

12、ll of Alfred Nobel(from )Death on the Nileby Agatha ChristieWhile-readingUsing prior knowledge of the subject and the ideas in the text topredict about the meanings of unknown words;predict about the idea of the following sentences and paragraphs;predict about the text type and purpose, writing styl

13、e;check comprehensionBen Jonsons remark on Shakespeare:Thou art a Moniment, without a tombeAnd art alive still, while thy Booke doth live And we have wits to read, and praise to give.You are a monument, without a tombAnd are alive still, while your book does liveAnd we have wits to read, and praise

14、to giveIn order to predict, you musthave a large vocabularyhave a large information baseknow about cultural backgroundknow about writers and writing stylesknow about text typesExampleI, like many little girls, dreamed of being a ballet dancer. I practiced hard and at age 13,1 was hired as an apprent

15、ice by the Minnesota Dance Theatre, a little ballet company in my hometown of Minneapolis.What do you think would happen to the author?Did she have to train hard?Did she become a famous dancer in her town, then in her country, then all over the world?Was there an accident that forced her to give up

16、dancing?Obviously she didnt have much school education. Could her lack of education affect her later life?I danced to fulfill a dream, and the money can in handy. My mother was trying to raise five children while working as a singer in a nightclub. The $50 a week I earned dancing paid for my food, b

17、us fare and ballet outfits. Thats how I helped my mom - by just paying for myself. It made me feel good. I have no doubt that responsibility leads to self-respect.The authors life was rather self-sufficient. Is it expected or not?What is the meaning of “handy”？Did she go to school and keep dancing a

18、t the same time?What happened next when she grow to be an adult?Could the point “that responsibility leads to self-respect be the theme of the passage?When I was 17 I moved to Philadelphia to study with the Pennsylvania Ballet. Three years later I went to New York City, and eventually pursued an act

19、ing career.It seem the author became an actress. Was she successful?Who was she? In what films has she ever acted?Supporting myself at an early age was the best training for life I could possibly have received. I still consider myself a trouper and have yet to miss a day of work. I take more pride i

20、n the fact that I can always be counted up than I do in how much I earn or how well-know I am.What is the meaning of “trouper” and “have yet to miss a day of work”？What is the theme of the story?While reading the paragraph, we may have recalled our own childhood experiences, such as our dreams, our

21、learning experiences, etc. How we associated the paragraph with our own experiences could have influenced what predictions we made.It doesnt matter what predictions we could have made. The point is: keep guessing while reading.Guessing Meanings of Words from Context(Unit 7 and Unit 8, Book I)Synonym

22、 / definition cluesAntonym / contrast cluesExample cluesWord association and word classSynonym / definition clues: (examples)This revision should be cumulative - adding a bit to the total at a time, covering briefly all the work done so far in the tem.A carrel is a small table with “walls” around th

23、ree sides.The honor systemdemands that the student be honest in all areas of school work.Synonym / definition clues:punctuations such as commas, dashes, parenthesesdefinition words such as “be”，“mearT, “refer to，“that is，“or”Clauses which provides additional information or explanationIL Antonym / co

24、ntrast cluesusually connected by but, while, ns opposed to, on the other hand, unlike, however, while, nevertheless, despite, although, even though, etce.g. Linda manages money judiciously while I manage money unwisely.judiciously: wiselyPlease do the “Practice”on Pill and Pl 12Determine the meaning

25、 of each italicized word resolutions2. budgetfigureheadB. b, a, aExample clues: such as, including, for example, for instance, to illustrate.e.g. Phobias, such as fear of height, fear of water, or fear of crowds, can be eliminated through conditioning.Word association and word classe.g Mr. Johnsons

26、paintings show his attention to geometric shapes of all kinds. The paintings contain circles, squares, triangles, pirrles, etc.Please do the “Practice” on P130Underline the example clues and write the meaning of the word .ancestrya leap yearamateurWrite the meaning of the underlined word.canesawride

27、ssipPlease note thatword-guessing is more used as a reading strategy than a vocabulary-building strategy;word-guessing can never replace dictionary because the former is never as reliable as the latter in term of precision in meaning;word-guessing is inversely proportional to your required comprehen

28、sion; that is, the more you would like to understand, the less you should use the word-guessing strategy;word-guessing does NOT work wonders for all kinds of reading.PracticeThe section on falconry described fourteen classes of birds,Harold Bate, a British inventor, fuels his car with pigs manure. B

29、ut any animal waste will do - dogs, cats, goats, horses, andchickens.He was surprised to find that the mummy had been wrapped in sheets of papyrus, the reed paper of ancient Egypt.The worlds greatest violinists-among them Yehudi Menuhim, Fritz Kreisler, Mischa Elman, and Jascha Heifetz-have used Str

30、adivariuses.The other ingredients of bread are yeast, sugar, water, salt and fat.Though the oil killed thousands of birds as it floated ashore, the detergents used to clean the rocks and beaches destroyed many more creatures and upset the usual balance of marine life.We sometimes call Great Britain

31、“Britannia” and the United States “Columbia,“ and think of both as noble women. We also use masculine symbols in our personification of nations. For example, the Englishman was John Bull, indicating strength.Every evening, some part of the British Commonwealth hears the chimes of Big Ben, largest of

32、 the bells in the clock tower of the Palace of Westminster.Then people became interested in keeping other reptiles - like lizards and even alligators.In 1799, George Washington, in a letter written only two days before his death, strongly urged the establishment of a military academy. Three years la

33、ter, the United States Military Academy opened with an enrollment of ten cadets.Another phase of culture shock is homesickness. This is period when the foreigner misses his hometown back at his native country.The “qwerty” keyboard, whose name comes from the first six letters on the boards second lin

34、e, was set up by C. L. Sholes.A mammaTs third eyelid is a thin, movable film or membrane.For instances, New Orleans is known for ts jambalaya, a spicy dish of rice, ham, shrimp, and tomatoes.The movement of his camel, the desert heat, and the chemicals in the pouch made the milk separate into curds

35、and whey. The thick part, or curd, was the first cheese.The worm is a leecha bloodsucker,Before the Crusades, kings had existed, but their role was more or less that of a figurehead, a chief in name only, in the complicatedfeudal system.The horse has been mans friend since earliest times, as paintin

36、gs on the walls of old caves and tombs show, A man on his steed became a symbol of power,And for hundreds of years the boats called balsas were the highest boats in the world.In those days Hollywood was like a magnet, drawing ambitious young men and women from all over the world.Guessing Meanings of

37、 Words from Word-Formation(Unit 14, Book I)affixationconversioncompoundingshorteningacronymsblendingAffixationprefixation: adding a prefix to the base. Prefixes do not change the word-class of the base; they change the meaning of the base instead.suffixation: adding a suffix to the base. Suffixes us

38、ually change the word-class of the base, but some can change the meaning of the base too.So far, the suffixes we have learned include adj. suffixes (-ous, -ishz ly, en, -al/-icalz -ible / -able, ive,-y, -ful / -less, -ed / -ing) and n. suffixes (-er, -or, -ist, -antA -ent, -essz -eez -ianz -ish, -es

39、ez -hoodz -ship, -agez -tude)How to deal with affixation?divide a new word into recognizable parts;combine the meaning of each part into the meaning of the new wordconversionConversion means changing a word from one part of speech to another without the addition of an affix.conversion: no matter how

40、 the part of speech changes, the core meaning of the word never changes.In the past decades, Hollywood “heavies” have been quick to push for good causes in TV and movie scripts.He mouthed fine words about friendship.Like todays haves and havenots, we will have a society of the knows and knownots.Com

41、poundingCompounding means combining at least two roots / words to form a new word.The meaning of the new word equals the combination of the meanings of the roots / words.It is not easy to get a foothold as an anchormnn.She backhanded the ball crosscourt.She is the most famous go-between in this area

42、.I made a dog-eato mark the page where I stopped reading.Who is that girl with a pigtail?ShorteningShortening means altering the form of a word by cutting away some part(s), without changing the meaning of the original word.Shortening: clipped wordsclipping the head:phonechuteclipping the rear:proex

43、ecclipping both the head and the rear:fridgeflutecclipping the middle:cwealthcomlintiAcronymsAcronyms means taking the initial letters to form an initial letter sequence which is turned into an ordinary word.CSI: crime scene investigationLAPD: Los Angeles Police DepartmentNASA: National Aeronautics

44、and Space Administration.APEC: The Asia-Pacific Economic CooperationBlendingBlending means taking one part from each of two words to form a new word.motel (motor + hotel)workfare (work + welfare)medicare (medical + care)psywar (psychological + warfare)botel:ClintonomicstelescriptsitcomfilmdomInterpo

45、l newsgram ComsatUsing the dictionary (Unit 1, Book II)Looking up in the dictionary, you may notice:how to spell the wordhow to break down the word into syllableshow to pronounce the wordthe different parts of speech of the wordthe different meanings of the wordsynonyms / antonyms of the wordother w

46、ords that derive from the wordsthe formation of the wordReading Skill: Understanding SentencesA sentence may be difficult whenits structure is complexa figure of speech is involvedDealing with complex sentence structuree.g.However, he was not one of those cruel school teachers, who enjoy in the pain

47、 of their students; on the contrary, he gave justice rather severity, taking the burden off the backs of the weak, and laying it on those of the strong.That such a gap between theorists and practitioners should have existed for so long disadvantages all parties.How to deal with complex sentences?Rem

48、ove the modifying elements and reduce the sentence into its core part, that is, the subject, verb and object of a sentence;Identify modifying elements and relate them to the core parts;Identify subordinate clauses and relate them to the main clause.Even in very disturbed areas, coffee plantations su

49、pport good populations of migratory birds and other species that prefer or are restricted to forest habitats, such as redstarts and black-throated green warblers, and residents including parrots and woodcreepers.The few studies that have been conducted have found that the diversity of migratory bird

50、s drops sharply when coffee is converted from shade to sun.The few studies (that have been conducted) have found (that the diversity of migratory birds drops sharply) (when coffee is converted from shade to sun.)While technified coffee may mean benefits to producers in terms of total crop output - a

51、 condition which may not hold true over the long run, and already prove。false is some where sun coffee is being grown - the relentless push of agribusiness to produce more coffee per unit area may have serious environmental and social consequences.Getting familiar with figures of speechFigures of sp

52、eech:A figure of speech is the use of a word or words diverging from its usual meaning. It can be special arrangement such as repetition, omission, inversion, etc. It can also be a phrase with a specialized meaning not based on the literal meaning of the words in it, as in idiom, metaphor, simile, h

53、yperbole, or personification, etc.Figures of speech often provide emphasis, freshness of expression, or clarity. However, clarity may also suffer from their use, as any figure of speech introduces an ambiguity between literal and figurative interpretation.examplesShe would run up the stairs and then

54、 a new set of curtains.She would run up the stairs and then (run up) a new set of curtains, (omission)This I reported to the police.I reported This to the police, (inversion)I had butterflies in my stomach, (metaphor)I felt nervous and anxious, (metaphor)我的心七上八下的。It was like having some butterflies

55、in my stomach.It was like having some butterflies in my stomach, (simile)But hes a soldier, so he has to be an Einstein, (while the military would usually be supposed to have no intelligence)But hes a soldier, so he has to be an Einstein, (hyperbole, sarcasm, metaphor)The moon is riding in the sky.

56、/ Love is blind.The moon is riding in the sky. / Love is blind, (personification)That building is a little bit big and pretty ugly.That building is a little bit big and pretty ugly, (oxymoron)When there is need of silence, you speak, and when there is need of speech, you are dumb; when you are prese

57、nt, you wish to be absent, and when absent, you desire to be present; in peace you are for war, and in war you long for peace; in council you descant on bravery, and in the battle you tremble.(parallelism, antithesis)Slang is language that takes off coat, spits on its hand, and goes to work.Slang is

58、 an effective language, (personification)idioms:At the sight of the enemy troops, the frightened soldier showed a clean pair of heels.-get away; fleeThe poor girl had to bear her cross.-The poor girl suffered a lot but she just had to stand it.The police caught John red-handed.The police caught John

59、 on the spot / when he was in the act.I will drop you a line as soon as I get there.-I will write to you .8. Reading Skill:Understanding the Topicand Looking for the Main IdeaUnits 4 and 5, Book IDistinguishing Topic from Main IdeaTopic/Title: the subject of the passage, expressed in words or phrase

60、s.“What or who is this passage about?”While reading, your readiness to read the material can also greatly influence your comprehension. Your readiness includes:how much you know about the content or the topic of the materialhow well you can use the reading skillsThink about how fast you read the fol