Teaching reading in a foreign language at the initial stage. Read in a foreign language

Municipal budgetary educational institution

Gymnasium No. 11

English teacher

Khonova Olga Vladimirovna

Korolev, 2013

Goals and objectives of teaching reading in a foreign language in the modern context

Reading in foreign languages ​​in our country has always been a strong point of teaching foreign languages.

In the last third of the 20th century, the situation began to change dramatically. The process of the younger generation refusing to read has begun. One of the first reasons was the displacement of the entertainment function of reading by video and audio media; another reason was the use of the Internet as a source of education, entertainment and leisure.

Over the ten years (2003-2012) that were declared by the UN as the Decade of Reading and Literacy, an increasing number of countries are changing the scientific paradigm associated with reading. They move from the traditional concept of “reading” to the concepts of “reading literacy,” “reading literacy,” and “reading competence.” Innovation in education starts with high levels of literacy and reading competence. This is the basis without which there can be no good education and effective learning.

New tasks set for primary and secondary schools in the native language in the field of reading force us to take a fresh look at the role and place of reading in the field of methods of teaching a foreign language.

Today, reading is considered in at least three forms: auditory reading, sight reading, and screen reading. Reading by ear goes back to the first type of reading. When young children first listen to texts read by adults, and then learn to read aloud themselves. However, true reading is considered silent reading. When the perceived visual information is processed and comprehended, when understanding the text is the result of reading activity.

Literary and home reading in foreign languages ​​in elementary school have always been mechanisms of motivation and introduction to reading. The best academic results in reading literacy come from schools where students read in their free time.

We differentiate programs home reading and literary reading.

The Home Reading program has long been widely used in our country in specialized schools, humanities classes, and gymnasiums. As the name of the program suggests, selected material is read at home and discussed in class. Its goal is not so much to teach reading itself, but to use the read material for the development of language skills (i.e., teaching grammar, vocabulary, phonetics) and oral speech skills, as a rule, reproduction and speaking. It is no coincidence that the tasks of reading in a foreign language are limited to the ability to read silently and understand the content of a text based on the studied language material.

The “Literary Reading” program is recognized to help the student realize “the importance of reading for his further development and for the successful learning of other subjects” so that he “develops the need for systematic reading as a means of understanding the world and himself.”

The teacher knows that it is necessary to teach the student to read different texts in different ways, setting himself the task of reading with a general or complete coverage of the content, or understanding only the given information. But the teacher sometimes forgets that the student must be taught to enjoy reading. At the same time, the teacher understands that if there is no experience of success, if there is no pleasure from performing the activity, then there will be no next attempt at this activity.

The introduction of the “Literary Reading” program in foreign languages ​​in secondary, at least specialized schools, gymnasiums and humanities classes of secondary schools would contribute to the formation and development of a competent reader capable of reading not only in their native language, but also in a foreign language. Literary reading is not only one of the best means of studying a living language and culture, a means of obtaining information and self-education, but also a means of recreational activity. This is reading for pleasure, relaxation, leisure.

The program consistently introduces the student to examples of fiction of different genres (fiction) and works of documentary prose (non-fiction). At the same time, one of the basic principles for selecting materials is the principle of pairing. So, a pair can be one fiction and one documentary book on the same topic. A pair can be a classic and a modern work or books by two authors describing the same events. We emphasize that works of classical literature must be combined with modern books. You should start reading in middle school with light, well-adapted literature.

Introducing reading is an independent task of the program. The principles of creating motivation for reading are not only the selection of literature that is interesting for a given age, but its location in the classroom, access to it and the organization of activities accompanying reading. reading journal, cool Screen reading and holding monthly reader conferences.

The main objectives of the first reading conferences are to recommend a book to read and explain it to the target audience. On Reading screen The student notes the books he has read and sometimes his attitude towards her. This creates a subject for common conversation and common interests. Based on the results of reading and presentation at the reading conference, the best readers are awarded. Often the best readers are not the best students.

The methodology of the “Literary Reading” program consistently develops strategies for pre-text, text and post-text reading activities.

Pre-text orientation strategies are aimed at setting reading goals, updating previous knowledge and experience, concepts and vocabulary of the text, as well as creating motivation for reading.

While working on reading, schoolchildren alternately read aloud (strategy

“Reading in a circle”), silently - with questions, with stops or with notes; keep notes in the reading journal, write reports on the book and reviews of them. The text activity strategies listed above are determined by the purpose, objectives and reading material. Having read the proposed pair of literary works, students, after reading, work on comparing and contrasting them along different lines: characters, plot, themes, issues, linguistic means, etc. The formulation of comparative characteristics allows them to develop mental operations ( thinking skills) and linguistic means of their expression to the level of general educational skills of a high order (high-order thinking), so necessary for high school students.

The purpose of reading in education is formation of a student capable of reading educational, popular science and reference literature. The goal of teaching reading in a foreign language is to form an active reader who uses written texts to participate in the life of society, achieve his personal goals, expand knowledge, develop his potential. This is a competent “business reader”, a future professional, a specialist, capable and ready to apply his fundamental reading skills building a knowledge society.

Non-literary (documentary, memoir, popular science) texts in a foreign language can be used to form the foundations of future business and professional reading. In this case, special attention should be paid to reading newspaper and magazine articles, as well as the Internet.

Reading and understanding educational texts forms the basis of learning to read in foreign languages ​​in the course of mastering the subject.

A person's vocabulary is the main link between reading and literacy. Today, strategies for expanding students' vocabulary can be presented in six large groups:

Group of targeted work with words. It involves the teacher explaining the word, memorizing and practicing using the word in context. Here it is recommended to observe quantitative indicators and limit the amount of memorization to 10-12 new words (phrases) per week.

A group of strategies and techniques for remembering words in context. This dictionary is not remembered unless the word is encountered multiple times in different texts. The teacher gives explanations for 6-10 words, but the main work is done by the students themselves. They explain their contextual understanding of the word and repeat its other meanings. If students read a series of books prepared by one group of authors or publishing house, then they are provided with multiple encounters with the word in different contexts.

Semantic guessing is the next technique that is easily used by students who read well. However, these words are almost not remembered. In order to remember them, you need crossword puzzles, games with individual words, and exercises to memorize them.

A group of techniques that teach self-study of words. This is record keeping and volume. Sometimes you need to write down a word, pronunciation, stress, translation, usage, and sometimes just a synonym. The amount of information about a word varies and depends on many factors, and the student needs to master a lot. Here, each student develops the system that is most convenient for him, but he needs to try different techniques for working with words.

Analyzing a word by composition is another potential for developing a student's vocabulary.

Maintaining dictionaries or writing words on cards. A dictionary can be organized by topic, by grammatical form, or in other ways. The introduction of a portfolio allows you to organize vocabulary teaching in different ways.

The teacher’s task when working on educational texts is to make sure that the student does not have a single incomprehensible word.

Literature

1. Belyaev B.V. Essays on the psychology of teaching foreign languages. – M., 1965.

2. PISA study - 2009. Results. http :// www . Centeroko . ru / pisa 09_ res . htm

3.Klychnikova ZL. Psychological features of learning to read in a foreign language. - M., 1973.

4. Melentyeva Yu.P. Reading: phenomenon, process, activity. – M.: Nauka, 2010.

5. Planned results of primary general education. – M.: Education, 2009. (Second generation standards).

6. Literacy reimagined. Based on materials from an international study. PISA-2000. - M.: Logos, 2004.

7.Nikiforova O.I. Psychology of perception of fiction. M., 1972.

8.Smemannikova N.N. Teaching reading strategies in grades 5-9: how to implement the Federal State Educational Standard. - M.: Balass, 2011.

9.Folomkina S.K. Teaching reading in a foreign language at a non-linguistic university. M., 1987.

10. Reading from sight, from the screen and “by ear”: Experience of Russia and other countries / Collection of materials. Comp. E. Yu. Genieva, Yu. P. Melentyeva. - M.: RSBA, 2009.

Reading should be built as a cognitive process, cause mental activity in students, be accompanied by the solution of certain mental problems that require comprehension of the facts contained in the text, and their comparison and grouping.

When teaching comprehension of what is being read, one should rely on students’ mastery of the structure of the language, which facilitates and speeds up the reading process, as it allows the reader to quickly and correctly divide the sentences of the text into syntagms and establish semantic relationships between the elements of the text. All this ensures an accurate understanding of the text.

Knowledge of the structural features (grammar) of a foreign language also makes reading much easier.

Learning to read should include not only receptive, but also reproductive activity of students. Although reading is a receptive type of speech activity, its course requires a number of operations of a reproductive nature, which are most clearly visible in internal pronunciation and in the operation of forecasting mechanisms.

The functioning of reading as a speech activity requires the automation of methods for its implementation. The external manifestation of automation is high reading speed and the reader’s ability to read at different speeds (reading flexibility). All this requires special attention to developing reading speed. At the same time, however, it should be taken into account that its development is not an end in itself, but a way available to the teacher to manage the formation of technical reading skills and the semantic processing of what is read.

Stages of working on the text.

There are different points of view regarding which stages of working on a text should be included in the educational process, and which are most effective. Naturally, the types of work chosen depend on the goals we set before reading.

So, for example, V.M. Fadeev, based on the goal of teaching foreign languages ​​in a modern school, distinguishes two stages in organizing home reading.

The first stage is reading itself as the process of obtaining information from the text. This stage is required when working on any text. However, at this stage the work on most of the texts offered to students for independent home reading should end.

The second stage is a conversation based on home reading material. This stage of work should be selective and apply only to part of the texts or fragments thereof that are most suitable for speech practice.

G.G. Skazkiv distinguishes two stages in organizing a home reading test.

The first stage is the analysis of the lexical and grammatical difficulties of the text, the activation of new lexical material and monitoring the understanding of the information contained in the text.

The second stage is a creative discussion of the content of what was read.

M. Balakireva believes that to work with a book the following sequence is necessary: ​​Vocabularywork, Comprehension, Discussion, Writing.

E.V. Bespalchikova, on the contrary, says that at the middle stage, home reading lessons no longer involve direct work on linguistic means and do not contain language and pre-speech exercises. Analytical conversation is built on two levels: the level of meaning and the level of meaning.

A.I. Panov also considers it inappropriate to use forms and methods of work that turn control of what is read into work on developing oral speech skills or translation skills. Therefore, he uses speech exercises only as a means to test reading comprehension. The lesson includes three stages:

• 1) control of understanding of the general content;
• 2) checking the understanding of certain essential details;
• 3) assessment of what was read.

N. Ishchuk, offering a guide to home reading for high school students, mainly gives what we call “pre-text” exercises. Most of the tasks are focused specifically on working with words and grammatical structures used in the text, which are aimed at developing oral speech skills. Thus, she places reading as a means, not a goal, of learning.

In a more traditional method, there are usually 3 stages of work on any text: pre-text stage (anticipation stage), text stage, post-text stage. Obviously, the post-text stage will be present in the case when the text is considered not so much as a means of developing reading skills, but rather for the development of productive skills in oral or written speech, or, more simply, the ability to speak and write in a foreign language.

In the pre-text period, reading rules are also mastered. They usually extend to letter combinations, mastery of which contributes to anticipatory recognition of words. During this same period, the assimilation of the simplest symbolism necessary for the subsequent marking of texts (vertical lines to indicate pauses, the sign of verbal and phrasal stress, the sign of rising and falling tones, etc.) occurs.

In the pre-text period, students learn to read not only words, but also phrases and simple sentences. In connection with the latter, it is necessary to learn some prohibitive rules, in particular: do not put emphasis on function words: articles, connectives and prepositions; do not pause between the article and the following word, between the preposition and the word related to it. The pre-text period lasts while students read individual elements of the text, i.e. syllables, words, phrases and sentences that do not reflect the situation. With the advent of simple but coherent texts, a text period begins, which extends to all stages of learning. Since during this period the text appears as a semantic whole, it should be read in its entirety or, if it is large, in semantic chunks.

The goal of the text-based read-aloud period is to lead students to simultaneously comprehend and understand the text. At the same time, the development and improvement of perception is carried out in unity with the solution of semantic problems. To do this, it is important to continue working on the following components of the content of teaching reading aloud in parallel with stimulation and control of understanding: grapheme-phoneme associations, word and phrase stress, pausing, melody, reading fluency. (Of course, all these components are mastered on the basis of the principle of approximation.) To master these components of reading aloud, one should use a single type of reading - “uniformly attentive reading” (L. M. Schwartz), in which perception and understanding are carried out synchronously throughout the entire short period of time. by the volume of the text or its fragment. Evenly attentive reading aloud at the initial stage is, in fact, an elementary phase of learning reading. When implementing it, the following modes are used, which together make up the subsystem of teaching reading aloud:

Imode. Reading aloud based on a standard. The standard can come from the teacher, it can be given in the recording. In both cases, reading aloud is preceded by a certain analytical stage, which consists of a sound-letter analysis of difficult phenomena and

text label. The standard is read twice: expressively, in continuous text, then with pauses, during which students read, trying to imitate the standard (“paused reading”). In conclusion, students begin reading the text completely, first in a whisper, then out loud. An indicator of the correctness or incorrectness of understanding is intonation and the solution of elementary semantic problems.

However, you should not overuse reading aloud based on the standard, since a large proportion of imitation can lead to passivity of perception, which will slow down learning to read. Therefore, this mode must be combined with independent reading without a standard.

IImode. Reading aloud without a standard, but with preparation in time. This mode maximizes the perception of graphic matter by students and increases their responsibility. The sequence of work is as follows:

“Rehearsal” in the form of reading to oneself followed by marking the text. Here, silent reading acts as a means of finding intonation, i.e., as a stage of reading aloud.

"Mutual Reading" During pair work, students first check each other's text markup, then take turns reading the text to each other. Mutual reading enhances the appeal and overall expressiveness of reading. The teacher connects to the working pairs through the control panel, identifying their strengths and weaknesses for subsequent improvement. The indicators of correct/incorrect understanding are the same: intonation and solving semantic problems.

III mode. Reading without a standard and preliminary preparation. Here, two successive stages are distinguished: reading without a standard and preliminary preparation of previously worked texts and new ones.

Reading aloud previously worked texts is aimed primarily at developing reading fluency and expressiveness. After all, reading fluency creates the conditions for grasping the meaning completely and simultaneously. Here the clue comes from the text itself, its familiar content. There is no need to read the text silently to find the correct intonation. Thus, no matter what approach we follow, the sequence of work on the text will be approximately the following: pre-speech exercises (Vocabularywork), control of the concept of content (text stage), control of the concept of important details of the text (analysis and evaluation, post-text stage), analysis of literary and stylistic features of the text. The need for pre-speech exercises and literary analysis of the text still remains controversial, but it is probably necessary to use both in the work so that the tasks are as diverse as possible and all types of speech activity develop harmoniously.

In accordance with current practice within trade and industry, about 90% of the use of foreign words occurs in reading and only 10% in oral communication with foreigners. Therefore, when learning a language, you need to develop not only speaking skills, but it is important to focus on reading newspapers, magazines and books. In this case, passive mastery of words and grammar will be quite sufficient.

At the same time, you need to know many more words to read than to carry on a conversation, but learning them will take much less time, since when reading you just need to recognize the words. According to experts, 50% less time is spent on learning to read than on mastering oral speech.

Learning words

1. Find out the meanings of unfamiliar words.

2. Write down these values ​​immediately in the margins of a book, newspaper, magazine, or better yet, on a separate piece of paper.

3. Repeat and memorize them.

You don't need to spend a lot of time figuring out the meaning of words. There are 3 main ways:

1. Try to understand the meaning of the word from the context.

2. Find the word in a bilingual dictionary.

3. If your vocabulary is sufficient, then you can look up an unclear word in a monolingual dictionary.

When reading a book in a foreign language, you need to read the first 40-50 pages very carefully, while figuring out the meaning of all unclear words. And after that, you can open the dictionary only with keywords, without which it is generally unclear what you are talking about.

It is useful to write down the meanings of words in the margins of a book or newspaper in pencil. In this case, by repeating the written words, you can regularly refresh your memory of the context in which they occurred. But some overly neat people hate to write something in the margins of books. They keep a notebook for these purposes. It should be noted that such notebooks are the most reliable way to bury knowledge of words. It is better to make notes on separate pieces of paper and leave them as bookmarks on the corresponding pages.

How to read literature

It is necessary to look at the language being studied not as an end, but as a means. Therefore, it is best to read what is truly interesting. It is better not to pick up boring and unsubstantial literature. At the same time, the Bible works very well as a teaching text. The construction of phrases in the Holy Scriptures is extremely simple, and the vocabulary is limited to 10 thousand words. As for newspapers, you should first focus on international news. When reading such information, sometimes it is enough to find only 2-3 unfamiliar words.

Fiction is harder to read. Here you need to know about 8 thousand words so as not to consult a dictionary. And first it is better to take on children's literature, and then move on to detective stories and mysticism, since this genre is interesting in itself.

What makes up success?

Knowing 1000 words, you can cope with simple texts using a dictionary.

Knowing 2000 words, you can understand most of the text in your specialty and quite a lot of what is written about in magazines and newspapers.

If you know 4000 words, you can easily read literature in your specialty and understand most of what the press writes about.

The maximum level is 8000 words. At the same time, you can read and understand everything, including fiction.

Knowledge of words in percentage

In order to be able to read in a foreign language, you need to be familiar with the vocabulary. If you correctly select and memorize the 80 most frequently occurring words, they will cover 50% of the most common text. And to understand 60% of what you read, you need to know 200 words. 800 words already provide 80% understanding of the text, and with 2000 words, you can understand 90% of the text. How do you get to 99% understanding? Here you need to know 8 thousand words. In this case, you can read literature of any complexity without looking at the dictionary.

This calculation is a general guideline. In principle, knowledge of 3-4 thousand words is quite sufficient, since such a vocabulary covers 95% of the text. What is not clear can be thought out or guessed from the context. But each person chooses for himself how many words he should know and how to read. All of the above is only a recommendation, which, undoubtedly, should benefit all those who want to read and understand literature in a foreign language.

Yuri Syromyatnikov

Reading in a foreign language
Copyright 1996, Christopher G. Dugdale. All rights reserved.

I have used this approach myself in three languages, and students have used it with great success in four others. I first read about this training technique almost 20 years ago. And I am constantly amazed by its speed and efficiency, as well as ease of use. There are two steps to learning any written language. Learn the alphabet and letters first, then read regularly at a good speed.

Translation and memorization of word lists

First, let me explain that it is up to you whether to include additional steps or not. If you want to memorize word lists before you start reading, do it! In my experience, memorizing lists of words is slow and inadequate, perhaps because the words so often have no equivalent in another language, perhaps because it is boring, or perhaps people learn better when immersed in the subject matter being studied. Whatever the case, if you're happy with your studies now, it's worth considering alternative learning methods if you want to improve your understanding quickly.

If you want to translate something using a dictionary for each word, do it! One of my students began studying English by translating classical Japanese plays. At first, he used a dictionary for every word (literally!) and spent many hours translating each page. At first his work required a lot of corrections, but within a year he was able to translate 2, 3, 5 pages a week, reducing the amount of time spent. By the end of the year, his work required few revisions and he was able to “publish” it to family and friends. He was almost 50 years old when he started and had not learned English since school. If you want to learn this way, and it's interesting and enjoyable for you, do it! However, this is not the fastest way to learn, but keep in mind that it may be appropriate for you at the moment. Do whatever motivates you to exercise regularly, if possible during the day.

Two steps

Of course, you start by learning the alphabet or set of letters of a new language. In alphabetic languages, you need to become familiar with diphthongs, triphthongs, and modifiers. Then you start reading. It is so simple! Let's start by looking at the two main types of writing, alphabetic (where letters or groups of letters represent sounds) and symbolic (where each symbol has a meaning and a sound). But first a warning.

If you want to learn how to speak, listen and communicate, don't think reading will help you much. Maybe, but it’s better for you to do other things - read the articles in the Spoken Language section. The techniques outlined in these pages almost completely separate reading/writing and listening/communicating as two different areas of study. And you too share. It's faster, easier and more interesting. Moreover, these two groups of activities are suitable for different times and places, so this division easily fits your daily work.

Learning the alphabet

An alphabet or phonetic writing uses letters to represent sounds. The pronunciation may be simply phonetic, as in newly written languages ​​such as Tok Pisin, used in Papua New Guinea, where one letter always sounds the same, or it may be complex, as in English, where sounds have many letters (shwa is the most famous of them), or one letter can have 2-3 readings (the letter "c" for example).

If this suits your situation, focus on socializing for a while before you start reading. In phonetic languages ​​you can read and write in a week or two if your speaking is good. When you really want to learn to read and write, make it a separate activity. First memorize the sounds using a tape or teacher. In English it starts with a, b, k, d, i, f, g (but not ei, bii, sii, dii, ii, ef, jii, which is the name of the letters). Explore your options as well; "c" can be read to or with, for example, and treat the modified letters (in accents) as separate sounds.

Once you're done with the sounds, switch to writing letters and use the flash cards to relate the basic letters to their sounds. For English there are 52 cards, lower case abc and upper case ABC. Native speakers, teachers or friends, can help by giving phonics tests while you write the letters - "ee" represents the letters e, i or y, for example. Because There are less than a hundred of them in almost every language; learning the sounds of letters and vice versa will only take a few hours. Then it's time to move on to letter groups, diphthongs like ch, ph, ee, triphthongs like sch and chr, and large groups like ight.

I have found that most English beginners, whether child or adult, can master this stage in a few hours. Next to sounding out the words on the cards. If you have learned the basics of phonetics (sounds) well, even words like telephone, elephant, school can be read quite well. If you are learning an alphabetic language, skip the next paragraph.

Character set

Chinese, Japanese and Ancient Egyptian are examples of languages ​​that use character sets, where each character has a meaning and a sound or sounds. Since this type of letter has many characters, more than 2 thousand, you can't wait, start now! Don't even wait until you start talking, it won't help. Treat writing as a completely separate task and it will become much easier.

Fortunately, the main character set in use today is kanji, used in various Chinese languages ​​and Japanese. This is fortunate because kanji is relatively standard, so you will be able to understand a lot of Chinese if you are learning Japanese, for example. Moreover, kanji can be learned in any language because the symbol is always the same in meaning no matter where bi appears. This means you can get up to speed quickly by learning how to read kanji in your native language.

You need to start by learning the directions, left to right, top to bottom for kanji, and writing the first hundred characters a hundred times of each is a good start. Don't skip this step! As you progress, remember the basic meaning or meaning of each symbol.

Then you can move on to flash cards with a symbol on one side and the main meaning/meanings on the other. Look at the meaning and try to write the symbol before you look at it - write it on paper or with your finger on the palm of your other hand or in the air. Always work from meaning to symbol - you must be able to write. I determined that 2 hours a day of exercise allowed me to remember 15 hundred kanji in 6 months. It's not hard. Others learned 2 or 3 thousand kanji in a month, devoting more time to it every day.

Because now you understand at least the basic meaning, the reading becomes more interesting once you get started. If you're learning kanji, you can probably start "reading" after you've written the first thousand characters by looking at the basic meaning, although memorizing the second thousand is much, much faster than the first, so you may want to continue memorizing before moving on to reading.

Start reading

Once you can roughly sound out the words or recognize enough characters, start reading! See the article "Choosing Reading Material" for information on what to read.

Read silently

Read silently. Yes it is, don't make any sounds, don't move your tongue or lips and breathe normally. Reading out loud slows you down and (notoriously!) doesn't help your pronunciation. You get pronunciation, speed, stress, etc. through Mimicking. Reading is reading. It is important. Reading out loud also doesn't help you remember word meanings, grammar, or anything else. Remember, in elementary school, learning to read aloud is only a stepping stone to learning to read silently. We look at the concept of written language. Adults and children who can read do not need this help with cognitively understanding the meaning of writing. Skip this step - there is no need to read aloud. (If you need to present a paper at a conference, take a look at Hikaru Surprises the World, which talks about how to prepare for a public presentation). Try to sound out the words in your head or identify the meaning of a symbol as you read. After all, your mind needs to be active. Continue as fast as you can.

Read faster

Try to read for longer than ten minutes at least twice a day. More is better. Vary the speed to keep things interesting, but gradually increase the speed. Your initial goal is to work on your rote reading speed until it is at least twice as fast as normal speech in your target language. In English this is 500 words per minute or more. From the beginning of this article to this point there are about 15 hundred words, so at 500 words per minute you should be able to read here in 3 minutes.

Concentrating on your rote reading speed is your goal. Understanding topics, paragraphs, words or sentences - no. Learning to read and understand a foreign language is not a simple or mechanical process. If the approach I'm suggesting seems simple and mechanical, do me a favor and try it for a month or two before complaining. You will find that it is almost completely impossible to concentrate only on the mechanical aspect of reading.

Using Dictionaries

It's boring. No! You will see at an early stage when you start working. Writing samples, common words and phrases, etc. will begin to occupy your thoughts. You start with word lists when you learn the alphabet, so your vocabulary is at least above zero, and the human mind naturally loves solving puzzles. Try to read in blocks of 20 or 30 minutes, using a dictionary to look up curious words after you've finished reading. If it seems too long, just set yourself that goal, but don't be hard on yourself. Without any idea of ​​the content, you will not be able to understand a completely unfamiliar language, but use the dictionary discretely. New words that appear frequently should come to mind when you get to the dictionary. After your first sessions you will be looking for words like the, and, a, too and other very common words, but this is normal. Reading in blocks of half an hour or more will give you a chance to learn from context, and holding back on using a dictionary involves this learning.

Why does it work

Why do these two steps - three if you count the way you use dictionaries - produce results? I don't know, although I shared some of my guesses in the previous paragraph. What I do know is that I and many of my students are excited about how fun and exciting this path to learning to read is. It would be easy to write a list of the many authors who have learned written language with relative ease in a surprisingly short period. As a teacher, I constantly look out for those special people who have achieved something quickly and well compared to what they were doing, and then offer these methods to my students. Fortunately, what works for one person works for others, and I constantly maintain the suspicion that people are essentially alike in talent and ability when it comes to learning languages. I also constantly receive evidence in favor of the assumption that some teaching methods used give significantly better results in terms of the speed of learning and the quality of the language you acquire.

Reading faster
This is not speed reading
Copyright 1996, Christopher G. Dugdale. All rights reserved.

Tips on how to read faster.
Learning English as a foreign language while living in a non-English speaking country requires courage, perseverance and determination. Consistent reading is a big help in making it more enjoyable. Significant increases in speed without loss of understanding are possible and feasible in a short period of time.

At low speeds of up to 200 words per minute (wpm), reading speed is primarily a physical skill. A skill that can be improved through practical training that focuses on what you do with your eyes. Learners of English as a second language, by focusing on this skill, find that they can increase their reading speed and therefore language learning by focusing on the experience of one individual, whom I will call Hikaru-san (Not his real name). Excerpts from his letters about reading appeared in a previous article, Growing in reading).

Hikaru-san first needed to understand the difficulties facing him. The benefits were obvious:
Read more in the same amount of time
· It becomes easier to learn from context.
· More memorable.

While learning kanji from context, Hikaru-san knew this technique, but did not realize that he could also learn English from context. By pointing out that only the basic kanji are memorized and the rest are learned by repeated appearance while reading, I was able to convince Hikaru-san:
1. Read non-stop (without stopping). At the end of your reading, use a dictionary to look up frequently occurring words if you wish.

It was easy and allowed me to control the reading speed, which turned out to be 80 seconds per minute. Trying to make some progress, Hikaru-san tended to re-read it 3-4 times to analyze the sentence. He believed that finding the subject, predicate and object is an important part of reading English. So the next sentence was obvious:
2. Read non-stop without repeating or analyzing.

As with many students, the following point raises a lot of debate because it is a new idea:
3. Choose INTERESTING reading material - this will motivate you to continue.

Although it seems self-evident, most of my students did not read things that interested them. In fact, they often pored over nonsense that they found boring, in the mistaken belief that it was good for them because it was 'on their level'. This may or may not be true - but poorly chosen material leads to start-stop reading and lack of commitment. Consistency is what gets results, and definitely the fact that I'm reading something that interests me means that I find it worth pursuing...

By strengthening these three points, Hikaru-san was able to integrate reading into his daily studies. Consistency began to pay off, and reading English became interesting in itself. After a few months, Hikaru-san decided to significantly improve his reading speed. The sudden jump to 500 rpm was disappointing, so more tips are on the way:

4. Increase your reading speed in discrete steps.

5. Slow down if necessary to avoid frustration when you don't understand.

6. Try faster.

Of course, I said things like, “Your understanding will improve quickly in months. Stay at this speed (500 cpm) for 6 months, then increase by 100 cpm every 6 months up to 800 cpm. Stay at 800 rpm for a year, then jump up to 1200.” The time period may seem excessive, but I tried to encourage Hikaru-san to integrate English into his life. To accomplish this, I provided short-term help and long-term strategy and information so that he understood the technique he was using and had the opportunity to improve, even without my advice.

I also try to make sure he knows enough to apply his knowledge to other areas of language learning. Hikaru-san started reading at 500 cpm, but found that he “could not grasp the meaning at all, so he started reading at the usual speed of 200-250 cpm.” In response, I gave him more information.

A strong suggestion: stick to 500 cpm and don't re-read. My Japanese friend who studied English in America advised me this. She said that she usually re-read, but soon discovered that this did not help improve the language.

She also said that she often varied her reading speed (for example, 500 cpm - 15 min, then 250 cpm - 5 min, then 350 cpm - 10 min, then 500 cpm - 5 min, etc. .) so she didn't get tired, understood enough to keep her interested, and increased her reading speed.

As a result of this suggestion, Hikaru-san changed his strategy and began reading the first 1-2 pages of each chapter at 200s/min, then speeded up to 500s/min and finished reading. According to him, it's pretty good. Understanding the situation is a big help in following the plot when you read 500 ppm.

Hikaru-san is surprised at how much he has achieved in the last 6 months and has started reading Chinese and German! You can read excerpts from his diary in the article Growing in reading.

Lecture 18.

1. Teaching reading techniques.

2. Reading as a type of speech activity.

3. Requirements for educational texts.

4. Types of reading.

5. Methodology for working on reading text.

6. Monitoring comprehension when reading.

1. Traditionally, in foreign language teaching methods they talk about the formation of language skills and speech skills. If we talk about reading, then speech skills in this case include mastery of various technologies for extracting information from text, their adequate use depending on the task at hand. However, the basis of all these skills is reading technique. If you do not develop it sufficiently, if you do not achieve automation of this skill, then all these technologies or types of reading will be jeopardized. Since skills are primary and abilities are secondary, it is obvious that at the initial stage of learning to read, we are talking primarily about the formation of reading techniques, i.e., a “procedural plan.”

Reading technique– students’ knowledge of sound-letter correspondences, the ability to combine perceived material into semantic groups (syntagms) and correctly formulate them intonationally.

The basis of the formation of reading techniques are the following operations:

Correlating the visual/graphic image of a speech unit with its auditory-vocal-motor image;

Correlation of auditory-vocal motor images of speech units with their meaning.

Teacher's tasks when developing reading techniques are to:

Bypass the intermediate stage of pronunciation as soon as possible and establish a direct correspondence between the graphic image of a speech unit and its meaning;

Consistently increase the unit of perceived text and bring it to at least a syntagm by the end of the first year of study;

Form standard reading in compliance with acceptable tempo, stress, pausing and intonation norms.

When developing reading techniques at the initial stage, we talk about reading mainly as a means of learning.

One of the particular methodological principles is the principle of oral advance, which means familiarization with the visual image of words lags behind familiarization with the auditory-motor image.

Work on reading techniques begins with the formation of grapheme-phoneme connections in students.

There are the following difficulties in teaching grapheme-phoneme correspondences:

Differences in the system of connections in the native and foreign languages ​​(interlingual interference);

The discrepancy between the sound and graphic systems of the foreign language itself (intra-linguistic interference).

Causes:

1. New alphabet. There are 3 groups of letters:

· coinciding in style with the letters of the native language (A B S O R K T N M);

· partially coinciding (Y U D);

· completely different (Q Z F W J).

Matching letter styles is a source of difficulty, because... they can convey other sounds.

Capital letters can match, but lowercase letters cannot (T - t)

Mastering the Latin alphabet is largely associated with the interfering influence of the native language in the field of graphics and sound.

2. The presence of different ways of transmitting sounds in letters compared to the Russian language:

Using letter combinations to depict 1 sound (th, sh, ng);

Dependence of the reading of vowels in a stressed syllable on the type of syllable;

Frequent mismatch in the number of phonetic and spelling syllables in a word;

Lack of an unambiguous connection between a sound and a letter: the same letter or letter combination often serves to designate different sounds (c, g, th, –or, aw, all).

Used at school analytical-synthetic method teaching reading techniques. Students are informed of certain rules of reading (patterns of letter-sound correspondences); for their practical assimilation, word analysis is used, its decomposition into syllables, after which its holistic perception is automated.

But in the English language, not all patterns can be generalized into rules accessible to students. Reading rules are given if they apply to a group of words; if the word is single, mastery of the visual image occurs through repeated repetition and reading.

At the initial stage of training, frequency words are studied, the reading of which deviates from the rules (have, many, girl, pu[ ^ ]t, o[еu]ne).

The method of teaching reading techniques is “by keywords”: the use of keywords with color signals indicating significant signs of recognizing similar words in groups and facilitating memorization of the graphic image of words of this type (h igh, l igh t, n igh t, f igh t).

There are reading methods:

Sound;

Syllabic;

Whole words;

The last two are characteristic of the English language.

System for developing reading skills:

1. At the beginning of their education, children become familiar with consonant letters and the sounds they can convey. Letters are presented not in the order in which they are presented in the alphabet, but depending on the frequency of their appearance in the speech patterns that children master.

2. Having studied all the consonants, at the same time increasing their vocabulary and speech repertoire in several educational communication situations, students begin to read vowels in various words. The important thing is that reading in this case relies on certain oral speech skills. Children read and write what they talk about. There is a secondary consolidation of speech patterns and a transfer of oral speech skills to the formation of certain compensatory skills in reading. In this case, children read real words, and transcription icons only help to establish certain correspondences between the graphic and sound images of various words.

Being able to read a word from a transcription is very important because it provides greater autonomy for the student and is a guarantee of success in independent work. However, in real life we ​​never read texts written in transcription.

Almost simultaneously with reading individual words, work begins to increase the unit of perceived text. Students read words and phrases, and then sentences with them or educational mini-texts. Here such important components of reading technique as tempo, intonation, stress, pauses, etc. are formed. The role of such exercises as choral and individual recitation of the text behind the teacher in the classroom and repetition of the same text after the speaker during a pause at home can hardly be overestimated.

There are the following parameters for assessing reading technique:

1) reading pace (a certain number of words per minute);

2) compliance with stress norms (semantic, logical; do not stress function words, etc.);

3) compliance with pause standards;

4) use of correct intonation patterns;

5) reading comprehension.

All parameters are equally important and determine the assessment together.

At the middle and senior stages of education, reading techniques are corrected and improved. In order to improve reading technique, exercises should be carried out in lessons designed to develop silent reading fluency, since in the process of independent reading, students cannot monitor their pace, much less speed it up. Reading aloud can be a good phonetic exercise and, if organized wisely, can contribute to the development of speaking skills and abilities. For this purpose, you should use one or two paragraphs and carefully work through a section of text with students using phonetic markings.

DIAGRAM OF THE SEQUENCE OF ACTIONS OF THE TEACHER AND STUDENTS WHEN WORKING ON A READING TEXT

/Formation of a mechanism for reading aloud with direct understanding of what is read/

1. Oral advance. Mastering lexical and grammatical material in oral speech exercises.

2. Analysis of the text by the teacher and identification of graphemes in it that cause difficulties for students.

3. Communicative attitude towards reading activities and students’ direct understanding of what they read.

4. Performing exercises to develop the skill of quickly distinguishing graphic images of letters.

For example:

Read the letter;

Find a capital letter, a small letter... among several;

Make words from the following letters...;

Name words starting with the letter ...;

Show the letter corresponding to the given sound, etc.

5. Isolating words and phrases from the text that include these graphemes and pronouncing them by students, for example:

Choose words that are read according to the rule /not according to the rule/;

Read similar words;

Select words with a specific grapheme;

Compose words by completing the missing letters;

Look at the following words and say how they are different;

Reading words by keyword, etc.

6. Students listen to a sample of text reading and students perform phonetic markings of the text; control of understanding of its content.

7. Repeated listening to the text and speaking during pauses with a specific target setting.

8. Identifying and correcting errors in students’ reading based on rules and simulation.

9. Syntagmatic reading of the text following the speaker / teacher / based on the text.

10. Independent choral and individual reading of the text aloud while simultaneously completing a communicative task to understand what is being read.

11. Test reading of the text aloud by individual students.

12. Summarizing and grading for reading technique.

2. Reading as a type of speech activity, it is a process of perception and active processing of information graphically encoded according to the system of a particular language.

In reading, as in any activity, there are two plans:

procedural(elements of the activity process, i.e. how to read and voice it).

It should be noted that the leading role always belongs to the first. The content of an activity includes, first of all, its goal - the result towards which it is aimed. In reading, such a goal is to reveal semantic connections - understanding a speech work presented in written form (text).

Turning to a book can pursue different goals: sometimes you just need to determine what it is about, in other cases it is important to catch all the shades of the author’s thoughts, etc., i.e. the expected result is not the same in different reading situations. The nature of understanding (the degree of its completeness, accuracy and depth) of what is read, which the reader strives for, depends on the purpose of reading. And this, in turn, determines how he will read: slowly or quickly, reading every word or skipping entire pieces of text, rereading certain passages or looking through the page “diagonally,” etc.

In other words, the reading process is not something constant, it changes under the influence of the purpose of reading: as in any activity, the reader strives to obtain the result in the most economical way. And the more experienced the reader, the more successfully he copes with this task: he reads in different ways, his reading is characterized by flexibility. Flexibility is the hallmark of a mature reader.

Mature is reader, who freely carries out this type of speech activity, thanks to his ability to choose each time the type of reading that is adequate to the task, which allows him to solve it not only correctly, but also quickly, thanks to the complete automation of technical skills.

Reading acts as target And How means teaching a foreign language.

Students' mastery of the ability to read in a foreign language is one of the practical goals of studying this subject in secondary school, i.e. involves students mastering reading as a means of obtaining information. Along with practical teaching, reading also pursues educational and educational goals. Reading largely implements the cognitive function of language, and the correct selection of texts makes it possible to use the factual information contained in them both to expand the general horizons of students and for educational purposes. When reading, linguistic observation develops, and students learn to be more attentive to the linguistic design of their thoughts.

As a means - the use of reading for better assimilation of language and speech material and expansion of knowledge of the language being studied.

Reading is associated with mental processes:

Thinking (comparison, generalization, analysis, synthesis, abstraction, etc.);

Internal speaking;

Probabilistic forecasting (anticipation at the level of words, sentences, meaning).

Psycho-physiological mechanisms of reading:

Perception;

Installation of sound-letter correspondences;

Anticipation;

Internal speaking;

Understanding and comprehension;

Identification of semantic milestones;

Reading involves: visual, speech-motor and auditory analyzers.

As in other types of speech activity, there are three stages in reading:

Incentive and motivational (the emergence of a need for reading);

Analytical-synthetic (mechanisms);

Executive (task completion).

3. Currently, the teacher does not lack texts. The problem is how to choose the best teaching materials. To do this, it is necessary to formulate the requirements for educational texts today, and therefore the principles for their selection. Let's limit ourselves to the most necessary of them.