Activities on Reading Comprehension

 Activities on Reading Comprehension

Introduction: Reading is an essential element at every stage of one’s life, especially in schools,

colleges and at workplace. This is because reading is a means of discovering information to

expand one’s knowledge and understanding of the subject of any kind and any field. Reading

helps in mental development and is known to stimulate the muscles of the eyes. It involves

greater levels of concentration and improves the conversational abilities of the reader.

Reading Comprehension passages find their place in every competitive examination. Apparently,

solving reading comprehension passages seems to be easy, but in reality, it is difficult. The

question that vacillates in every aspirant’s mind is “How to improve Reading Comprehension”?

Students are adapted and comfortable in solving simple and undeviating passages in their schools

days, but the task becomes difficult when it comes to competitive examinations. Students find

difficulty in understanding the vocabulary, concept of the passage and lose interest in solving

reading comprehension passages.

Reading Comprehension Strategies:

Students often complain that they are unable to understand the given passage. If, you

happen to belong to this category of students, remember that you need not understand

each and every word, and at the same time you need to find out the summary or the gist

of the paragraph. Focusing on the key words is more important.

 Know your strengths. The conservative approach is, reading the passage and then

answering the questions. But some students do not feel comfortable with this approach.

Probably, they do not know which key words they have to remember, and waste a lot of

time in reading the passage again and again. In such situations, a ‘bottom up’ approach is

followed, where the students read the questions first and then look for corresponding

answers from the paragraph.

 Time management plays a crucial role. Apart from testing knowledge and skill,

competitive examinations also test an individual’s time management. Practice numerous

reading comprehension exercises with the help of a timer.

 Practice more. This will alone make you smart in managing time, understanding the

techniques and finally makes you proficient in answering the reading comprehension

passages.

 Improve your vocabulary. A person who has poor vocabulary stops more number of

times while reading a passage. Every time he/she comes across a new word, he/she stops

and tries to understand the meaning. In such situations, understanding the gist of the

passage becomes difficult. Having good vocabulary improves reading speed. It also helps

in understanding the passage better and saves a lot of time.

 Use a pencil while reading. Underline the key words.

 Find out words that are not necessary. If you carefully observe any reading

comprehension passage, you clearly understand that there are more number of words,

sentences and phrases which do not add any meaning to the passage. Try to eliminate this

junk while reading. You can understand that even without these unwanted words,

sentences and phrases the meaning of the passage is clear.

 Come back later. Sometimes when we don’t find answer for a particular question, we

generally tell ourselves that “Okay, let me proceed, I will come back to it later.” This is

indeed a good strategy and saves time, but before moving on to another question, circle

on your choice of answer, which you feel correct at the present moment. In most

situations when you go back to answer the question, you don’t remember the gist of the

passage. So, you have to read again from the beginning which consumes a lot of time.

 Most reading comprehensions are complex passages taken from scientific essays, well-

known fiction, literature or economics. Solving passages from different fields of

knowledge will not only give practice, but also increases vocabulary and reading speed.

 Focus on the content. Don’t let your mind to waver here and there.

General Vs Local Comprehension

General comprehension or Global comprehension means understanding the general meaning of

what an individual is reading. It is referred to the central idea of a multiple paragraph. Local

comprehension can be defined as the most important point about the topic of an individual

paragraph. The general meaning is stated in the paragraph and hence visible to the reader. The

local or implicit main idea was suggested in the paragraph and hence less visible to the reader.

Reading for facts

Every reading passage contains facts and details. The facts and details tell more about the main

idea. Questions about facts and details ask you about something that was stated in the

passage. To answer a question about a fact or detail, look back to the passage to find the answer.

Five WH questions and one H question answers everything about facts or details. They are who,

what, when. Where, why and how.

Guessing meanings from context

The ability to infer the meaning of an unknown word either by looking at the vocabulary around

it or its context is an important reading skill. The context here either refers to the sentence or the

paragraph where the unfamiliar word appears which provides the reader with information that to

give meaning or sense of the term. Four types of clues can be used to support reading

comprehension. They are synonyms, antonyms, examples and definitions and general

knowledge.

Scanning

It is another types of fast reading used to cover a great deal of material to locate a specific fact or

piece of information. While trying to find out meaning for a word in a dictionary, or looking for

a telephone number in the telephone directory, we scan and look for only specific information.

Scanning speed can be increased by regular practice and better concentration. Scanning is a very

important reading technique and serves several purposes, which include looking for

a. A specific point or fact

b. relevant details presented in the form of graphs or tables

c. a formulae in a text

d. a word in a dictionary

e. train or television schedules

f. references or bibliographical listings

g. examination results

Skimming

It is the rapid survey of the subject. This is to get a rough idea or to see quickly what the book is

about. It is a more sophisticated skill than scanning. The main objective of skimming is to

understand the central idea and the main points of a text. The reader has to read fast and make

quick analysis. Skimming involves three main skills: Identifying the central idea, recognizing

main ideas, and identifying the writing patterns of the passage. Skimming is indispensable for

better understanding of a text. Skimming should answer the following questions about a passage

or text.

What is the overall purpose of the text?

What is the theme or the central idea of the passage?

What is the organization of the passage?(general to specific, specific to general, chronological,

more important to less important, or less important to more important and so on.

What does the author intend to do? (describe, instruct, report, narrate, persuade and so on.)

What are the main points of the text?

Inferring meaning

Inferences are broadly referred to what “you read between lines.” Inferences are what the author

suggests or implies. The author wants the reader to arrive at the same conclusion the author has

arrived at. When the author implies something, the reader has to infer.

Critical Reading

Critical reading is engaging in what you read by posing questions to one self. For example ‘What

is the author trying to say’? or ‘what is the main idea or argument presented’? It involves a

reasoned argument coupled with evaluation and analyses of what you read.

Note: Don’t spend lot of time in skimming and scanning to avoid drifting away from the content

of the paragraph.

Effective Googling

Effective search is an important skill that everybody has to master. There are few tips to be

followed for effective googling.

1. Keep the search phrase short

2. Use quotes

3. Search a website

4. Search a domain extension

5. Tell it what you don’t want through a minus (-) sign.

6. Tell about what you don’t want.

7. Search for this or that

8. Use the wild card

9. Avoid synonyms

10. Do a specialty search.

Discussion Topics/Exercises

Read the paragraph and answer the following questions

April fool’s Day

April fool’s Day, sometimes called All Fool's Day, is on the first of April every year. People can

play practical jokes. That's why you shouldn't believe what is said to you and you should be

doubtful of the people around you on this day. Someone might change the time on another

person's alarm to make him wake up very early or very late. Or she / he may put a lot of pepper

in another's food. Of course all this is done just for fun. When the trick is played people say

"April Fool" to make the poor person realize that it was just a joke.

Some of the well known and most successful pranks or practical jokes were on the media -

television, radio stations, newspapers... For instance, a BBC television program ran a famous

hoax in 1957, showing Italians harvesting spaghetti from trees. A large number of people

contacted the BBC wanting to know how to cultivate spaghetti trees. In 2008, the BBC again

reported on a newly discovered colony of flying penguins showing people walking with the

penguins in Antarctica, and following their flight to the Amazon rainforest.

Source: Wikipedia

Comprehension:

1. April Fool’s Day is also called Fool Day?

a. True

b. False

2. On this day

a. you must be suspicious about what people around you say or do

b. You should wake up early in order not to be hoaxed

3. After you play a trick on someone

a. say April Fool

b. say April Fool's Day

4. After the announcement of the BBC "spaghetti documentary"

a. people believed the piece of news

b. people called the BBC to complain about being hoaxed