Unless you can overcome the causes of your rate of reading comprehension, you may not be able to perform excellently in comprehension and summary examinations.
Before you learn to improve your comprehension skills, you should first learn how to overcome the causes of a poor rate of comprehension. Take the following: There is nothing much a student can do to enhance his/her naturally endowed intelligence quotient.
But where a student is operating below his/her I.Q., either due to poor family background or socioeconomic, environmental, personality and physiological problems, much can be done for improvement.
The student should develop a positive attitude towards himself/herself and often seek the counsel of his/her teacher. The student should realise that economic and other environmental problems are not permanent.
He/she should not allow them to destroy his/her opportunity for a high rate of comprehension for success in examinations.
Physiological malfunction
To avoid the adverse influence of this on your reading comprehension, you should endeavour to do the following: (i) engage in distributed learning: Avoid reading for too long at a go.
Develop a reading method that is convenient to you; (ii) have adequate rest, particularly before and during the period of an examination; (iii) and for neurological and physiological defects, see a medical adviser.
Over-emphasis on word recognition and word reading
Use words as a ladder to climb into the mind of the author of the passage which you are reading. You can do this by reading phrase by phrase and in thought units.
Insufficient background for reading a passage
You know that no soldier goes to war without being armed, and no worker goes to work without tools. Likewise, you need (i) sufficient vocabulary or strong word power to read effectively, (ii) and you should endeavour to do extra-curricular reading activities to enhance your language background.
Not every word you come across, use it as your word for everyday living.
Inflexible reading
Make a conscious effort to always vary your reading rate with the level of difficulty of the passage being read. Practise flexible reading.
Personality problems
The personality types that can adversely affect reading comprehension are conflicted, unconcerned, indolent, prejudiced and uninformed or illiterate.
Do not give yourself up to any of these personality types. You should aspire to be a diligent reader who is hard-working and has a sense of direction. You should also have a sophisticated personality.
Lack of appropriate comprehension skills
To overcome the problem of a lack of appropriate comprehension skills, you should, at any time you are reading a passage, first of all, determine the main thought or main idea of the passage. Then, examine the signal words: That continues the author’s thought, such a, also, in addition, moreover, furthermore;
- (ii) that illustrate the author’s thoughts, such as, for example, for instance, to illustrate, such as;
- (iii) that reverse the author’s thought, such as, but on the other hand, on the contrary, yet and despite;
- (iv) that conclude the author’s thought, ht such as, therefore, as a result. Finally, in conclusion, and consequently.
Lack of summary skills
After you have examined the signal words, try to spot the nature of the organisation of the passage. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Is the pattern or organisation of the passage logical?
- Is it chronological?
- Is it sequential?
- Is it contrastive – contrasting ideas to make a point?
- Is it a question-and-answer plan?
- Is it a hen and chicken presentation? Does the main idea overshadow the supporting facts?
Lack of comprehension skills: determine paragraph patterns
The knowledge of the signal words and the pattern of passage organisation would enable you to determine paragraph patterns, usually indicated by signal words. For example:
- Course–effect paragraphs are introduced by signal words such as ‘as a result of, because, thus’;
- Comparison–contrast paragraphs are introduced by signal words such as ‘in the same way, in like manner, however;
- Whole–part paragraphs are introduced by signal words such as ‘also, another, in addition, several, as follows, ‘ and
- Sequence paragraphs are introduced by signal words such as ‘first, then, finally, after, next, and last.
2. How to improve your comprehension skills and achieve a high rate of comprehension
The first step you should take to improve your comprehension skills is to ask yourself the following questions:
- How do I read?
- How good is my comprehension of silent reading?
- Can I effectively distinguish between main ideas and relevant or irrelevant details?
- Can I distinguish between facts and opinions, or can I read critically and creatively?
- When reading, am I always able to extra with speech and precision the thoughts behind the printed or written words?
- Am I always able to use linguistic and context clues as aids to reading comprehension?
- Am I always able to outline, summarise generalise intelligently after reading a given selection?
- Am I always able to understand the interrelationships of different units of expression, namely, words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs and chapters in the selection I have read?
- Do I always find it easy to retain and recall anything I have read?
The comprehension skill strands you need to improve upon will depend on the answers you provide to the questions above. Here are some of the comprehension skill strands that you need. The term ‘comprehension’ is composed of at least nine segments.
- To find the main ideas
- To select pertinent details
- To summarise and organise
- To follow directions
- To predict outcomes
- To differentiate between facts and opinions
- To follow the writer’s plan and intent
- To read charts, tables, maps, and graphs
- To grasp the sequence of events.
None of the above comprehension strands is more important than the other. You must strive to improve on all of them. They are all important.
Strategies for Effective Initial Reading: Strategies for Effective Initial Reading
Contextual Understanding: When reading a text, one should know the background of that text. The background, purpose, and target audiences must be considered because they may affect the content as well as the delivery of the content.
Read Actively: Read actively, taking notes, underlining or circling some important points or ideas that may need to be discussed. That helps to better distinguish the important information in the future.
Identify Structural Elements: Point out the organisation of the text (the introduction, the body, the conclusion) and identify the ways the themes are supported. If you make proper use of all those points, it will assist you in organising your summary.
Tips for Active Reading
Ask Questions: When reading the text, one should ask questions as to the purpose of the text and what main points and arguments, as well as supporting evidence, the author is trying to get across. This will be beneficial in the analysis of the text under consideration, as well as for any other text. Summarise Paragraphs: To, a brief about what each paragraph is summarising: Doing this will make it easier to compile a good summary that captures the essence of the whole paper later on.
Identifying the Main Ideas: Identifying Clusters
After the read-through of the text, what follows next step is the process of finding out the main points. These are the major points that are coherent in meaning, and these are the points you should incorporate in your summary.
Techniques for Identifying Main Ideas
Topic Sentences: First of all, pay particular attention to the topic sentences of every paragraph. These usually summarise the message of the given paragraph and are very important to comprehend the given text.\
Repetitive Themes: Don’t fail to highlight recurring concepts or ideas that are presented in the text. That is why repetition usually means that these particular ideas are important and should be focused on with utmost attention.
Headings and Subheadings: Another approach to use when seeking to understand the text is to look at headings and subheadings, if any, and then proceed and evaluate the main sections and their key points.
Abstracts and Conclusions: As is always the case, make use of the abstract or conclusion sections of the text because these are usually a summarised version of the entire text.
Understanding Main Ideas
Central Argument: What is the main idea or stance of the author about the issue at hand? This is often formulated in the first chapter, though it can also be included in the final chapter.
Supporting Points: List the key sub-arguments or arguments that support the thesis statement. These are important categories if one has to have a comprehensive summary of events.
Highlighting Key Points and Supporting Details: What Not to Include
The next step, based on the main ideas that have been developed, is to underline the main arguments and important secondary points. This makes sure that the summarised part of your work provides all the significant information necessary for understanding the whole work.
Strategies for Highlighting Key Points
Selective Highlighting: Your choice of points should be very strategic, that is, points that are key to getting an understanding of the author’s main argument. Do not overemphasise any item of information because this tends to overload the audience with information.
Annotation: Margin notes each section of the text, briefly summarising each section with the main points highlighted. These annotations will be useful when drafting your summary.
They should be used to provide a brief description of the topic or subject under consideration, especially where one is writing the summary section of an assignment.
Categorise Information: Cluster information into categories, for instance, subjects, subtopics, arguments, proofs, major and minor points, illustrations, and so on. This assists in one way in formulating the summary with some kind of logical flow.
Supporting Details
Quantitative Data: Particularly, if the text is based on statistics, tables, or other quantitative data, pre-encode their key points.
Key Quotes: Include quotes if they are powerful or if there is a certain piece of information that is best described in the writer’s own words.
Eliminating Redundant or Non-Essential Information
It should also be noted that the summary should be quite laconic and should not include unnecessary information. These include issues related to the exclusion of superfluous or unnecessary information, which is key to ensuring that the information is brief and focused.
What to Eliminate
Redundancy: Reduce info redundancies- compare two texts and eradicate all duplicated info and ideas. It is also important to state that the use of summaries should not lead to the repetition of information.
Minor Details: Do not include specific stories, voluminous illustrations, or unnecessary descriptions that do not will not help to make the claim.
Extraneous Information: Avoid elaboration on information that may well be fascinating but irrelevant to the flow of a text.
Techniques for Concise Writing
Prioritising: Pay attention to such skills as reading comprehensively and comprehending the most valuable aspects that help to get an understanding of the text.
Simplifying Language: As far as possible, write simple language and do not paraphrase excessively, as this adds prolixity to the summary.
Paraphrasing the Content: Their ideas from your Words
One of the stages in the process of summarising is paraphrasing. This is a process in which the information is put in the words of the writer, but the meaning or content has to remain the same.
Why Paraphrase
Avoid Plagiarism: Paraphrasing is also useful in this sense because it makes the information presented sound different from before.
Demonstrate Understanding: This is important in enabling the instructors as well as other students to see that you comprehend the ideas that have been taught and that you can explain the same in your own words.
Enhance Clarity: In most cases, using paraphrasing, it is easier to explain complex concepts since simple changes in the wording make a lot of difference.
Paraphrasing Techniques
Use Synonyms: Replace some of the key terms with their synonyms in order not to change the meaning of the given text.
Change Sentence Structure: Rewrite: Replace the structure of a sentence with another one, but maintain its content. For instance, turn into passive voice when the subject of the sentence is acting, be it active or passive voice, when the subject of the sentence is receiving an action.
Simplify Complex Sentences: Minimise rambling sentences to provide increased comprehensibility by dividing longer and complicated sentences into shorter and simpler ones. Read the similar post on this page.
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