reading: comprehension, strategies and...

Reading: Comprehension, strategies and activities JoAnn Miller, Editorial Macmillan ([email protected])

Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Trial Of Bridget Bishop, Alias, Oliver At The Court Of Oyer And Terminer Held At Salem, June 2,1692

V. To render it further Unquestionable, that the prisoner at the Bar, was the Person truly charged in THIS Witchcraft, there were produced

many Evidences of OTHER Witchcrafts, by her perpetrated. For Instance, John Cook testify'd, that about five or six years ago, One morning, about Sun-Rise, he was in his Chamber assaulted by the Shape

of this prisoner: which Look'd on him, grin'd at him, and very much hurt him, with a Blow en the side of the Head: and that on the same day,

about Noon, the same Shape walked in the Room where he was, and an Apple strangely flew out of his Hand, into the Lap of his mother, six or eight foot from him.

VI. Samuel Gray, testify'd, That about fourteen years ago, he wak'd on a

Night, & saw the Room where he lay, full of Light; & that he then saw plainly a Woman between the Cradle, and the Bed-side, which look'd upon him. He Rose, and it vanished; tho' he found the Doors all fast.

Looking out at the Entry-Door he saw the same Woman, in the same Garb again; and said, In Gods Name, what do you come for? He went to Bed, and had the same Woman again assaulting him. The Child in the

Cradle gave a great schreech, and the Woman Disappeared. It was long before the Child could be quieted; and tho' it were a very likely thriving

Child, yet from this time it pined away, and after divers months dy'd in a sad Condition. He knew not Bishop, nor her Name; but when he saw her after this, he knew by her Countenance, and Apparrel, and all

Circumstances, that it was the Apparition of this Bishop, which had thus troubled him. 1. What is Bridget accused of?

2. What happened to the apple?

3. What did Samuel Gray say happened to him?

4. What happened to the child?

5. What is another way to say “pined away”.

6. What is another way to say “Apparrell”?

7. How old do you think Bridget was at the time of the trial?


Can you classify the following reading texts as extensive or intensive reading? Then add some

more examples.

Extensive Reading Intensive Reading


What to do when you find a new word when you’re reading.

1. Ignore it. Continue reading. If you understand the general idea of the text, the word wasn’t

that important.

2. Look at it. If you can’t understand the general idea of the text, look at the word. Does it

look like a word in your native language? If it does, then it probably means the same. Can the

word be taken apart? Sometimes words are made of smaller words and by thinking of what

the smaller words mean, we can understand the larger one ( for example, bedtime=time for

bed; notebook=a book for notes).

3. Cover it up. If you still can’t understand it, cover it with your finger and try to read the

sentence. Maybe you can understand the sentence better if you aren’t distracted by the word.

4. Think about the general idea of the text. Maybe you can guess what the word means from

what you already know about the topic.

5. And if nothing else works and you still can’t understand the main idea of the text, use the

dictionary.

Try it out on this text:

Being your standard UO griefer, he laughed at us and refused to return it,

and there was quite a long standoff. Fortunately, this was a newbie griefer,

and said he would sell me the 1600 wood back for 500 gold. Of course, upon

handing over the 500, he wouldn’t drop the wood, so several people paged

GMs. About a minute later *poof* someone appears asking where the

scammer is. Of course by then we had told him that we had paged the GMs,

so the griefer handed over the wood.


Reading for the general idea: Previewing / Predicting

Here are two different ways to practice this strategy.

Reading Keys Introducing, p. 51 and 57


Skimming

Skim this text. You have ONE MINUTE to answer the questions.

Reading Keys Intoducing, p 100


Read the passage and check the appropriate main idea.

Reading Keys Introducing, p. 20


Here are two ways to practice Inference

Reading Keys Introducing, R3 and p. 140


Contextual references: This chart summarizes some of the types of words that are used for contextual reference.

1st

Sing. 2nd 3rd Sing. 1st Pl 3rd pl Examples

Subject Pronouns I you he she it we they I saw John downtown, but he

didn’t see me.

Object Pronouns me you him her it us them I don’t have Pete’s book.

Jane gave it to him.

Possessive Adjectives my your his her its our their Mary came over to our house

last night.

Possessive Nouns mine your his hers its ours theirs I brought my book, but John

and Pete didn’t bring theirs.

Reflexive Pronouns my-

self

your-

self/

your-

selves

himself herself itself ourselves themselves He hurt himself.

People Time Things Possessive Place

Relative Pronouns who or whom when that / which whose where That’s the man whose wife

won the lottery.

People Time Things Possessive Place

Definite Interrogative

Pronouns who when what or which whose where Who is that?

Indefinite Pronouns whoever whenever whatever /

whichever whosever wherever

Whoever did that is in

trouble.

near, Sing, near, Pl far, Sing far, pl

Demonstrative

Pronouns this that these those

I brought that book and they

brought those.

Rhetorical devices and clause markers: This chart summarizes some of the most common rhetorical devices.

Cause (reason) because, since, as Because he was late, the teacher didn’t let him enter.

Concession although, though, even though, in spite of the fact

that, despite the fact that, while

We couldn’t get the car started, although we worked on it

for hours.

Conditional if, even if, unless, as long as If he were a better businessman, he’d be more successful.

Contrastive but, however, nevertheless I saw him, however it was too late.

Coordination and, or, also, in addition, besides, furthermore, as

well as In addition to studying, he plays soccer in the afternoon.

Purpose (in order) that, so (that) He’s studying physics so (that) he can become an

astronomer.

Result so…that, hence, therefore, due to, thus She is so upset that she couldn’t talk.


Jigsaw Reading

Cut up as cards:

The Open Window, by SAKI (H. H. Munro) (1870-1916)

"My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; "in the

meantime you must try and put up with me."

Framton Nuttel endeavored to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the

moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever

whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure

which he was supposed to be undergoing.

"I know how it will be," his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat; "you

will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from

moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there. Some of them, as far as I

can remember, were quite nice."

Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the letters of

introduction came into the nice division.

"Do you know many of the people round here?" asked the niece, when she judged that they had had

sufficient silent communion.

"Hardly a soul," said Framton. "My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know, some four years

ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here." He made the last statement in a

tone of distinct regret.

"Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?" pursued the self-possessed young lady.

"Only her name and address," admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the

married or widowed state. An indefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine

habitation.

"Her great tragedy happened just three years ago," said the child; "that would be since your sister's

time."

"Her tragedy?" asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies seemed out of place.

"You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon," said the niece,

indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn.

"It is quite warm for the time of the year," said Framton; "but has that window got anything to do with

the tragedy?"

"Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for

their day's shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favorite snipe-shooting ground

they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know,

and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never

recovered. That was the dreadful part of it." Here the child's voice lost its self-possessed note and became

falteringly human. "Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back someday, they and the little brown

spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window

is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her

husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing 'Bertie, why

do you bound?' as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know,

sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through

that window--"

She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a

whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance.

"I hope Vera has been amusing you?" she said.

“She has been very interesting," said Framton.

"I hope you don't mind the open window," said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; "my husband and brothers will be

home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They've been out for snipe in the marshes

today, so they'll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you menfolk, isn't it?"


She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the prospects for duck in the

winter. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn

the talk on to a less ghastly topic, he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her

attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was

certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.

"The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of

anything in the nature of violent physical exercise," announced Framton, who labored under the tolerably

widespread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one's

ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure. "On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement," he

continued.

"No?" said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly

brightened into alert attention--but not to what Framton was saying.

"Here they are at last!" she cried. "Just in time for tea, and don't they look as if they were muddy up to

the eyes!"

Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic

comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with a dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill

shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.

In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window, they all carried

guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his

shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a

hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: ‘I said, Bertie, why do you bound?’

Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall door, the gravel drive, and the front gate were dimly

noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid

imminent collision.

"Here we are, my dear," said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window, "fairly

muddy, but most of it's dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?"

"A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel," said Mrs. Sappleton; "could only talk about his illnesses, and

dashed off without a word of goodbye or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost."

"I expect it was the spaniel," said the niece calmly; "he told me he had a horror of dogs. He was once

hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend

the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough

to make anyone lose their nerve."

Romance at short notice was her specialty.


Extensive and Intensive Reading

EXTENSIVE READING

This is the way we usually read when we read for pleasure (novel or biography or magazine

article), we are not concerned with the meaning of every single word, we are reading fast and

getting the general idea of what we are reading for enjoyment (Gower, Phillips, Walters, 1995:

Teaching Practice Handbook). It can also be called gist reading or fluent reading, says

Scrivener (1994, Learning Teaching) and he mentions we worry less about individual words and

sentences and just get caught up in the general flow of the piece.

INTENSIVE READING

Also called accurate reading by Scrivener, here we are reading for detail. We would read a

paragraph on philosophy, a dense letter from your bank manager or a grammar explanation from

the back of our coursebook. In intensive reading we are really concerned with reading skills

relating to textual references and discourse markers such as pronouns, or markers of cause,

condition, concession, contrast and purpose.

(Style Content Area Resource Pack, p. XX)

Reading Aloud

What place does reading aloud hold in the classroom?

Gower, Phillips and Walters argue that although it can be useful for students to read aloud

sometimes, it is not really developing their reading skills so much as their speaking skills. In

fact, it is very difficult for a person to pay attention to the meaning of what they are reading

when they are vocalising the text by reading aloud, especially in public.

Christine Nuttall calls this subvocalizing and says it is a bad habit of reading which actually slows

down the reader (the eyes can usually process and move faster than the tongue). Here, they are

more conscious about the sound of what they are saying. In addition, it is not very useful to the

other students who are in the class, when they have to strain to listen to what someone is

saying, rather than focus on the meaning of what they are reading. It is unfair to ask students

to read aloud in class, listen to other students read in class, and then give them comprehension

tasks based on this. Exceptions: for those students who do like to read aloud (the musically

intelligent students!!!) don’t stop them, in their own time. They can get cassettes or CDs and in

the case of Style they have a CD free with SB. The positive points of linking reading aloud to

speaking skills are to help focus on phonics, pronunciation and to help improve fluency. A

suggestion for using this strategy could be a reader with accompanying cassette for those

theatrically minded students

(Gower, Phillips and Walters, Teaching Practice Handbook).

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