ON ADVANCED READING SKILLS AND TECHNIQUES FOR ACADEMIC

EXCHANGES

By TSHIMANGA Bukasa Franklin,

Assistant

INTRODUCTION

Reading is part of a variety of activities that are inherent in human

life. According to Ellison (1966), one reads from street signs (smaller things) to
encyclopaedias (bigger ones). In line with this statement, reading is a process. It makes use
of one’s sight and mind. However blocks and difficulties do prevent sight and mind to make
reading possible. That is why readers’ training is paramount.

In the academic context where participants into the reading activity

are students and lecturers, reading is at the core of any fruitful study and / or exchange. In
other terms, participants into academic activities are mandated to read both quantitatively
and qualitatively for both survival and communication. They have to read a good number
and variety of materials (be they lecture notes, books and so on) and share the findings with
the rest of the community.

Difficulties and more often failures due to either lack or unskilful

reading are obviously noticeable in academic exchanges. Such difficulties are sometimes
vindicated by one’s incapacity to read skilfully a thick handout, answer test questions
according to the examiners’ expectation, find by oneself research topics, write good papers
or dissertations in the delay, react competently to such writings, give one’s viewpoint on a
1 given subject and so on. Besides, growing is the tendency that nowadays students do not go
far more beyond lecture notes to verify their reliability, find questions and complete their

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 knowledge on the subject under study. As a result, the quality and the whole prestige of
their training are endangered.

Albeit such problems can be triggered by some other factors, we

here assume that participants into academic exchanges are not most probably well prepared
to penetrate books and other various sources despite their quality and quantity.

This paper is therefore based on the assumption that practitioners of

such quantitatively reading-based activities must be trained in reading. That is, they need
not waste time to read without special strategies. They must develop reading skills which
facilitate, as shown above, competent and qualitative reading. If it is agreed that skills can
be possessed, they however, should be sharpened. Accordingly, academic reading
practitioners are expected to sharpen and apply both skills and techniques of quick and
efficient reading. Such training- based sharpening and application encompass language script
recognition and meaning deduction, understanding meaning, interpretation and main ideas
identification, and so on. Depending on the quality and quantity of the materials being read,
skimming and scanning are also useful for rapid reading. Similarly, prediction, preview and
anticipation are necessary for finding relevant piece of information.

In line with what precedes, our modest contribution is but a

suggestion of emphasis on developing advanced reading skills and the subsequent increase
of the reading teaching load in the training of participants into academic exchanges. We also
suppose that extension of such training in different levels of their studies can help empower
them read rather easily.

1. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This paper is a documentary research. It deals with reading skills

and techniques as hypothesized by Munby (1978), Ellison (1966) and (1968), Grellet (1981)
and Bright and McGregor (1970) for skilful extraction, understanding and treatment of
information from a text. They either list some reading skills explained in this paper or
suggest some techniques and sometimes provide reading practice exercises.
2
With regards to data analysis, we explain how reading skills can
actually contribute to successful academic exchanges.

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 2. ACADEMIC EXCHANGES

As it will be ascertained in this paper, communication and exchange

will be used interchangeably. In Richards, Platt and Weber’s (1985) words, communication is
an exchange of ideas, information and so on between two or more persons. In other terms,
it is interaction between participants in a discourse in a given context.

As we said earlier, participants into such communication in the

academic context are students and their lecturers. They are always faced with a variety of
activities compelling them to interact freely among themselves. They are required to
understand what others wish to share (Rivers and Temperly, 1978).

The nature of activities that submerge academic participants into

such communication would be lectures, assignments, tests, dissertations, talks or
conferences. In all these cases, exchange is sinequanon and reading is the triggering
element. The latter allows one to find the required piece of information or knowledge he/she
will use to communicate depending on the case. Lack of reading at this level can be
considered as an obvious handicap for both knowledge and communication.

According to Bright and McGregor (1970), it is actually hard to

imagine any skilled work that does not require of its performer the ability to read for the
crucial reason that professional competence depends on it. Accordingly, the members of our
worldwide academic community are required, like all normal participants into a discourse
(Littlewood: 1981), to have that general skill in order to cope with eventual situations. As
communication implies among other factors sharing ideas between participants into a
discourse, and since our academic community members must do it not without reading, we
here support that they also entertain the three relationships put forward by Biselela (2010:
44),

The reading activity involves three parties: the

writer, the text and the reader. The writer who is
indeed the speaker, sender or encoder, encodes the
message and sends it to the reader, who is the
listener, the addressee or decoder. This message is
3 transmitted through the medium of the text. It is
the reader‘s task to extract it from the written
materials.

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 If it is agreed – as we said earlier – that all academic activities are
reading – based, we now would like to relate them to Biselela’s three parties of the reading
activity. Any (college or University) student attending given courses is given a list of books
known as bibliographical notice in order to read. Such a list of books is provided as a source
reference of lectures and therefore allows the student to broaden his /her knowledge on the
subjects under study. Besides, it is a tangible proof that the lecturer did also read those
sources beforehand.

In addition, reading lecture notes, books and any other relevant

sources enhances the student’s chance to undertake any subsequent examination
successfully and with little stress. During that examination, questions should be carefully
read, and answers framed in the light of the sources read. Likewise, it is hard to think of any
dissertation written or marked with no reading. In the former case, one reads to select
relevant data and in the latter, to find ideas and arguments necessary to back up his/her
thesis. In documentary and ethnographical research, reliability of sources, arguments and
even answers provided during the viva largely depend on the quantity and quality of the
student’s reading. It is also seldom imaginable that the supervisor and /or any examiner play
well their roles without reading .They have to check whether or not sources and arguments
are reliable, and if the dissertation really belongs to the student (Mulamba and Cinza 2008 :
126).

Finally, Biselela’s three parties of the reading activity are some how
equated with Mulamba’s (2001:15) three interlocutors whose collaboration is required in the
genesis of a scientific article, viz the writer, the reader and the editor.

Obviously, the join impulse in this academic conversation is provided

by reading: the writer for finding a good text, the reader for finding knowledge and reacting
to the text, finally the editor for deciding on whether the paper is publishable.

From this analysis, I can state with Grellet (1981:8) that “there are
few cases in real life when we do not talk or write about what we have read and when we do
4 not relate what we have read to something we might have read “. That is, apart form
survival in our context, one should share what one read with other members of the academic
community.

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 In a nutshell, no efficacious communication is possible in the
academic context without reading. But since reading is a multidimensional activity and since
complexity is brought in by the quality and the quantity of the literature, readers are
required to develop skills and apply strategies for quick and efficient reading.

3. ADVANCED READING SKILLS AND TECHNIQUES

3.1. READING AND READING PURPOSES.

According to Richards and his co-authors (1985), reading is the

perception of a written text in order to understand its contents. Two major mental
operations are crucial in this definition: perception and understanding. The former aims at
recognizing words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs and/or the whole text; whereas the latter
focuses on comprehension of the meaning conveyed.

Because the reader must use his/ her sight and/or mind in such a
process, a great many difficulties or blocks can be encountered. They can be syntactic,
semantic, lexical or contextual handicaps. Nevertheless, understanding or comprehension
can help the reader to perceive spontaneously and immediately all elements. In this
particular perspective, we construe that reading is but comprehension or understanding of
written materials that have been perceived. Put shortly, reading is understood here as
understanding what has been perceived.

In line with the aim of this paper, to equip the reader with practical
means to overcome reading obstacles, this definition of reading should still be modified. It
has to be enriched by the meaning of understanding a written text for it to apply fully.
Richards and his co-authors cited above define understanding a written text as the extraction
of the required information from that text as efficiently as possible. Now understanding the
meaning of a written text and extracting specific information from it can be equated with
reading.

As ascertained, the responsibility for understanding the written

5 materials pertains to the reader. This matches Finochiaro and Banomo’s (1973: 119) point of
view according to which reading is bringing meaning to and getting meaning from printed or
written materials. Accordingly, the reader has to know the language in which the text is

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 written and recognize its scripts. That linguistic knowledge will involve productively the
reader in bringing meaning to words; phrases, sentences or passages and get it from them.

Undoubtedly, reading is a very complex activity that demands of

its performer much care and knowledge, skills and strategies for one to do it
successfully. But before focussing on such mechanisms that can promote quick and
efficient reading, I would like to say a word on reading purposes. This topic has been
dealt with by many applied linguists. Among them, I can mention Smith, Franes (all
cited by Biselela 2010) and Rivers and Temperly (1978).

Put apart the lexical differences used by each one of them the summary of all
the reading purposes has been made clearer by Biselela (2010: 44) as follows:

When I analyse all these purposes I notice that

they are but emanations of only one major
purpose viz understanding or getting
information. In fact, it is unlikely for one to
solve problems, enjoy reading, carry out tasks
or find out directions…if one does not first
understand what one reads.

From this quote, it follows that the major purpose of reading is understanding
or getting information from the text, information with which the reader is then
equipped to survive or correspond. Thus, our assumption that reading is but
utilitarian is here matched inasmuch as our academic community members do read
for information they would like to share among themselves as indicated earlier (2).

However such a target is not easily achievable because readability factors

should be overcome by the reader. Among other factors, I can cite:

• The length of sentences in a passage

• The number of new or difficult words in it

6
• And the grammatical complexity of the language used.

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 These readability factors match Biselela’s conviction about blocks or handicaps
(whatever their nature) that are inherent to the reading activity. To solve this crucial
problem, Rivers and Temperly (1978: 189) write,

Some students may wish to learn merely to

extract certain kinds of information from
English texts (scientific, historical, political,
philosophic, economic, sociological). They wish
only to decipher, to break the code sufficiently
for their purposes. Courses of this type appeal
particularly to students in the senior year of
high school and they fulfil the needs of some
undergraduate and graduate students. Such
courses are also useful to adult learners who
wish to pursue a particular subject beyond the
limits set by their own language.

In the light of the quote, reading can be equated to skilfully extracting

information or meaning from written materials despite many handicaps that impede
comprehension. However, solving such a sensitive problem is actually confined to
training and helping readers develop reading skills, apply techniques in order to
overcome reading difficulties, achieve readability and attain reading autonomy.

3.2. READING SKILLS AND TECHNIQUES

By reading skill is meant the ability that should be developed or sharpened in

order to extract quickly and efficiently meaning or information from a text.

3.2.1. RECOGNITION

Reading is obviously impeded if the reader is unable to recognize the script of

the language he / she reads in and all the other indicators used in the discourse. The
lack of such a skill seldom allows one to perceive all the units of meaning consisting
7
of sequences and actions related to a particular situation.

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 3.2.2. DEDUCTION

This skill encompasses inferences of meaning that one should make while reading. It
also allows one to cope with any use of unfamiliar lexical terms. Thus, the
appropriated technique is sensitizing (Grellet 1981). It is useful for meaning inference
through both context and word formation. This view is shared by Bright and
McGregor (1970: 56) when they say that meaning inferences are applied from both
contextual and internal clues without reference to a dictionary.

3.2.3. UNDERSTANDING

It is both a reading skill and the ultimate reading purpose. It is supposed to be

at the core of all other reading skills. Not merely it is paramount but also sinequanon
inasmuch as it is achieved through other skills, and if put otherwise, reading is likely
to fail, discouraging therefore the reader (Grellet 1981). In other terms, the reader
has to grasp the meaning of both explicitly and implicitly stated information.
Relations within sentences and those between parts of a text should also be
penetrated. In Ellison’s (1966) opinion, one is really reading if and only if one gets
the meaning of the text by seeing quickly and easily how its sentences are
interrelated and what they actually have in common.

However, such perception and subsequent penetration are commonly blocked

when one encounters complex and apparently obscure sentences. Such a handicap
can be overcome in a variety of ways. For Grellet (1981), the reader’s mind should
be so stiffened that he / she should not stumble on every difficulty and get
discouraged. Besides, knowledge of sentence structures as put forward by Quirk and
Greenbaum (1986) and grammatical cohesion (Halliday and Hasan, 1976) thanks to
which sentences are made up can help overcome such difficulties. Lexical cohesion
empowers one to select accurately vocabulary whereas grammatical cohesion
8
encompasses reference (whatever), substitution, ellipsis and conjunction. As it can

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 be seen, lexical and grammatical competences are required of the reader so as to
solve understanding problems while reading.

To reach that level, Grellet proposes a variety of exercises to the learner for
his / her training and actual development of reading skills.

In one word, understanding is the central skill in reading. Paradoxically,

understanding depends on all the other reading skills.

2.3.4. INTERPRETATION

Text penetration also is facilitated by the context. Therefore the reader has to
go outside the text in order to understand words, phrases, sentences or whole
passages. In other terms, he/she has to bring his/her social, historical and other
background to the text in order to get its very meaning.

2.3.5. INDENTIFICATION

The reader is required to identify the main points or relevant information in a

piece of discourse made of an ocean of words, phrases or sentences. For this
purpose, a vital technique is suggested by Ellison (1966). The reader has to identify
key – words in sentences, key – sentences in paragraphs and main thoughts in
passages or texts. This technique allows one to notice what the words, sentences
and so on have in common.

2.3.6.3. DISTINCTION

As a discriminating activity, reading helps one to notice that all details never
express the main thought. A skilled reader is therefore required to distinguish the
main information or idea from supporting details, as illustrated by Ellison (1968:62),

When he was only three years old, Mozart

could pick out melodies on a clavichord and at
five he was already beginning to compose. It
9
was evident he was a prodigy and a musical
genius. He learned to play the violin and organ
without instruction. He published his first
composition when he was seven. By the time
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 he was a young man, he had played at concerts
in most of European great cities.

In this passage, supporting details should be distinguished from the main idea.
That is, all the details provided in the passage only support that Mozart was a
prodigy and musical genius. Reading with such ability is not only economic but also
enables one to understand and remember for long what is being read. In other
terms, the reader not only saves time, but also progressively summarizes the text in
order to retain the gist of it. Such a skill enables especially students during their
preparation of different examinations and lecturers to have the general view of what
they have to teach.

3.2.7. EXTRACTION

As it can be noticed, reading skills so overlap that their unity constitutes the
identity, the fullness and the efficiency of the reading activity. When the main idea is
identified and discriminated from details, it should now be extracted as the salient
point, relevant information saved or summarized for eventual exchanges.

3.2.8. SKIMMING

In Munby’s (1978) opinion, all reference skills, viz skimming and scanning, are
also reading techniques. They are applied to identify or locate specific information or
point. For Grellet (1981), skimming a text is going through it quickly in order to get
the gist of it, know how it is organized, or get an idea on the tone or intention of the
writer.

This view is also shared by Richards and his co – authors (1985) who define
skimming as a type of reading used when the reader wants to get the main idea(s)
from a passage. Therefore a chapter or a whole book can be skim – read just to find
out the writer’s approval or disapproval of something. Besides, this process does not
10
impede comprehension. In our opinion, this skill allows one to find quickly where a
specific piece of information is likely to be.

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 3.2.9. SCANNING

As stated above scanning is both a skill and a technique. It is intended to

locate required specific information as Grellet (1981:19) states,

Scanning, on the contrary is far more limited

since it only means retrieving what information
is relevant to our purpose. Yet it is usual to
make use of these two activities together when
reading a given text. For instance, we may skim
though an article first just to know whether it is
worth reading it, then read it through more
carefully because we have decided that it is of
interest. It is also possible afterwards to scan
the same article in order to note down a figure
or name which we particularly want to
remember.

In line with the quote, the reader, without always following the text linearity,
lets his/her eyes quickly wander over the text until s/he finds the required element
(name, date or another less specific piece of information).

Shortly put, scanning as well as skimming (as techniques) can be associated

with prediction, preview and anticipation for efficient location of information. This
series of skills can be summarized with Bright and McGregor’s (1970) skills typology.
First, response skills are needed to understand the meaning conveyed through the
text. They are understanding, deduction and extraction. Next, practical, businesslike
and scholarly skills are required to locate specific information by making use of index,
chapter headings and so on. For such rough use, one has to develop and use
identification, skimming and scanning. Finally comparative and critical skills are vital
to enhance the chance of comprehension and sensitively decrease those of
misunderstanding during the reading process.

In conclusion, reading is such a complex activity that if one is not trained in

11
developing skills dealt with in this paper, comprehension will be obviously impeded.

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 In other terms, reading skills must be developed and techniques applied for efficient
and competent reading to take place.

4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

This paper was based on the assumption that reading is the first sinequanon
prerequisite for academic exchanges. Therefore students and lectures must develop
reading skills and apply reading techniques that lessen the reading effort and the
subsequent rate of misunderstanding. In so doing they also improve their reading
speed and rate of understanding opening the door to communication.

Skilled readers should therefore be characterized by:

- Better extraction of information from the text and easier understanding of

meaning (explicit or implicit).

- Careful deduction of word meaning especially when unfamiliar lexical items

and complex or apparently obscure sentences are used in the text. No
recourse to dictionaries is advised; but sensitizing, inference, understanding
relation within sentences, linking sentences and ideas are suggested as vital
techniques.

- Easier recognition of language script and competent interpretation of the text

by going outside it. Here inferences and guesses are to be made in order to
retain meanings that suit the best to the context.

- Rather quick dissociation of supporting details from salient or main points well
identified or located. Therefore skimming and/or scanning, outlining ideas in
order to select the relevant ones are suggested as techniques. When required
data are found, note – taking and summarizing can help save that knowledge

12 for academic exchanges.

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 In line with skimming and scanning as skills, predicting, previewing and
anticipation of information have been suggested as helpful techniques for location of
information in the text.

To reach such idealized reading competence training and reading practice are
hitherto advisable all along the academic curriculum. Reading exercises – intended to
promote skills development and suggested in Grellet (1981), Ellison (1966) and
(1968); and other scholars are likely to be selected by the teacher or the learner (in
the case of self training).

13

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Criticisms and suggestions are tyo be sent to Franklin TSHIMANGA Bukasa through this email:
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 - QUIRK, R. and GREENBAUM. 1986. A University Grammar of English.
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New York: OUP

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