NPTEL - Humanities and Social Sciences - Technical English

Reading Comprehension

G.P.RAGINI
Senior Assistant Professor
School of Humanities and Sciences
SASTRA University

Joint Initiative of IITs and IISc Funded by MHRD

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NPTEL - Humanities and Social Sciences - Technical English

Table of Contents
1.READING COMPREHENSION................................................................................................................................ 3
1.1 SCANNING FOR INFORMATION .................................................................................................................................... 3
1.2 DRAW CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................................................ 3
1.3 STEPS FOR SCANNING................................................................................................................................................ 4

Joint Initiative of IITs and IISc Funded by MHRD

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NPTEL - Humanities and Social Sciences - Technical English

1. Reading Comprehension
1.1 Scanning for Information
Effective communication skills are always essential
for your academic and professional career.

Reading

comprehension improves your reading speed. When you read

a text you comprehend the following
Authors purpose
Central idea
Cause & effect
Compare & contrast
Facts and Opinions
Sequencing
Draw inferences
Summarize
1.2 Two Levels of Reading

Reading without comprehension is just equal hearing and not listening. Reading
can be done at two levels; Intensive Reading and Extensive reading. Intensive reading is
done for complete understanding of the text by focusing on various aspects as mentioned
in reading comprehension while extensive reading is done only for overall understanding.
It is done at a superficial level.
Intensive reading involves several skills, namely predicting the content,
understanding the gist, scanning, role of paragraphs and sequences of sentences.
Many people think they need to read a text from beginning to end to find relevant
information.

However this is not necessary always.

Joint Initiative of IITs and IISc Funded by MHRD

Developing effective reading

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NPTEL - Humanities and Social Sciences - Technical English

strategies helps you locate specific information in a text without having to read it.
Scanning is a reading skill used to locate key or specific information quickly example
dates, numbers, examples and definitions.Scanning is the technique you use when you are
looking up a name in the Telephone Directory. You move your eye quickly over the
pages to find particular words or phrases that are relevant to the task you are doing. It is
useful to scan parts of text to see if they are going to be useful to you.

The introduction of preface of the book

The first or last paras of chapters

The concluding chapter of the book

1.3 Steps for Scanning

Look for highlighted words e.g. words in
italics and bold keywords Look
Look for definitions
Look for numbers, dates and statistics
Look for examples including diagrams
Do not stop the movement of your eyes till you find the specific information
Have a thorough knowledge of the organization and content of complex
material
Use a pointer to help you move swiftly through the text.
Try to be accurate

Joint Initiative of IITs and IISc Funded by MHRD

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