Reading: A skill that should be encouraged.

By Gabriela Castro & Lidia Escalona Communication is one of the most basic social needs. In order to interact with people, as humans, we developed a system that allows us to communicate transcendentally and in a nonpresent way. This method is writing, simultaneously to its creation, reading emerged. Nowadays, reading is an important tool to be aware of the world which surrounds us. We are constantly exposed to words, symbols, which help us to decode messages with a meaning. How to decode these symbols is commonly known as reading. Reading is a quite important capacity of human beings, it is not only essential at the moment of acquiring a second language, but also to learn any content and also it is necessary to participate in social situations. That is why, as teachers, we should encourage students to achieve this skill, in order to provide them a key to be active members in our society. This comparative essay will be about one ability of the language, reading, analyzed from the perspective of three authors, Jeremy Harmer, Neil Anderson in David Nunan and Douglas Brown. It will regard 6 main points about reading. According to what we read in the text by Anderson, the goal of reading is comprehension and it is a fluent process of readers combining information from a text and their own background knowledge to build meaning; he also states that there are four characteristics that combine together define the act of reading: the text, the reader, the use of strategies and a good fluency. The three authors agreed with this definition; however, Brown emphasizes the interrelationship among the different skills and how reading and writing, being passive abilities, depend on the others (Speaking and Listening). While Harmer highlights the importance of reading because it provides literacy skills, mastery of the language, models of writing, it stimulates the development of critical thinking and it improves communication skills. Concerning to how encourage students to read, the authors stated different principles. Harmer suggested six principles, which are; (1) read more often; (2) engaged students with what they are reading; (3) response to the content of the text; (4) prediction; (5) Relationship between task and topic and (6) exploit reading texts to the full. Anderson stated 8 main aspects; (1)

Exploit the readers background knowledge; (2) Build a strong vocabulary base; (3) Teach for comprehension; (4)Work on increasing reading rate; (5) Teach reading strategies; (6) Build assessment and evaluation into your teaching; (7) Encourage readers to transform strategies into skills and (8) Strive for continuous improvement as reading teacher. Some of these points are also distinguished by Brown, for example transform strategies into skills, students should be provided activities that help them to develop reading skill , using different techniques. Anderson in Nunan, names a theory by which he organized a teaching system with the main elements regarding to reading. There are six elements based on the word ACTIVATE (1) Activate prior knowledge (2) Cultivate vocabulary (3) Teach for comprehension (4) Increase reading rate (5) Verify reading strategies (6) Evaluate process. These six elements combined may be considered as a useful tool for teachers at the moment of teaching students reading comprehension. Brown also expressed teaching strategies for reading comprehension, which should be applied in a classroom (1) Identify the purpose in reading; (2) use patterns to decode; (3) use silent reading techniques for improving fluency; (4) skim the text; (5) scan the text; (6) use semantic mapping; (7) guessing; (8) analyze vocabulary; (9) distinguish between literal and implied meanings and (10) discourse markers signal of relationship. Both authors, Brown and Anderson, claim that comprehension is important when it comes to reading. Harmer makes emphasis in lean-in the topic to facilitates the comprehension of a text for students. Concerning to reading strategies are also mentioned in the texts. Brown (2007), pointed out the importance of two strategies; skimming and scanning, which goal to look for the main ideas and to look for specific information, which are meant to achieve a better comprehension of a text. These techniques are also stated by Harmer as a key strategy to understand a text. According to Anderson in Nunan, readers practice reading by scanning the paragraphs of a text to make sure that their thoughts or answers about a subject were right. They do not read every word. They scan for information.

Harmer and Anderson highlight the importance of using a wide variety of strategies while teaching reading, and that many activities should be applied to the students in order to make them able to practise and develop the reading skills in a proficient way. Contrary to Brown who prefers to focus on give the students different strategies , which allow learners to reach the understanding of the texts because is primarily a matter of developing appropriate, efficient comprehension strategies Harmer suggested that the more you read the better reader you became. In contrast, Anderson, stated that students only learn to read once in their lives; and later, while learning a second language, they just learn how to transfer the skills that they had already learned in the acquisition of their first language. Brown did not refer to this point. In conclusion, we can state that we are surrounded by written words, which contain a meaning to be decoded. Reading is a quite important ability which must be fully developed in learners. Reading is fundamental to the comprehension of a language, because of the essential role it plays while acquiring a second language. Even though studies suggest that not many students are fond of reading, as teachers, we must encourage them and engaged them to read more often, because the development of this ability will help them not only as a mean to gather information, but also as a way of having fun. These three authors revealed the importance of reading by mentioning a series of techniques which help the student and the teacher to improve their proficiency concerning to reading and the comprehension of texts. The main points in this essay regarded to reading as a fluent process of readers combining information from a text and their own background knowledge to build meaning, how encourage students to read, teaching strategies for reading comprehension, reading strategies scanning and skimming as key strategies to understand a text and finally highlight the importance of using a wide variety of strategies.