CONCLUSION:
Reading comprehension is more than decoding shapes and figures as
many teachers and learners think. Comprehension occurs when the reader
knows what skills and strategies are necessary and appropriate for the type of
text and understands how to apply them to accomplish the reading process
and reach high degree of comprehension and retention.
As explored in the four chapters of the paper, several approaches,
methods and models have been developed by specialists to understand how
the process of reading works in order to supply the appropriate pedagogies for
teaching the skill.
In spite of that most of University teachers still think that students come
to university with the necessary reading abilities to deal with highly structured
and marked texts such as literary materials. In fact, research has proved that
students in most of times cannot read just at fundamental levels let alone
advanced levels in which reading becomes more complex with content based
materials.
In addition, the results obtained in the analysis of the two
questionnaires confirmed firmly that both teachers and students lack the
essential requirements for reading and processing literary texts. Teachers
actually assign literary texts for reading without considering the fundamental
criteria and requirements for successful reading.
In most cases teachers come to class with their preferable texts then ask
their students to read and answer some comprehension questions. Actually,
whether students know how to read and process literary texts has never been
questioned by teachers. This can be explained either by that teachers have the
idea that students know how to read literary texts, or teachers themselves
ignore the most useful techniques and strategies used in treating literary texts,
thus leaving the task to chance and improvisation. Accordingly, teachers of
literature are required to provide students with a number of skills and
strategies beyond what has been learnt in secondary or preliminary school in
order to help them improve their reading abilities in general and literary
reading in particular.
It is also believed that reading texts for literary experience is different
from reading them for information. Rosenblatt (1985).
Proficient strategic readers, in fact, understand that different texts
require different approaches and strategies. Teachers need to develop
effective activities and strategies for reading different texts and should
encourage students to respond to texts both personally and critically. To this
end, with the appropriate skills and strategies, students can become more
competent and confident readers.
In order to foster students’ interests, teachers need to involve students
in text selecting, by providing them with several types of texts from all the
literary genres and raise their curiosity in reading texts that they feel close and
interested. They should also include intensive and extensive reading materials
for both study and pleasure.
Teachers can encourage students to become active participants and
proficient readers by incorporating instructional activities and strategies.
Instructional reading might consider the following skills:
-
Pre-reading skills: establishing interest a purpose for reading.
-
While-reading skills: constructing meaning
-
Post-reading skills : reconstructing and extending meaning
Researchers in the area also assert that reading strategies such as
Survey Question Read Recite Review (SQ3R) Critical Reading (CR) and
Uninterrupted Sustained Silent Reading (USSR) help learners acquire life-
long independent reading habits both for study or pleasure.
It must, in conclusion, be emphasized that reading a literary text is not
an easy job as many teachers reckon, thus they let it to chance and
improvisation.
This research, though does not pretend to give all the answers related to
the topic, but simply attemts to help teachers and learners alike to get key
notions about the reading skill and also to find methods for integrating some
skills and strategies in literary reading. It has been my aim to provide
methods for teaching and developing syllubi for literature course at
university, but, it is so an ambicious project to be conducted in the actual
available time. Thus, I wish more research will be conducted in the field to
help university teachers and learners as well conceive the most essential
requirements for literature teaching and literary text reading.
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