Top-down reading is based on the full text, focusing on obtaining information through text symbols, that is, inferring the content and meaning of the article according to the title given by the article, and understanding the meaning that the author wants to express.
The key to using top-down reading method is to cultivate students' ability to predict and infer the content and meaning of the article, so as to improve their reading comprehension.
By looking at the overall structure of the article or the title of the article to predict the content and deep meaning of the article, we can speculate from the following aspects:
1. What is the content of the article?
2. What aspects will the author elaborate on?
3. How will the content develop?
Pay attention to different English styles when reading, because styles have a great influence on the organization and arrangement of information. Training and mastering the structural features of various English styles is conducive to the summary and logical reasoning of the article. For example, a narrative must have three elements: plot, characters and background. The development of the plot is based on the transfer of time and place. Therefore, when reading the narrative, we must seize the clue of time, take the characters as the center, and make clear the occurrence, development and ending of the story. For example, there is a * * * similarity between argumentative essays and expository essays, that is, most paragraphs have topic sentences (mostly at the beginning or end of paragraphs). We should grasp the topic sentences, explore each topic and find out the central argument of the article, so as to predict the content of the article more carefully and thoroughly understand the surface and deep meaning of the whole article.
Second, correctly handle the relationship between intensive reading and extensive reading.
Intensive reading and extensive reading are two main methods in reading, which complement each other and cannot be neglected or replaced.
1. Pay attention to the choice of reading materials.
Choosing suitable intensive reading materials is an important means to improve English reading. It is advisable to choose a reading material of about 200 words, followed by exercises. The genre of reading materials should be diversified-narrative, popular science, discussion or explanation, advertising and so on. Pay attention to the practicality of the article. The difficulty of the selected materials should be 60% ~ 70%, and the number of new words should not exceed 4%.
2. Intensive reading and extensive reading are complementary.
Compared with extensive reading, intensive reading is a point. This paper analyzes some well-written and difficult articles and summarizes the author's writing intention, ideas and central arguments, so as to obtain detailed information and in-depth content. If intensive reading is a point, extensive reading is a surface. Only by reading a lot can we accumulate a large number of words, structures and sentence patterns, expand our knowledge, cultivate our sense of language and improve our ability to respond to words. In extensive reading, we should improve our ability to guess new words according to the context. Don't look up new words in the dictionary as soon as you see them, but find out the objects referred to by demonstrative pronouns and personal pronouns in the text. Read for yourself in a limited time. A reading article of about 200 words is moderately difficult, so try to complete its reading comprehension questions within 6 minutes. When reading, we should accumulate more knowledge about society, history, geography, culture and customs in Britain and America, which is conducive to improving reading level. We should cultivate good reading habits. When reading, you should look at the meaning group, don't read word for word, and don't read aloud while pointing with a pen or finger, which will hinder the understanding of the meaning of the article and affect the reading speed.
Reading is a comprehensive process, and the improvement of reading ability is a gradual process. Only by persistently improving reading methods and cultivating reading interest can students get twice the result with half the effort.
The factors that affect reading comprehension can be divided into mental retardation and non-mental retardation. Knowledge barriers include: 1. Lexical barriers II. Grammatical obstacle. Background knowledge barrier. Non-mental retardation includes: 1. Psychological disorder II. Reading habits 3. Reading speed 4. Reading skills.
(A) Pay attention to the accumulation of English vocabulary and idioms
American linguist Driller (1978) pointed out that if we recognize the 25 most common English words, we will recognize 33% of the words on each page on average. 50% if common words of 135 are identified; If 2500 is recognized, it is 78%; If you recognize 5000, it is 80%; Once you remember 10 000, you can reach 92%. It can be seen that the level of reading ability is inseparable from the size of vocabulary. At present, most students have a small vocabulary, which is the main factor affecting the improvement of reading ability. So how can we improve students' vocabulary?
1. Word formation mnemonic method
It is estimated that there are 6,543.8+0,000 to 6,543.8+0.2 million English words, but most of them are formed by word formation. Word formation includes derivation, synthesis and transformation. In teaching, let students master the meaning and usage of common prefixes (un/dis/im/il /super. ) and suffix (ly/ less/ ful/ ment…), so that they can guess their derivatives from known words, so as to expand their vocabulary. For example, the prefix "super" has the meaning of surpassing and surpassing. You can guess the meanings of the words "supermarket", "supernatural", "superman" and "superstar". .
2. Associative memory method
Connect a word with related or unrelated words, such as seeing the life of live vi, and connecting it with other parts of speech and usage, such as live broadcast and live.
3. Extensive reading and memory
The famous saying "to read well, you need a strong voice ... to build a strong vocal music, you need to read well." Talk about the relationship between reading and vocabulary. To read fluently, you must have a rich vocabulary. Reading a lot can enrich your vocabulary.
(B) a firm grasp of grammar knowledge
In recent years, the sentence structure of NMET reading comprehension essays tends to be complex, and grammar knowledge plays a prominent role in reading. If you encounter a long and difficult sentence that is difficult to understand in reading, you can analyze the sentence properly with the help of grammar, and make clear the relationship between the parts, so as to accurately understand the meaning of the whole sentence. Take decision-making as an example-thinking is not like playing poker-it is not only about your thoughts, but also about what others think of your thoughts and what you think they think of your thoughts. (NMET 2000) as an example. The 29 words in this sentence include subject clause, object clause, compound sentence and additional explanation of dash connection. Among them, there are complex sentences in complex sentences and complex sentences in complex sentences. Only by sorting out the components of a sentence one by one can we grasp its meaning.
(3) Accumulate certain cultural background knowledge and life knowledge.
The improvement of English reading ability requires not only certain language knowledge, but also certain cultural background knowledge and life knowledge. For example, NMET2003, Reading Comprehension A involves geography and introduces two farthest/farthest inhabited islands, one is Tristan da Cunha recognized by Guinness Book of Records; On the other hand, there are many proper nouns in the articles on Easter Island, which will interfere with students who are inexperienced in reading, but it will be better for students who know Easter and other background knowledge. In addition, in chapter C, there is a book number. If you are familiar with these, you will reduce a lot of reading difficulties.
(4) Develop good reading habits and master effective reading skills.
Developing good reading habits requires reading more books and reciting more wonderful paragraphs and articles to cultivate a sense of language. In addition, some students read aloud, click or read back when reading, which will affect the reading speed and understanding of the article. Therefore, we should overcome these bad habits, do not read back, do not read silently, and do not click to read. Only in this way can we speed up reading and improve the accuracy of understanding.
Besides good reading habits, we should also master correct reading skills. Teachers should guide students to form correct thinking methods. General reading should pay attention to the following points:
1. Skimming is to quickly browse the full text, grasp the main idea and topic sentences of the article, and clarify the author's attitude and intention.
2. Skipping is to quickly find a relevant information, look at ten lines and pass irrelevant content.
3. Guess new words. In the process of reading, you will inevitably encounter new words. If you look up a new word in the dictionary or skip it, it will affect your understanding of the article. So we have to guess the meaning of new words. Words have different meanings in different contexts. So we should guess according to the context clues and word formation.
"Rome wasn't built in a day" Improving reading ability is not a one-off event. As long as we adhere to the correct reading methods, cultivate interest, read extensively, accumulate vocabulary and develop good reading habits, our reading comprehension ability will be gradually improved.
I hope the above experience can help you. As for introducing books, I suggest that you can learn English by watching more newspapers and TV. Of course, it is most beneficial to improve your English by communicating with others. After all, your environment is very helpful for you to improve your English. Finally, it may be helpful to introduce the English version of Harry Potter 6 to you.
References:
Landina from Baidu-Trainee Magician Level 2