Reading strategies

1. Kevin H. Alarcón A.
C.I: 25.006.252
Ing. Eléctrica

2. Definition of Reading Strategies:
Reading in English is a skill that helps us not only to improve our use of the
language but to develop academic and professional skills.
If we read English regularly and apply a series of strategies, we will see how
our capacity for understanding will improve in a short time
Clearly, we must read in English texts that fit our level. They can be simple
writings like news or articles, or also stories or novels, all depending on our interests. The
important thing is to do the exercise of reading in English at least once a day to
complement our learning process.

3. CLASSIFICATION OF READING STRATEGIES:
 Predicting: Before reading a text in detail, you can predict the information you will find and
maybe you know something about the subject, this can help you to anticipate what is the
content of the text.
 Skimming: It refers to making a quick reading of the text to get a general idea of ​​its
content: Title, subtitles, author's details, summary, introduction (first paragraphs in cases
of broad readings).
 Scanning: When you do give a quick reading of the text, but look for specific words or
phrases, we look for precise details rather than a general idea.
 Detailed Reading: When you read a text for the second or third time, you also focus on
the secondary ideas and details that can support or substantiate the main idea, this can
also be described as a reading of comprehension.
 Guessing unknown words: It is very difficult for you to understand all the vocabulary of a
text in another language, especially in the first reading. Therefore you have to help
yourself from the context, it is more productive to give a second reading looking for the
probable meaning of a term instead of looking in a dictionary, the second reading will
allow you to form a clearer idea of ​​what unknown words mean.

4.  Undesrtanding main ideas: When you are in the step of rapid reading you will identify
some main ideas, when reading a second or third time you will be able to understand
with greater accuracy the main ideas, generally each paragraph contains a main
idea.
 Inferring: Sometimes the writer expresses or suggests something indirectly in the
text, that is, he can suggest something and let the reader make the inference or
understand what he wants to express. When writers do this, they expect readers to
share knowledge or ideas of their culture that allow them to understand the true
meaning of their paragraphs.
 Understandig text organization: Recognizing the way a text has been organized can
help us understand its meaning more fully. A writer may perhaps highlight a situation,
discuss a problem and propose a solution, this will be shown in a pattern of
organization in the text. Maybe the writer wants to make a comparison between two
ideas and this will do so by presenting the ideas in a specific way.

5. Comparison between Reading Strategies from English and Spanish:
I believe that there is no comparison in the application of reading
strategies, since the same strategies used for English are practically the same
used for Spanish.