9.4. Aims of teaching reading in a secondary school

9.4.1. Reading as a vehicle of teaching

As a means of teaching, reading is used for establishing correct correlation between sound and letters, constructing complexes of visual, kinesthetic and aural images of linguistic signs of different levels. Reading is also used for consolidation of the introduced language material, development and improvement of pronunciation habits, meaningful segmentation and intoning the flow of speech, enriching vocabulary and consolidation of grammar habits, development of language and meaning apprehension.

The role of reading in teaching foreign languages is to serve a vehicle of forming language awareness (consciousness), that is reading helps understand the way language material functions in speech. As a means of teaching, reading is used for the formation and further elaboration of the technique of silent reading and reading aloud, for the development of the mechanisms of reading, for the improvement of habits and skills to express thoughts and ideas in oral and written form.

9.4.2. Aims of teaching reading in school

To read in a foreign language is one of the practical aims of teaching in school. The degree of perfection in reading as a skill may differ to a certain extent, but it is defined as the degree of communicative efficiency in a secondary school syllabus. To obtain a minimal communicative efficiency degree in reading is obligatory for any school learner. Minimal communicative efficiency allows for further reading at free will in future. Communicative efficiency in reading is revealed in both the ability to read and the amount of language input necessarily acquired to be able to read. The decisive factor in the requirements to reading is the efficiency criterion, i.e. the possibility for reading to function as language activity.

The level of minimal communicative efficiency is closely connected with the restriction in the number of kinds of reading to be mastered in school. According to Zinaida Klychnikova, there are at least 45-50 kinds of reading. To define the kinds to be mastered at school, the practical need of students are taken into consideration. The student needs are regarded as situations of reading people happen to occur in real life most often. Thus, all situations of reading fall into 2 groups: 1) in the first, the reader wants to get the information from the text (silent reading); 2) in the second, he wants to transmit the information he extracts from the text (reading aloud). The aim of school is to teach silent reading because reading aloud is needed only by a limited number of occupations (teachers, actors, radio announcers, TV speakers, etc.).

9.4.3. Kinds of reading mastered in school

Another point is that any specialist should be able to select the books he needs for his professional purposes. He is to understand clearly the information needed. These most frequently met cases of making use of books require skillful handling of skimming reading; general reading; close reading. All three kinds of reading taught in school are aimed at achieving different results.

- Skimming reading is aimed at having an idea of a book, an article or a topic or at defining the theme of a text. To obtain this information it’s enough for a student just to skim the headlines, titles, subtitles; to look through the fragments of a text, focusing attention on separate passages or even sentences. Skimming reading requires possessing rather a great deal of language input on the part of the reader. That’s why in school students are taught only its separate techniques providing a text topic or theme definition. Time required for skimming reading is 1.0-1.5 min/page. The degree of understanding equals 40-50% in cases when almost the whole text is looked through very rapidly. Speed requirements differ noticeably from M. West’s 400 w/min up to Macmillan’s minimal tempo of 500 w/min, average tempo of 800-1200 and maximum tempo of 2000-4000 w/min.

- General reading is aimed at a definite content of the book/article/text. Its result is understanding the general gist of the text including general information, general outline of argumentation, the author’s reasoning. That’s why this kind of reading is called reading for general comprehension. It is fluent fast silent reading done at the rate of 180-190 w/min. The speed indicates that the reader’s inner speaking has started to become fragmentarily as one of the features of silent reading fluency. The degree of understanding is not less than 70% of all the facts in the text. Such understanding includes obligatory comprehension of main facts precisely and completely. Facts of minor importance should not be misinterpreted.

- Close reading is aimed at complete and exact comprehension of the information contained in the text, its critical interpretation. This side of interpretation is specifically stressed by those researchers who call this kind of reading elucidative and comprehensive by Alyakrinsky, intensive by Schwarts, careful by Scherba. With close reading, the reader’s task is to store up the extracted information for further usage in his long-term memory. This necessity to keep the extracted information in store determines rather slow tempo of close reading. It seldom exceeds 50-60 w/min. The reading process is usually accompanied by re-reading certain words, sentences and passages; numerous stops; full and complete text pronouncing in inner speech; translation (sometimes – as a means of comprehension, more often – as a means of control); taking written notes. The degree of comprehension is 100%. Understanding primary and secondary information should be exact, precise and complete.

Thus, the main aims of teaching reading at school are teaching communicative efficiency in general reading and close reading.

Further education in a non-language higher school establishment is aimed at achieving the minimal level of maturity in reading (O.I. Moskalskaya). In other words, it is aimed at achieving the lower limit of speed diapason, characteristic for the kinds of reading mentioned above. Strictly speaking, teaching reading in a non-language institute takes as its aim building up the habits of skimming reading (reading for the general picture) and searching reading (reading for specific information), as well as to improve the skills of general reading and close reading. All these tasks become achievable with the help of specially selected texts. These texts should be based on English for Science and Technology language comprehensible input (texts in physics, maths, geography, law, economics, etc.).