 Welcome to virtual university. Today I am going to recap what you have been doing in the past. Reading is the most important skill that you will need for success in your studies. Poor reading may be a problem for many of you, but it is not a hopeless one. And we have been teaching you ways in which you can improve your reading comprehension. Now remember, this is just an introduction. You must continue to read and practice on your own. And it is only by reading that you learn to read. And our main concern here is with improving your comprehension. There is a relationship between reading speed and reading comprehension. You may think that if you read rapidly, your comprehension will suffer. This is a false assumption. As you push yourself to read faster, you may find that you comprehend less. However, continued practice will improve your comprehension as well as your speed. Instead of responding to every individual word, you will be responding to meaningful chunks of words, to units of ideas. And good readers adjust their speed to the material they are reading and the kind of comprehension that they desire. You do not, I am sure, read a newspaper and your science textbook in the same way. You adopt different ways of reading a newspaper and you read your textbook in a different way. Now, there is one major cause of slow reading and that is vocalization. Which is forming the sounds of each word even though you may not say them aloud. You sort of say them under your breath. You just form the sound of the word. Now, vocalization is very common among our students. It is a sure sign that the reader is a poor reader. So, learn to read with your eyes and mind and not with your lips. In simple words, learn to read silently. A good reader reads silently. If you learn to recognize and understand the principles and methods of writing, because reading and writing go together, after all somebody has written what you are reading. And this is called rhetoric. It will improve your reading. If you learn to recognize and understand the principles and methods of writing, if you understand how the writer has written what you are reading, it will help you improve your reading. If you learn to understand why a piece of text or writing was written, what it says, both in overall statement and major sub points, and how the author or writer has made those major statements and the minor parts fit in, it will help to improve your understanding of the reading text. You may remember this is exactly what we have been doing so far. All successful writers work along these lines. The way they write will provide answers to three questions. Why is he writing? What has he written? And how? How has he gone about writing? An important part of reading is realizing that everything you read has an author or writer who has something to say. And he says it in a particular way, in a particular manner. Now you as a successful reader must apply the same technique that the writer has used. You must apply you as the reader, must apply the same questions. Why? What? How? And decode what the writer has written. I hope you have got my point. Here is something that the writer has written and here is, here are you. The reader. You have to interact with what the writer has written. He has used certain techniques which you can decode by following those three questions. Why? What and how? Now to answer the first question, why? Remember the author is a person who has a reason for writing a given piece of text and who works from a personal point of view. You as a skilled reader, you must fully understand and evaluate what you read. Remember the writer, the author has a purpose in writing and you must recognize that purpose. Now with purpose there are two other things and those are attitude and tone. When a writer writes, he has a purpose and he has an attitude and he develops a tone while writing which are in simple words the expression of the writer's feelings. There are three common purposes of communication, of writing. One is to inform, the other is to persuade and the third one is to entertain. When the writer's purpose is to inform, he gives information on facts about the topic or subject he is writing about. And when the purpose is to persuade, the aim is to convince the reader to agree with the writer's point of view. Here also, writers may give facts but their main goal is to promote an opinion for the third purpose which is to entertain. The author appeals to the reader's senses and imagination with the aim of amusing and to cause delight. Related with purpose, as I said earlier, is the matter of attitude. What is the writer's attitude toward his subject? Or towards you, the reader, even if he is arguing, he can be arguing coolly and logically or he could be arguing angrily and heatedly. He can see something funny in the situation or something frightening. Similarly, he can approach his audience that is the readers, his readers as friends, as enemies, as equals or he can talk down to them from a position of authority. Now that is attitude. Attitude then is the author's approach, the position, the stance that he adopts towards the material that he is presenting. And the audience, that is you, the reader and the situation in which he is writing. Now, a good clue to the author's attitude and approach to the subject is his tone. This is the voice in which he is speaking to you, that is the language, the words and phrases that he chooses to write. And it is through the author's tone that we sense his wit, his humor, sadness, indignation, friendliness, etc. Just as a speaker's voice can project a range of feeling in the same way, a writer's words and phrases can project one or more tones of feelings. And understanding tone is an important part of understanding what the writer has written. Sometimes tone is evident from the first line, from the first paragraph. Sometimes the tone and purpose and attitude will not be evident, will not be clear to you until all of the piece or text has been read. Now, authors and their works are complex. Authors are human beings, they are complex and what they write is also complex. And author uses many different types of writing to put forward his views. He may choose to narrate, he may choose to describe, he may choose to explain or he may choose to argue. He can put forward his views in any of these styles of writing. Now, not all writing fits neatly into one of these categories. You may find a writer combines all these types in one piece of writing. Description and narration are often used to help develop a further purpose. The writer can use description and narration either to put forward an argument or exposition. Thus, you may find, he may even use exposition to develop an argument. Thus, you may find combinations of purpose involved in what you read. The same purpose, the same approach can apply to humour and to entertainment. If you, the reader can find out what is the underlying purpose and intention of the author and what technique or strategy he is employing, then you are a successful reader. And as I have said earlier, that you will not develop this overnight. You will not develop this in one or two or maybe a month's reading. Continuous reading, sustained reading will develop this, the skill in you. Now, all this, the things that I have mentioned, purpose, tone, etc., etc. All this might not be evident in your first reading. So this means that you will have to re-read. At least this might be necessary until you are a practiced reader. Now, you cannot always rely on your first reading to bring you the comprehension, the analytical understanding that is required. But there are clues that your first reading will supply. And these will be of great value. They will be valuable in your second reading or in your re-reading of the text. Now, that was the first technique. The second technique that the writer uses, the one that answers the question, what the writer says, what he has said in his piece of writing, what he has said in the overall statement and the major sub-points of the text. This leads us to the author's basic statement, his thesis statement about his subject. For you, the reader, the thesis also indicates what the writer is not saying. It shows you the limitations the writer has set for himself, how much of the general subject he is going to deal with. A good reader makes sure that he reads within the boundaries of those limitations. To help readers understand their main points, their main points, the authors try to present supporting details in a clearly organized way. Details might be arranged in any of several common patterns. Sometimes authors may build a paragraph or longer passage exclusively on one pattern. Very often the patterns are mixed. And by recognizing the patterns, you, the reader, will be better able to understand and remember what you read. The most commonly used pattern of organization are subdivisions such as time order, sequences, list of items, comparisons and contrast, cause and effect, definition and example. These subdivisions complete the pattern of the writer's basic statement. His thesis is been thought. He uses these subdivisions to present to you bit by bit what he has to say. And the reader's recognition and understanding of these subdivisions are a part of answering the question how? The third important technique used by the writer. Recognition of the main subdivisions is recognition of the techniques and devices of organization. Paragraphs and particularly the topic sentences of paragraphs are important clues. The topics of the individual paragraphs are the core statements in explaining the writer's thesis. Each paragraph will make some kind of core statement and then develop it with some concrete details. Now in short pieces of writing, each paragraph may be a separate subdivision. In longer pieces, a number of paragraphs may form a subdivision each contributing to the total understanding. Relationships between the different parts of a text are conveyed throughout by use of transitions. If you remember, we've done these transitions in the earlier lessons. A recognition of these transitions, the movement from one connection between from one part of the text to the next leads to a general improvement of your reading. In other words, it means noticing important words and phrases which connect the parts. These may be function words or content words. Now function words, as you know, are an important part of writing and reading and I use no matter what the subject of the text. These are those small words such as as, in, at, and, but. Those small prepositions, those conjunctions, the modifiers, etc. that help to establish emphasis and relationship between the parts. They are the chief clues to the organization of a piece of writing. All writing depends on these function words. Now, content words are those that are central to the development of the subject of any particular piece of writing. They are often words that are most fully defined. But it is also possible that the author assumes that you know their definitions. In either case, you, the reader, have to be sure you understand these key words. Also, you need to notice how the author modifies key words, key content words at different parts. Sometimes, he substitutes a word for the key word that he has used earlier, the content word that he has used earlier. Sometimes, later on in the passage, he might use another word for it, a substitute. He may use synonyms. That is, other words with similar meanings. Or he may even use antonyms that are in contrast to the key content word or words. And the successful reader learns to recognize and understand the clues that the writer gives. And this can only happen through practiced reading. Now, I have repeated what you have been doing in the past lessons. Now, there is, I am going to talk about an approach to comprehension. You have probably realized by now that everything you learn in this course is geared towards the end of writing and understanding English. And nothing is merely an exercise learnt for examination purposes. Now, what we call comprehension exercises that you have done earlier and you are going to do again in the future. They are in fact a test of your understanding. Now, up till now, you have been dealing with computer related passages. The reading passages that you had up till now were entirely based or related with computers. Now, we will shift gear and make you look at other kinds of reading materials. The pieces of writing we will use are going to be of two types. Imaginative and factual, imaginative and practical. Now, the imaginative pieces, the imaginative passages will be a piece of creative writing. They could be extracts from a novel or a short story. They would be dealing with a fictional situation and we could even have a poem. Now, in answering comprehension questions you should know that you can understand what the writer is talking about but just not on the surface. But you also need to know the subtleties, the implications, the underlying meaning and you will need to know something about how the writer is getting to his points. The way he uses words, images and sentences to create particular effects. In other words, you will be looking into matters of style and appropriateness of style to the content. This will be when dealing with imaginative passages or creative passages. In the practical passages, you will deal mainly with facts. It may be a report, an account or someone expressing his opinions on a particular matter, a series of instructions or a set of statistics which you will be asked to interpret. The emphasis here will be on making sure that you can understand the line of argument or the logical step-by-step statement of the facts. You may be asked to summarize the points made in the passage about a particular aspect of the matter being discussed. Now, keep in mind that the computer text we did in the earlier lessons were factual text. Now, the kind of questions you should be prepared for. The kind of questions on reading passages that you are likely to deal with shall be, they shall deal with, number one, meaning. You may be asked to explain the meaning of the words or phrases as used in the passage. For example, you may see the word execute. And you might immediately think of its meaning as inflict capital punishment. But this would not be appropriate. It wouldn't be an appropriate meaning in a context like to execute the plans for redevelopment of the town, will call for the support of all citizens. Now, here in this sentence, execute doesn't mean killing someone. But it would mean carry into effect. That is, bring it about, how to bring about the plans. You will deal number one with meanings. Number two, you will deal with facts. You may be asked to answer questions about what the passage is actually saying. Just to make sure that you understand. For instance, if in the piece of writing, if the piece of writing you are reading is about a character, a character digging his allotment, you may be asked, what is the character doing? And here you would be dealing with facts, as they are stated in the text. The third thing you would be asked would be reading between the lines. Now writers, especially creative writers, writers of fiction, do not always state their facts directly. They imply, they imply emotions and attitudes and suggest points of view. And they depend on the reader being perspective enough to be able to form a total impression. They expect the reader to understand the total meaning, the total impression, which is greater than the bare words of the passage. For instance, the author may not state directly that he dislikes a particular character he is writing about. But the words he uses to describe that character and the situations he presents him in may convey the author's attitudes towards the character and that attitude is passed on to the reader. The words are not chosen accidentally, but with a purpose. And you, the reader, must be able to get beyond the surface meaning of the words and see what the implications of such words are. For example, the same soldiers could be called terrorists, freedom fighters. According to the, you know, soldiers could be called terrorists. They could be called freedom fighters depending on the writer's attitudes towards them. In describing someone eating, a writer may use the words like he gulped, he slobbered, he guzzled, he wolfed down. And these words may be merely a statement of effect. But if they are about an adult, if he uses these words, the words slobbered or guzzled, if he is talking about a baby, they would have a different meaning. But if he used them to describe an adult eating, the writer may well be suggesting distaste, dislike towards the character he is describing. The writer can also use metaphorical language. For instance, you might be asked to explain what is exactly that a writer has in mind when he makes a comparison or uses a metaphor, a metaphorical expression. In a story, the author may say, my uncle blew and bugled whenever he won at cards. This is from a story by Dylan Thomas. The writer says, my uncle blew and bugled whenever he won. He was at playing cards. Now the word blew suggests a literal and factual way of expelling breath from his mouth in a burst. But the word bugled is being used in a metaphorical way. The writer is making a comparison between the noises uncle made and the sound of a bugle. His uncle didn't have a bugle in his hand. But the sound that he was producing was very much like that of a bugle. The writer here is trying to make more vivid to our imaginations the kind of noise his uncle made. Now the word bugled suggests things like high pitched, strident, sudden and loud, perhaps even triumphant. Now these are ideas, these ideas which this metaphorical use of the word conveys. They convey a lot more than literal words would convey. Now when we are dealing with imaginative texts, you have to look at style. Just as people as individuals are different, so the people who write, they write in various ways. They have different styles of writing. A particular writer may write in different ways depending on what effect he is trying to achieve. He may use very flowery language if he is trying to create an atmosphere. He may write very simply if he is just concerned with getting important facts over to you. Or he may write with his tongue in his cheek. Now you may be asked to comment on the style of the passage you are studying, you are reading. And you may have to justify the appropriateness and the effectiveness or otherwise of the style to the content of the passage that you are reading. That is what the writer is saying. Now the kinds of points you would have to be aware of. The variety of sentences used, the kinds of words chosen, the particular devices, the literary devices he is using. These are the things that you will become familiar with and you must become aware of. These are very important aspects of understanding writing. And we shall be discussing them in greater detail in the units to come. Now so far we have looked at five types of questions that you will get in your reading after you have done your reading. The sixth type of question will be the summary. You may be asked to pick out certain facts in a passage which are relevant to a particular point. Example, you may be asked what do we learn about X? What do we learn about Mr. X physical appearance? And you will have to search through the piece of writing, through the text to find out all the details that the writer gives you about this. You may be asked to summarize the main points of the passage that you have read. Now the seventh type of question that you can be asked is to give your own opinion. Now this is a higher level scale where you as a reader will be asked to comment, give your response, your personal opinion. You may be asked to comment on the views expressed in the passage, in the text to say whether you think they are convincing or to give your own views on the topic. For instance, you read a passage, a piece of text on homeopathy what we in our common language say homeopathy. In English the word is homeopathy and you may be asked do you think homeopathy is harmful and here you are being asked to give your opinion. Now asking for personal opinion and justifying your opinion is a higher level scale. You may be asked to develop or expand on an area of experience which is described in the passage and you may be asked to express your personal point of view. For example, the passage may be about working conditions and you may be asked to comment on the conditions under which you work and indicate the area in which you think improvements or improvements could be made. Here you are being asked to state your personal views. You may be right, you may be wrong that doesn't matter. What we would like to train you is in the art of expressing your opinions. Never mind if they are right or wrong. Now let me recap what we have gone through today. We have introduced you, we are going to introduce you to a new set of reading. Reading that will involve imaginative pieces of writing and factual pieces of writing. And the questions that you will be asked will be based on finding out if you understood the passage, asking you about the meanings of the passage. Then we can ask you about facts, facts related to the passage. Then you will be asked to, you may be asked to read between the lines. That is infer, infer meaning, inferences, how to draw inferences from what is stated. Then you could be asked to comment on the kind of language that the writer has used. If he is using metaphorical language, what is the significance of using that language? Is the writer successful in drawing the images? Was the use of those images appropriate? Was he able to draw out the feelings that he wanted to? And of course it will be your personal response that we will be looking for. And then from this we moved into the area of style, again a higher level skill. Looking at the style of a writer's way of writing, what techniques does he use? Is he successful? And then you might get questions on making summaries. Now to make a summary is not easy. I am sure you have been learning summaries of passages that you read in your intermediate course. Our students learn the summaries by heart, the summaries that are available of all the intermediate essays and poems and short stories. Students just buy those books from the bazaar and they learn up the summaries and they write them out in the intermediate exam. This time we will be asking you to write summaries. You will have to write them, you will not get them ready made in the form of notes. And the last type of question would be to state your opinion. Which is again we will be looking for your personal opinions, your personal response to the text that you read. Now these are the main types of questions and approaches that you are likely to be asked. There may be others and you may become, but if you become acquainted with these types of questions and texts and you can understand them. You should be a well-prepared, practiced, confident reader. Now today we have talked about different aspects of reading and understanding English. And we have also signposted the rest of the reading-based lessons. Now do you understand the word signposted? When you go out on the road, if you are observant, you will notice that on the road, there after a certain distance you will find either a milestone or a notice on a pole giving you the directions. That is what is meant by signpost. A signpost just tells you the directions that you have to take. And in today's lesson, we signposted the kind of reading, the reading-based lessons that you are going to have in the future. And we have also tried to show you how to deal with different questions which are based on different kinds of reading texts. And in the next few lessons, we will be practicing different ways of interpreting texts. These could be dealing with imaginative texts. You will also have texts dealing with non-linguistic texts in the form of tables, in the form of graphs, in the form of charts, pie charts. You may have maps. You will look at those and interpret them. Of course there will be questions related. We will give you practice in how to deal with such texts. So in the future, you will be looking at short stories, poems, maybe an extract from a novel. We will try to include some biographical material. In short, we will try to introduce you to a lot of imaginative reading. That is creative writing, writing that is fiction. You have had a lot of material on, so far you have been looking at text which was based entirely on computers. It is not that we are not going to have any more computer lessons. You are getting computer lessons, but we will talk about computers as well. You will get reading based on computers, but we are going to introduce you to another kind of reading. And we hope by the end of this course you will have developed an understanding of how to go about reading English texts. The more exposure you have to different kinds of reading material, the better reader you will become. In the next few lessons, we will be practicing different ways of interpreting texts. And with that, we come to the end of today's lesson. Next time when we meet, we shall be doing something very interesting. We shall be looking at inferences. We shall look at a few poems, a few cartoons and we will teach you how to draw inferences. That is how to read between the lines. Allah Hafiz, see you next time.