The twin problem of analysis and synthesis

In learning to read, students widen their eye-span. They can see more than one word or a sentence. The eye moves faster than the reader is able to pronounce what he sees. Thus, reading aloud becomes an obstacle for perception. It hinders the student’s comprehension of the text. That’s why the student has to use silent reading more and more often. M.Westsuggested ‘ Look and say, read and look up’ technique to develop the skills in silent reading. According to this technique, students are suggested to read a sentence silently, grasp it and reproduce it without looking in the text. Gradually, time limit is first introduced and then reduced, as reading becomes fast and fluent.

Teaching silent reading is closely connected with two problems: 1) in the first place, students should be able to find in sentences what is new in the information, which follows certain structural signals. It becomes possible if students have a certain kind of knowledge of grammar and vocabulary and they can perform an elementary lexical and grammatical analysis; 2) in the second place, it is connected with developing students’ ability of language and meaning apprehension (the so-called language guessing). The first problem is easy-going if students are taught the way to find the logical predicate in a sentence. You may ask your students to read the text silently and find the words conveying the new information in the text according to their position in the text. There are some signals, which may be helpful in this respect. These are: the Passive Voice – The man was sent for; the Indefinite Article – A man has come up to him…; impersonal structures - It is/was easy for him to read, etc. The analysis of grammar and lexicon helps students assimilate structural words, find the meaning of unfamiliar words and those, which seem to be familiar but do not correspond to the structure of the sentence. E.g.: I saw him cross the street at five yesterday.

Much more attention should be given to the way students pick out actual information from the text. It is done with the help of structural-information exercises:

- Read the following sentences and guess the meaning of the words you do not know;

- Read the sentence ‘ An idea struck me…’ and explain the use of the indefinite article;

- Find the logical predicates in the sentences with the words ‘ alone, even, so’ etc.;

- Read the text. Stress the words conveying new information in each sentence. E.g.: I have got a cat. The cat is white. It is three years old. It’s very funny. I like my pet.

- These sentences are too complicated. Break them into shorter ones.

- Fill in the gaps.

The text can be represented as a gap-filling exercise (just remove every seventh word or so). The students can either read the text and fill in the missing words or they can read and fill in the missing words without having previously seen the completed text. In the latter case, a simpler exercise where only the easy words are deleted can be used. E.g.: The path leading up … the spring was not … good as the path they … been on before, but after about forty-five … they reached … spring.

Another version of gap filling is the so-called paired story completion. Students A and B are given copies of the story, in which different information has been left out. The two copies are so prepared that students A and B can fill in their gaps and thus complete their texts by asking their partners questions:

One of the most frequently used techniques by which students attack new words is using picture clues. The use of context clues is another word-getting technique. The students discover what a new word is when that particular word is needed to complete the meaning of the sentence.

In teaching students to read, much attention should be paid to development of their ability to guess. One of the best ways to develop this skill is to give the student the text for acquaintance either during the lesson or as his homework. The so-called before-questions may be of much help, because they direct the students’ attention and thoughts while they are reading. If reading is done during the lesson, the teacher can direct his students in guessing new words.