Reading Skills Section 1

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You're looking for clues when you glance at an ad, pick up a book, go online, or leaf through an article in a magazine. The term article refers to a complete piece of writing in a newspaper or magazine. Learning to pick up clues about written matter is called previewing. When you preview, you use the information you already know to guess what information is likely to follow. When you want specific information, you can go to special sources. The word specific refers to anything of a particular kind.

Magazines usually make previewing easy. The title of a magazine is a good place to start when you want to know about its contents. To learn more specific information about what a magazine contains, you can also look at its table of contents, which is usually printed on one of the first few pages of any magazine.

The term fiction refers to a story that's the product of the authors imagination, rather than an account of factual information. The term novel refers to a long work of fiction. Here are three ways you can preview a work of fiction:

Study the title.

Read the back or inside book flap.

Look at the list of chapter titles, if there are any.

You can often learn a lot from the title of a novel. To find information on the subject of a novel, you can also refer to the back cover of a paperback novel or the inside book flap in a hardback book in either place, you'll find a summary of the book's main ideas or plot, as well as quotes about the book and the author. Inside the books back flap, you'll often find a short biography about the author, which provides information about the authors personal background. Knowing a little about the author of a novel may also help you determine whether it's a book you might like to read. Although most modern novels don't have a table of contents, classic books were often divided into chapters with titles. These titles are listed in the front of the novel, along with the page number on which each chapter begins. Nonfiction is writing about real events and facts. You can preview nonfiction in the same way as you preview fiction. Begin with the title, as it will often tell you a great deal about its contents. Nonfiction books almost always have a table of contents.

Key points:

Previewing is the process of picking up clues from written material.

Previewing magazines involves scanning their titles and table of contents.

Fictional material is the product of an author's imagination, not a factual account.

A novel is a long work of fiction.

Previewing a work of fiction involves studying the title, reading the back cover or inside book flap, and looking at the chapter titles (if the book has them).

Nonfiction is material that describes real events and facts.

Nonfiction books can be previewed in the same way as fiction books.

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The world around us is filled with words in print. Scanning is a way to get the information you're looking for without reading every word. The process of scanning involves running your eyes quickly over lines of print, looking for specific information. A passage is a part of an article or a portion of a book. A passage can be a sentence, a few sentences or one or more paragraphs. We seldom have time to read every word in a printed ad or every paragraph in an article. That's when the process of scanning comes in handy. You're looking for words that catch your attention. When you have to scan material for a particular date (or any other number), you can concentrate on scanning the material for numbers. The term proper nouns refers to the names of specific persons, places, and things. Taking tests is just a part of education, and using scanning and predicting skills can actually improve your test-taking skills. Since many tests are multiple-choice questions you may have to read a few passages in a text.

Key points:

Scanning is a way to get the information you're looking for without reading every word.

The process of scanning involves running your eyes quickly over lines of print, looking for specific information.

Numbers and words that are capitalized usually stand out in a paragraph or passage.

Scanning a passage can often be helpful during a test.

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To determine the meaning of unfamiliar words is to look up the word in a dictionary. Another is to get a clue about the meaning of the word from the way it's used. Sometimes you might have to figure out the intended meaning when a word has more than one meaning.

When you're reading, it isn't unusual to come across words that you don't understand or words you don't know the meaning of. There are five main reasons that can happen:

An author may use a word incorrectly.

A word may be totally new to you---a word you've never seen before. You see it and have no idea what it means.

You've seen a word before, but you've never been sure of its meaning. That's often the case because you've skipped over it before and not looked up its definition

You once knew the meaning of the word, but you've forgotten it That happens when you've gone a long time without reading or using a word.

Words that have more than one meaning. That is they have multiple meanings. (When words have more than one meaning, they have multiple meanings.

The best and most reliable way to find out the meaning of any word is to look it up in a dictionary. A dictionary is a practical and user-friendly reference work that's readily available. Whenever you encounter an unfamiliar word make it a habit to look up that word in a dictionary. Doing so will improve both your vocabulary and your reading comprehension. Most dictionaries include the following information:

Instructions on the best way to use the dictionary

History of the English language

Guide to pronunciation

Abbreviations

Foreign words and phrases and their definitions

Biographical names

Geographical names

Signs and symbols

Handbook of style (helpful for writing assignments)

The pronunciation of the word. To understand the pronunciation marks, refer to the front of your dictionary where you'll find a key to these markings.

Part of speech. Generally, the part of speech for a dictionary entry is indicated by an abbreviation: noun (n), pronoun (pron), verb (vb or v), adjective (adj), adverb (adv), preposition (prep), conjunction (conj), and interjection (interj).

Other tenses. If the word is a verb, the dictionary will show how to form other tenses of the verb.

The definition. The dictionary definition gives the exact meaning of the word. If the word has multiple meanings, the definitions are numbers.

Synonyms and antonyms. At the end of an entry, a dictionary may give one or more synonyms and antonyms for a word.

A synonym is a word with the same or similar meaning as another word. For example, huge is a synonym for enormous. An antonym is a word with the opposite meaning of another word. For example, the word small is an antonym for huge. A thesaurus provides both synonyms and antonyms for words.

You can often understand what a word means from its context, that is, the setting or placement of something. In reading the term context refers to the way a word is used along with other words. When you figure out the meaning of a word from the way it's used in a sentence or paragraph you're using the context of the word. In a sentence or a paragraph (that is, in context), you may be able to determine what it means. Clues from these sentences about the meaning of a word are called context clues. When you see a dash (---) or a comma (,) in a sentence, it often means that more information follows. Look for these kinds of marks when you're working with context clues.

Some words have more than one meaning. When you need to determine the meaning of a word that has more than one definition, you can often get it from the context of the passage or sentence. At other times you should check the word in a dictionary. When you look up a word in a dictionary and you find that it has more than one meaning, make sure you select the correct definition---that is, the one that fits the context of the word.

Key points:

The best and most reliable way to find out the meaning of any word is to look it up in a dictionary.

A synonym is a word with the same or similar meaning as another word.

An antonym is a word with the opposite meaning of another word.

You can often determine the meaning of a by the way it's used in a sentence or paragraph. When you figure out the meaning of a word in this way, you're using the context of the word.

When you look up a word in a dictionary and you find that it has more than one meaning, make sure you select the correct definition---that is, the one that fits the context of the word.