Reading Skill:
Finding the Main Idea
Word Pretest

Text　A

Detailed Study of Text A
Reading Skill Questions ＆ Reading Comprehension
Vocabulary Building

Cloze

Reading Skill——Finding the Main Idea　

　　In Book I you have already learned to distinguish between the topic and the main idea in a reading passage. The topic is the subject the passage is about. The main idea is the writer’s opinion, judgment, or idea about the topic. It is the controlling idea that the writer wishes to prove or explain. The details are the proof or explanations that support this general concept.
　　The main idea is a generalization, whereas the supporting details are more specific. Being able to tell the main idea from the specific details is another essential skill to aid comprehension. Read the following paragraph, looking for the idea that is the most general.　　

　　Aunt Stella never forgets to send a card on the birthdays of her friends. She remembers anniversaries and graduations better than anyone else in the community. If she says she'll lend you a book or send you an article she saw in the newspaper, she always comes through. And somehow she manages to keep straight not just the names of her fifteen nieces and nephews, seven brothers and sisters, and their thirty-five children, but she also remembers such things as who loves the color blue and who hates pink and who loves roller-skating and who dislikes trips to the beach.

　　Let's check your comprehension. All the sentences have something to do with Aunt Stella's memory, so that is the topic. What specifics do you learn about her memory? She remembers a) birthdays of friends, b) anniversaries and graduations, c) promises, and d) names and interests of family members. Now, judging from the details listed here, what general statement can you make about Aunt Stella's memory? Main idea: Aunt Stella has an exceptionally good memory. If you wrote a sentence similar to this one, you have got the main idea of the paragraph. It is quite clear that the details are an expansion of the main idea, that is, in turn, an expansion of the topic.
　　Usually the main idea is directly stated by the writer in one or more sentences within a reading passage. The sentence that states this main idea is called the topic sentence. The location of the topic sentence is not fixed; it may appear in the beginning, the middle or the end of the passage. Sometimes the passage lacks the topic sentence. In this case, the reader is required to work out the general idea by himself. 　

Unit 1 Reading

Question 1. What kind of materials do you always read, why?
Question 2. What canreading bring to us?
Question 3. What kind of problems do you always encounter during your reading?

 

Section A

Directions: You are expected to study this section in class. Don’t preview.


For each italicized word, choose the best meaning below.
1. Teenagers are eager to escape restrictive home environments.
　A. familiar         B. free               C. limiting
2. Some American words have no British equivalents.
　A. meanings        B. correspondents   C. origins
3. Noise is usually a distraction when you are trying to study.
　A. something that draws one's attention away from what he is doing
　B. something that draws one's attention to what he is doing
　C. something that arouses one's interest in what he is doing
4. The price varies according to the season.
　A. goes up         B. goes down       C. changes
5. He's the most versatile of actors.
　A. having special talent
　B. having a good voice
　C. having many skills
6. He indicated his interest by sitting up straight in class.
　A. gave a sign of    B. pretended       C. pointed to
7. The government is taking strict measures against all forms of corruption.
　A. inefficiency         B. dishonesty    C. waste
8. If people find out what you are doing, it will ruin your reputation.
　A. name           B. career           C. future　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

 

Text 　A
A Few Questions About Reading

What Is Efficient Reading?
　　What do we mean when we talk about "reading efficiency"? Does it mean more than saving' time by reading rapidly? Reading effectively most certainly includes understanding the ideas the writer is trying to send. It includes organising those ideas logically to remember them. But it also has to include processing the information as quickly as possible; we have so much to read and understand in what always seems too little time.

What About Rapid Eye Movement?
　　Reading is not a simple physical activity. You see nothing while your eyes are moving; to see, you must stop and focus. Reading is much more than eye movement. When it is properly developed, the reading process is a thinking process. When you are reading to learn, you are constantly thinking, evaluating, judging, imagining, comparing, and reasoning. You are auditing new information to previous knowledge, judging its value, and comparing its use in solving problems or creating new horizons.
　　Training your eyes to move faster is useful in breaking restrictive reading habits——habits that slow you down and limit how much you remember. But eye movement alone will not increase your reading efficiency; the efficient reader is a thinking reader. Reading is a thinking process.

Why Are Reading Goals Important?
　　The effective reader has a purpose for reading. The more definite the purpose, the more effective the reading. Just as a purpose controls the way you walk —— a leisurely walk through a park should be different from a long trip on foot in a short time or a rush to a hospital emergency room —— a purpose controls the way you read. Having a goal to reach means getting rid of distractions that won't help you achieve that goal. As with walking, the methods you use vary with the goals you establish.

How Much Comprehension?
　　When do you have enough comprehension? When you have achieved your goal. When you want to find a number in a phone book, reading the entire book is, obviously, not an aid in achieving your goal quickly.
　　You may read for pleasure with no intention of using the information you read for any other purpose. Or you may read to find the sequence of events leading to a particular war. You may need to understand previous action taken before you can define a new policy, or you may want to know metric equivalent for a pound. When you have found what you are seeking, you have satisfied your purpose for reading; you have as much comprehension as you need.

What is Reading Versatility?
　　If to read is to understand, the reading method used to achieve the reader's purpose will be determined by the type of material and its difficulty. A book on chemistry will not be read at the same speed as a novel, even by a chemist. And the same chemist will use a different reading method for a newspaper sports column.
　　The versatile reader is also the efficient reader who reads in the best possible manner with the least waste of time. The versatile reader may be called the mature reader. He or she has overcome the problem of word-by-word reading, no longer feeling that each word should be studied.
Your goal is to develop into a versatile, efficient, mature reader——not just a rapid eye mover.

How About Knowledge?
　　Look out a window. You see an entire scene. The meaning you give it depends on your understanding of what you see——of the knowledge you have from your past experiences. Similarly, the style and difficulty of the material and the reader's experience and knowledge will influence the speed of comprehension.
　　Consider the meaning of the following nursery rhyme:　　

　　Jack and Jill went up the hill
　　To fetch a pail of water.
　　Jack fell down and broke his crown,
　　And Jill came tumbling after.　　

　　You probably thought it meant two children, sent to an illogical uphill location to get water, both fell down the hill. But how would your understanding change if you knew that “Jack” was the common name for a corrupt king, and "Jill" was used to indicate his queen? Or what if "Jill" was not the queen but a woman of questionable reputation? Then "hill" might indicate power; "water" might mean "gains from corruption"; and whoever "Jill" is, she is dragged down with him — or causes the fall.
　　Previous knowledge can influence the message you receive from reading, just as body language adds meaning to spoken messages; they provide you, the receiver, with more complete information to process.

Total words: 760
Total reading time:                  minutes          seconds
The text is based on Super Reading by Margaret Morgan Byrum, Warner Books, Inc.,     1988.　

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

◆Reading Skill —Finding the Main Idea
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions below.　　

　　When do you have enough comprehension? When you have achieved your goal. When you want to find a number in a phone book, reading the entire book is, obviously, not an aid in achieving your goal quickly.
　　You may read for pleasure with no intention of using the information you read for any other purpose. Or you may read to find the sequence of events leading to a particular war. You may need to understand previous action taken before you can define a new policy, or you may want to know metric equivalent for a pound. When you have found what you are seeking, you have satisfied your purpose for reading; you have as much comprehension as you need.

1. What is the topic or subject being discussed?


2. In your own words, what is the writer's main idea about this topic?


3. What are the specific details that support the main idea?


◆ Reading Comprehension
Circle the letter of the best answer.

1. Reading effectively includes the following except               .
　A. understanding the ideas the writer is trying to send
　B. processing the information quickly
　C. remembering every detail
2. Faster eye movement is useful in forming the habit of      in the process of reading.
　A. comparing carefully
　B. reading quickly
　C. thinking clearly
3. The more definite the reading goal is,                 .
　A. the more fixed reading methods are
　B. the more effective the reading is
　C. the more interesting the distractions are
4. To have enough comprehension in your reading means                    .
　A. to understand everything in your reading material
　B. to read the whole book
　C. to find what you are looking for in your reading material
5. The versatile reader is one who                   .
　A. reads as quickly as possible
　B. reads word by word
　C. uses different reading techniques for different reading materials
6. At the end of the text, the writer gives an example of the nursery rhyme to show that           .
　A. the same nursery rhyme can be understood differently
　B. the corrupt king and his queen are silly
　C. background knowledge is important in reading　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

 

Vocabulary Building

① Word Search
Find a word in the texts which means:

1. judge the value or degree of(A: 13)
2. limit of one's ideas, knowledge, or experience (A: 15)
3. exact (A: 26)
4. having the ability to understand and learn things well (B: 1)
5. have as a necessary part; include (B: 7)
6. promise; obligation (B: 16)
7. look at or view in a general way (B: 56)
8. make a great effort to do something (B: 68)
9. go back to a former place (B: 78)
10. regular repeated pattern of sounds (B: 89)

②Use of English
Rewrite each of the sentences so that it still means the same, using the words on the left together with the correct form of the verb TAKE. Look at the example first.
The explorers disregards the mosquitoes, flies and snakes.
NOTICE   The explorers...took no notice of the mosquitoes, flies and snakes.

1. Bob agreed to undertake the leadership of the expedition.
ON   Bob agreed...

2. The world believed his fantastic story of having got to the Pole alone.
IN    The world was...

3. After a pause for questions he continued his story.
UP    He...

4. That reminds me of the time I climbed to the top of Mount Fuji.
BACK That...

5. First one of the party steered the boat, then the other steered it.
TURNS    The members of the party...

6. They assumed that someone would pick up their signals and come to their aid.
GRANTED They...

③Stems
Affixes and stems are basic parts on which many words are built. In Book I, you have already learned some affixes and their meanings. Book H will introduce a variety of stems. Study the following stems and their meanings. List some more examples in the space provided.


　Stems


　　Meanings


　　Examples
1 cent/centi 　one hundred／one hundredth 　century／ centigrade
2 claim/clam 　cry out/shout 　exclaim

3 firm

　fixed

　affirmative

cent/centi    1.   　　　        2.     　　　       3.     　　　      4.     　　　    
claim/clam   1.     　　　      2.      　　　      3.       　　　    4.    　　　     
firm        　　1.     　　　      2.     　　　       3.   　　　        4.    　　　     

Read each of the following sentences and decide the meaning of the italicized word.
Then write it down in the space provided.

1. The mayor proclaimed Monday as a city holiday.
　proclaim:

2. Only a small percentage of the students have received scholarship.
　percentage:

3. He said he would accept the job, so we asked him to confirm his acceptance in writing.
　confirm:

4. She affirmed that she was telling the troth.
　affirm:

5. Centigram means a weight equal to a 100th of a gram.
　centigram:

6. "My Goodness!" she exclaimed.
　exclaim:

④ Synonyms
Synonyms are words with similar meanings. On each line in Column H there is one word which is a synonym of the word in Column I. Circle the synonyms.
　　I                          　　　　　　　　 II
1. flexibility      　　　 　 constancy     adaptability    perplexity
2. goal             　　　　 meaning      purpose       concentration
3. tense           　　　　 strained       relaxed       sense
4. retain              　　　 release        contain       hold
5. conquer        　　　   defeat         fight        contest　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

◆ Cloze
Fill in each blank with a word given below. Change the form of the word if necessary.
　　serious       difficult      bilingual     important    use
　　means       weeks       second       France       student
　　The dictionary is very         for a person who is learning English. When students begin their study of a         language, they usually use a bilingual (or two-language) dictionary. For example, a student from          uses a French-English dictionary and a         from Panama uses a Spanish-English dictionary. The use of a         dictionary is necessary when students first begin to study another language. However, after a few        , all students should try to use a monolingual (or one-language) dictionary. If you are a         student of English, this         that you will now use an English-English dictionary. Of course, sometimes you might need to         your bilingual dictionary for a very word, but you should try to use your English-English dictionary most of the time.