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Hi, everybody !

If you are visiting this blog you may wonder what it is about. Well, this is a blog designed to provide some help to English begginers in the area of reading. Personally, when my classmate and I started to learn English we were a little confused about what to do to be effective readers; we would have liked to have someone to help us a little! So, here we give you some suggestions.

What can you find here?

As we said before, we want to make a small contribution to help English beginners because we realized that probably many of them have some troubles while reading. To do this, here we provide some advices, which are included on the snake steps, about what you should do before, during and after the reading process.
The following entry contains a summary and a graphic which shows the results of an interview that was applied to ten good readers in order to find out what they do to be effective readers. The second entry has a discussion of two more used strategies founded in the interviews. This discussion is based on the results of the interview and what books say we should do.
According to the good learner’s interview answers and our experience, we made seven steps-named the snake steps- which are in the last seven entries and contain some suggestions that could be useful for you.
Also we added up five relaxing instrumental songs that you can listen while you are visiting our blog. We hope that you can find our blog useful and fun.
ENJOY!

What do students do when they read?

Maybe you have heard something like this "you guys need to read more to improve your reading comprehension." Of course, it is important that you read but what is MORE important is HOW you should read.

Here, we show the results of an interview applied to ten students at the University of Quintana Roo that may help you have an idea of what you should do in order to be good at reading. You should consider that the people interviewed are: English foreign language learners(EFL), Students of English Language Mayor ,They are in intermediate and advanced level. They are from different semesters: three of them are from 8 semester, the other ones are from six semester.

The interview

• Do you read outside of the classroom?

Five of the students interviewed answered that outside of the classroom they only read entertainment text. The other five students said that they read both types of texts; entertainment and academic, and only the minority answered only academic texts.

• What is the most apropiate place to read for you?

All of the inteviewed students think that the apropiate environment for reading is a quiet, comfortable and brighted place but three of them also think that music can help. What do you think? Can you concentrate on reading by listen to music? If your answer is afirmative, go to the songs entry!

• Before you start to read, Do you read the title and try to guess what the text is about?

Eight of the ten sudents answered that berofe starting to read they do read the title and try to guess what it is about.

• What do you do when you don´t know the meaning of a word?

Five students said that when they don´t know the meaning of a word they try to guess it by context. Three of students answered that they combined both; looking the word in a dictionary and guessing the meaning by context. Only two of them look for the meaning in a dictionary.

• Do you try to find the main idea of the paragraph?

Five of the inteviewed students answered that they usually try to find the main idea of the paragraph.

• What the students do to find the main idea of the paragraph?

Their answers were diverse, but six of the students said that they focus on the beggining of the paragraph where it is usually to find the main idea. One of them said that she/he uses keywords and another one said that she/he just reads carefully the whole text. two of them answered that if the text is academic, they read the whole text at least twice to avoid confussion and then they try to summarize the paragraph into one idea which is supposed to be the main idea.

• After reading, what do you do to remember what you read?

Here the answers of each students.

1. I write down keywords.
2. I read the title.
3. I check, review the text the times.
4. I underline the most important part.
5. If I read an entertainment text, I trust my memory. If the text is academic, I make notes or a mind map.
6. I review what I read.
7. I don´t do anything. If the text is interesting, I remember it.
8. I make a summary.
9. I make a story.
10. I relate the topic with my previous knowledge.
    

• What are the most useful reading strategies for you?

1. Five of the interviewed students answered that skimming and scanning are very useful strategies.
2. The other five answered that what works for them is to concentrate on the reading, to read the whole text, to underline the most impotant ideas, to make notes, and to paraphrase the main idea.
   

The graphic bellow shows how often the students use some reading strategies.

Skimming and Scanning...Useful? When?

IN THIS ENTRY WE DISCUSS ABOUT THE TWO MORE USEFUL STRATEGIES FOR THE GOOD LEARNERS.

Five of interviewed students think that the most useful strategies are skimming and scanning; on the other hand, as you can see in graphic, the second more used strategy is to read many times (or at least twice) and to underline the most important parts.

In our point of view, skimming and scanning are effective and very useful. But you can´t use them all the time!

So, when SHOULD you use skimming and scanning?
When…

• You have a VERY extended Reading and very LITTLE time.
• You do the reading part of your English test.

In some situations skimming and scanning are not enough to understand very well a text, specially when is academic and you have to retain the information for a longer time. So you might read many times or at least twice and to underline the most important parts.

• You should use the second strategy when...
• Your teacher asks you to analyze a text and learn concepts.You have to study for a test. You read to do homework.

TIP: If you want to avoid reading many times, you should to concentrate on what you read, underline the most important part and reread only what you underlined.

ThE sKaKe´s StEpS

According to the interview and our experiences as a learners of a foreign language in this entry we give us some advices about what should you do after, while and before you reading.

BEFORE READING
Step 1- Find a comfortable, bright and quiet place to read. If necessary, take with you a dictionary!

Most of the interviewed students answered that to find a comfortable, bright and quiet place before reading can help you to concentrate on the reading.
TANIA SAYS: This is true because when I was in third semester I always turned on the television before I started to read. At the end, I forgot to finish the reading and I stayed watching my TV program.

Step-2 Is important to read the title and try to guess the content of the reading. In this step, if you know something about the topic you are going to read, try to remember it because that would make the reading easier to keep in your mind. Also, it is important to check the highlighted words (they are usually keywords that may help you not to waste time for looking concepts or something like that)

TANIA SAYS: when I was in first semester I remember that before I started reading I ignored the title because for me it wasn´t important, but I was wrong because the title can help you to know what the text is going to talk about.


WHILE READING
Step 3- Look for the main idea of the topic and then the main idea of each paragraph.

Step 4- Underline the parts more interesting for you or the parts you think are the most important and take little notes. Only if it is necessary, underline the unknown words and look for them in your dictionary.

MARGARITA SAYS: when I find something important or difficult to understand for me, I underline and summarize it into a simple sentence. Then I write down the sentence just next to the paragraph where I get the information. In this way, I can remember it better without having to reread.

AFTER READING
Step 5- After an extended reading you may be exhausted, so take a little break (just few minutes!), then try to remember. You can tell yourself what you have just read.

Step 6- Make a mind map to organize your ideas, or make a summary with your own words.

TANIA SAYS: When I was in fourth semester and I had to read after I finished reading I always did a mind map. It helped me to keep important things.

Step 7- if you read because you had an exam, a class or homework, after these things you should review your notes to correct your possible mistakes. This may help you to build your knowledge.

...and you have done a good job!

To our visitors

We hope that our advices and suggestions can help you to improve your reading. All the steps we gave you was based on our experiences and on the results of the interview, remember that not all the people learn in the same way, each person has his or her own LEARNING STYLE, therefore this steps are only suggestions if they are not useful and enough for ALL people. If you think theses tips don't fit your necessities, try with other tips or techniques.

We are so glad to help you and we expect that you have found what you were looking for.

This is not a goodbye, because we will continue with our blog.

We want to tell you that we are so grateful for your time and yoour attention.

thanks for visit our blog, we hope that you recommend it to your friends!