Some useful strateries about teaching skills to do reading comprehension test for high shcool students

The following method is the best way of attacking a reading passage to get the most questions correct in a limited amount of time.. Skim the reading passage to determine the main idea an

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION

1.4 Study method 3

2 STUDY CONTENT

2.2 Status of the study problem 4

Skill 5

Skill 6Skill 7Skill 8

1.1 Reasons for the study

The impetus for this study comes from my own year-to-year efforts to teachstudents to do the Reading comprehension tests in Grades 10,11,12 in ThachThanh 1 High School

I feel that the majority of students always find it hard to do this type of tests Atfirst sight, they do not figure out the content of the passage, but they are not patientenough to read the passage to the end under the pressure of time during the test.Also,this part accounts for a small percentage in the whole test As a result,students usually put this part aside and return to it at the end of the test time At thattime, students will make ticks on this part randomly

On the other hand, teachers rarely show or sometimes refuse to teach students how

to do the Reading Comprehension test due to the seemingly unsuccessful resultsdespite their unfailing endeavor to improve students’ reading Although there havebeen plenty of descriptions of what teachers have done or what materials have beenpresented,there have still been few practical results of how or / and what ourstudents learn

During more than twenty years of teaching English in general and reading

comprehension skills in particular, I assumed that the part in which students usuallymake the most errors is Reading Comprehension because students have a small number of vocabulary.They often do not master all the vocabulary, so they cannot understand the meaning of the passage

Owing to the necessities, I have made up my mind to choose “SOME USEFUL STRATERIES ABOUT TEACHING SKILLS TO DO READING

COMPREHENSION TEST FOR HIGH SHCOOL STUDENTS”

as my topic of the study

1.2 Aims of the study

With the above mentioned reasons in mind, I have the specific aims as follows:

1 To help students improve the skills of doing reading comprehension tests

2 To encourage students to confidently cope with this type of tests so as tocomplete the tests at best they can

3 To encourage students to get full mark on this part of test

1.3 Scope and object of the study

This study was conducted with the students of the 12th and 10th form in myschool.That school year, I was teaching the class 12A2, 12A5,10C3 and 10C5,therefore, I chose these classes to carry out the research Their age ranges from 16

to 18 All these students are not good at English because their main subjects arenatural sciences and social ones I did a survey of students in these classes aboutreading comprehension and the result was that over 90% of students found readingcomprehension a difficult skill and often skipped this part while taking tests orexams If they take the multiple-choice test, they will randomly choose the anwers.This is also one of the reason for low scores in the exams, especially in the nationalexams for the 12th grade students

At the end of the school year, I compared the results of the reading comprehensiontest to see the effectiveness of the research topic

2 STUDY CONTENT

2.1.Theoretical rational of the study

As regards the teaching of reading, I do not totally deny the energies the teachers

in explaining the text However, in discussion with the teachers in our school, I feelthat our investment of energies in teaching the reading part is meaningless It isbecause most students learn in advance from the Instruction Books the content ofthe text in Vietnamese, not in English, while teachers take no notice of that Little

by little, students get a habit of being unable to read the English passages bythemselves They always expect their teachers to translate the passages intoVietnamese, or choose the options with no intention

As for teachers, after asking students, especially good students, to translate thetext, or doing it for the worse students, teachers let students do the tasks without

giving any explanation Consequently, students get confused and do not know whatthey need to find from the text and how to choose the answers In the end, studentsrefuse to read the passage or read them without intention, then choose the answersrandomly and never know whether their answers are right or not As a result,students put no efforts into the part of Reading Comprehension.

2.2 Status of the study problem

I always see that the greatest problem students face in any English paper isReading Comprehension Students either spend much time on it without knowingfor sure the answers or do it without intention As for me, I would like to present inthis paper some following skills to help my colleagues teach students how to getover this problem so that the latter can do this part more easily and exactly I hope

that my topic “Some useful strateries about teaching skills to do reading comprehension test for High School students ” can result in effective ways in

teaching students how to complete their tests perfectly

2.3 Solutions

Each reading passage is often followed by 5 questions of reading comprehensionand vocabulary.Topics of the reading passage are varied,but they are ofteninformational subjectssuch as history,literature,art,architecture, geology,geography,and astronomy Time is definitely a factor in the Reading Comprehension

Some students, especially average students, note that they are unable to finish allthe questions in this section Others cannot understand what the passage is about, sothey do without intention and don’t know surely if their answer is true Therefore,they need to make the most efficient use of their time in this section to get thehighest score The following method is the best way of attacking a reading passage

to get the most questions correct in a limited amount of time

STRATEGIES FOR THE READING COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS

1 Skim the reading passage to determine the main idea and the overallorganizations of ideas in the passage You do not need to understand everydetail in each passage to answer the questions correctly It is therefore a waste

of time to read the passage with the intent of understanding every single detailbefore you try to answer the questions

2 Look ahead at the questions to determine what types of questions you mustanswer Each type of question is answered in a different way

3 Find the section of the passage that deals with each question The question –type tells you exactly where to look in the passage to find correct answers.

- For main ideas questions, look at the first line of each paragraph

- For directly and indirectly answered detail questions, choose a key word inthe question, and skim for that key word (or a related idea) in order in thepassage

- For vocabulary questions, the questions will tell you where the word islocated in the passage

- For overall review questions, the answers are found anywhere in thepassage

4 Read the part of the passage that contains the answers carefully The answerwill probably be in the same sentence (or one sentence before or after) the keyword or idea

5 Choose the best answer to each question from the four answer choices listed inthe textbook The best answer can be chosen according to what is given in theappropriate section of the passage, eliminate definitely wrong answers, andmark the best guess on the answer sheet

The following skills will help students to implement these strategies in the Readingpassage of the test

2.3.1 QUESTIONS ABOUT THE MAIN IDEAS OF THE PASSAGE

It is very common for reading passages of the test to have questions about theoverall ideas in the passage The most common type of question asks about themain idea, topic, title, or subject

Skill 1 Answer main idea questions correctly.

Students may be asked to identify the topic, subject, title, primary idea, or mainidea These questions are all really asking what primary point that the author istrying to get across in the passage, and it is not difficult to find the main idea bystudying the topic sentence, which is most probably found at the beginning of aparagraph

If the passage consists of only one paragraph, students should study the beginning

of that paragraph to determine the main idea If a passage consists of more than oneparagraph, students study the beginning to determine the main idea

Example 1 In the Second Semester Test, Grade 12, year 2019-2020, the Reading comprehension is that:

The Asian Beach Games is a multi – sport event held every two years amongathletes representing countries from Asia The games are regulated by theOlympic Council of Asia The first Games were held in 2008 in Bali, Indonesia.This Games will be composed of sports with strong television appeal such aswindsurfing, kite boarding, swimming, beach volleyball, beach handball, beachsoccer, and dragon boat racing

The Asian Indoor Games is a multi – sport event held every two years amongathletes representing countries from Asia The Games are regulated by theOlympic Council of Asia The first Games were held in Bangkok, Thailand

This Games will be composed by sports with TV broadcasting potential and notincluded in the Asian Games and Winter Asia Games Programs and are notOlympic sports The sports program will comprise from six to eight excitingsports with strong television appeal, including electronic sports, extreme sports,aerobics, acrobatics, indoor athletics, dance sports, inline hockey, fin swimming,and 25 meters short course swimming

Question 27 The passage is about ………

A The Asian Beach Games and the Asian Indoor Games

B The Olympic Council of Asia

C The Asian Games and Winter Asian Games Programs

D The Asian Indoor Games and Winter Asian Games Programs

In the above given passage, there are four paragraphs Students should be sure toread the first sentence of each paragraph to determine the subject, title, or mainidea In Example 1, the first sentence of the first paragraph of this passage

discusses the Asian Beach Games, and the second paragraph begins with “this

Games”, which means that it is about the Asian Beach Games The first sentence of

the third paragraph tells of the Asian Indoor Games, about which the fourth paragraph tells, also beginning with “this Games” So the whole passage discusses the two kinds of games: the Asian Beach Games and the Asian Indoor Games.

Therefore, the best choice is answer A

The following chart outlines the key information that students should rememberabout main idea questions:

MAIN IDEA QUESTIONS

IDENTIFY THE

QUESTIONS

What is the topic of the passage?

What is the subject of the passage?

What is the main idea of the passage?

What is the author’s main point in the passage?

With what is the author primarily concerned?

Which of the following would be the best title?

1 Read the first line of each paragraph

2 Look for a common theme or idea in the first lines

3 Pass your eyes quickly over the rest of the passage tocheck that you really have found the topic sentence(s)

4 Eliminate any definitely wrong answers and choose thebest answer from the remaining choices

2.3.2 DIRECTLY ANSWERED QUESTIONS Skill 2 Answer stated detail questions correctly.

A stated detail question asks about one piece of information in the passage ratherthan the passage as a whole The answers to these questions are generally given inorder in the passage, and the correct answer is often a restatement of what is given

in the passage This means that the correct answer often expresses the same idea aswhat is written in the passage, but the words are not exactly the same

Example 2: In English 10, page 45 and 46, Unit 4 “Special Education”, Part Reading, the second paragraph:

At first, there was a lot of opposition from the parents of the disabled children.They used to believe that their children could not learn anything at all In the firstweek, only five children attended the class Gradually more children arrived.Their parents realized that the young teacher was making great efforts to help

their poor kids.

Task 2:

Question 2: At first the parents were the idea of sending their

children to the special class

A interested in B opposed to C satisfied with D worried about

Since in the first sentence of the paragraph, there is the noun “opposition”, we can see from the four answers the verb “opposed” in the answer B, they are in a family.

So the answer B is the best one

The following chart outlines the key information that students should rememberabout stated detail questions:

STATED DETAIL QUESTIONS

HOW TO

IDENTIFY THE

QUESTION

According to the passage, …

It is stated in the passage … The passage indicates that … The author mentions that … Which of the following is true …?

1 Choose a key word in the question

2 Skim in the appropriate part of the passage for the keyword or idea

3 Read the sentence that contains the key word or ideacarefully

4 Look for the answer that restates an idea in thepassage

5 Eliminate the definitely wrong answers and choose thebest answer from the remaining choices

Skill 3 Find “unstated” details.

Students will sometimes be asked to find an answer that is not stated or not

mentioned or not true in the passage This type of question really means that three

of the answers are stated, mentioned, or true in the passage, while one answer is

not The actual job is to find the three correct answers and then choose the letter ofthe one remaining answer The teacher asks students to notice that there are twokinds of answers to this type of question:

1) There are three true answers and one answer that is not discussed in thepassage

2) There are three true answers and one that is false according to the passage

Example 3: In English 12, page 163 and 164, Unit 15 “Woman in Society”, Part Reading, the last paragraph:

Today, although their status varies in different countries, women in most parts of the world have gained significant legal rights The most important of these are: the right to have equal work opportunities and pay to men, the right to vote, and the right to formal education

Task 2:

Question 5: Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the last paragraph as

one of women’s legal rights today?

A the right to hold property

B the right to equal pay

C equal employment opportunity rights

D the right to vote

The question asks for the one answer that is not mentioned, so three of the answers are listed in the passage and one is not Since the right to equal pay, equal

employment opportunity rights, the right to vote, are listed in the passage, answers

B, C, and D are incorrect However, the right to hold property is not listed in the

passage, so answer D is the best answer to this question

The following chart outlines the key information that students should rememberabout “unstated” detail questions:

“UNSTATED” DETAIL QUESTIONS

IDENTIFY THE

QUESTION

Which of the following is not stated …?

Which of the following is not mentioned …?

Which of the following is not discussed …?

All of the following are true except …?

1 Choose a key word in the question

2 Scan in the appropriate place in the passage for the keyword (or related idea)

3 Read the sentence that contains the key word or ideacarefully

4 Look for answers that are definitely true according tothe passage Eliminate those answers

5 Choose the answer that is not true or not discussed inthe passage

Skill 4 Find pronoun referents.

In the Reading comprehension of the test, you will sometimes be asked todetermine which noun a pronoun refers to In this type of question it is important tounderstand that a noun is generally used first in a passage, and the pronoun thatrefers to it comes after Whenever you are asked which noun a pronoun refers to,you should look before the pronoun to find the noun

Example 4: In the Second Semester Test, Grade 12, year 2019-2020, the Reading comprehension is that:

Arctic Ice May Disappear in a Decade

A new report on global warming predicts the frozen Arctic Ocean will soon be like a normal sea in the summers There are shocking changes happening in the

polar environment and its fragile eco-systems For millions of years, the sea

around the North Pole has been frozen all year round Recent research from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Catlin Atlantic Survey show things are changing fast They predict that within a decade, the Arctic will be largely ice-free in the summer They base their prediction on the rate at which the sea ice is currently thinning The lead researcher, professor Peter Wadhams said, “The area

is now more likely to become open water each summer, bringing forward the potential date when the summer sea ice will be completely gone.”

An ice-free Arctic will have consequences for the whole world’s weather patterns

The Arctic sea ice is a key part of the Earth’s climate system Experts call it

Earth’s “refrigerator” They said that as it disappears, the world will become a lot

warmer Scientists are still unclear exactly what changes there will be to our

weather Forecasters predict an increase in all kinds of disasters and extreme weather events These include massive flooding, much more dangerous hurricanesand the spread of the world’s deserts These new findings provide an urgent call for world leaders to act The timing of the WWF report is a reminder to those attending the UN climate summit in Copenhagen in December Rich countries will face pressure to agree to reduce their carbon emissions by40 per cent by 2020

Question: 33 What does the word “it” in paragraph 2 refer to?

A the Arctic sea ice

B climate system

C refrigerator

D the Earth

To answer this question, students should look before the pronoun it for singular

nouns that pronoun could refer to An ice sea Arctic, the Arctic sea ice, the Earth’s

climate system come before the pronoun, so they are possible answers Then

students should try the three possible answers in the sentence in place of the

pronoun From the following sentence students should notice that as it disappears,

the world will become a lot warmer , so the best answer to this question is answer

2 Look for nouns that come before the pronoun.

3 Read the part of the passage before the pronoun

carefully