Reading Self-Improvement: Competency Skills (1979)

[Music] oh words and words and more words you see them just about everywhere the printed word it's part of our day-to-day environment so though you may not be conscious of it you spend a lot of your time reading not only that you rely on reading especially in school where it's impossible to do without it just think of all the things you could read in a single school year so no matter how well you read it can't hurt to improve your skills and that's what brings students to the reading Center students like Ed wheeler debate what I'm working on is called word recognition that's being able to look at a word and know what it is I can do it but I'm just trying to get better at it word recognition let's see how it works the process is triggered just as soon as a word meets your eye like this if you knew that word almost instantly it's because these things happen you realize that a group of letters was familiar you knew they stood for a set of sounds stop the ability to read words almost instantly without effort one at a time and in groups That's What You Get by building word recognition skills now try your recognition skills with some more signs [Music] speed that's important in word recognition try some longer ones at a faster Pace let's go even faster with even longer words and phrases how did you do besides being able to recognize a word you need to know its meaning or its several meanings to be able to make sense out of it when you read it that's what Pamela is working on building her vocabulary I came to this country several years ago and since then I built a pretty big English vocabulary but I keep on seeing these words these familiar words that I think that I know but they're in different context so I don't understand them so I always have to keep on working on my vocabulary familiar words with unfamiliar meanings that's probably the main vocabulary problem you meet up with in your school reading think about the word power you've heard of power boats power hitters power steering power brakes power tools maybe even power plays in all those expressions power had its most common meaning energy strength but knowing that doesn't help you much in math class when you're asked to raise two to the fifth power or in science when you need to explain a microscope with a 100 power magnification or social studies when you talk about the powers of congress so a word can have many meanings some common some only for special purposes part of building vocabulary is learning as many of these meanings as you can how many do you know for the word hand that is one meaning but do you know these [Music] learning additional meanings of familiar words that's part of vocabulary building of of course another is learning entirely new words there are special skills that you can develop for that too for instance do you know what an astol is probably not but there's a way to find out without looking it up before the telescope the astrol was the chief instrument for studying the stars and planets now can you define [Music] astrolab number three is correct if you chose it it's because you probably got a sense of the meaning of astrol from its context from the way it fits with the other words and images around it context often helps you get word meanings another student in the reading Center is Arthur I like reading now cuz it's interesting and it takes me into different places that I could never go by myself I used to hate it because I would try and find the meaning of each word instead of trying to find the meaning of whole sent sentences they've given me lots of exercises to help me at the reading center now I'm improving through work at finding main ideas the main idea the key thought behind a paragraph or a story or an article sometimes it's laid out in the open for instance in a newspaper Story the main idea is often given out by the headline what headline would you give this item from the Evening News budget director Maxwell Grim warned today that the state may run out of money by the end of the Year Grim term the situation a possible disaster on your Highway budget problem the governor is the only one it can solve this problem after all it's his own Highway projects they're draining our funds so if we run out of money you'll know who's fault of is which of these headlines does the best job of giving the news stories main idea did you pick the bottom one it does summarize the most most important of the ideas Mr Grim stated headlines aren't the only things that signal main ideas for instance in a textbook they're signaled by tables of contents chapter titles headings introductions summaries pictures topic sentences and so on I really want to go to college and I've been told that to do well on placement tests and College reading assignments I'll need the ability to interpret things that I read so I've been going to the reading Center where I've been working to improve an interpretation hi hi interpreting what does that mean you'll see in a minute if you pay close attention to this part of a short story told by the character named Billy I was peaceably sitting on a log cooling off my feet when up strides M Savage only female blacksmith in the territory just as soon breaking noses look at you well she stares down at me with them beady eyes and says out of my way well how could I do but what the lady asked I I wouldn't want folks thinking Billy's not a gentleman which of these do you think true of [Music] Billy that he's afraid of mod chances are he is and he may indeed want to avoid admitting it whether you chose one or both the point is this to pick one you had to read between the lines or perhaps Beyond the Lines because the character Billy never actually says either that's what interpreting is because it's one of the toughest skills to master Marie is spending a lot of time working on it the skill that concerns Allen is reading speed it used to take me forever to do my homework because I read too slowly but I've been working work in the reading Lab at improving my speed at reading school materials and so far my speed has almost doubled how fast should a person read that depends as you're about to see when the watch starts read the encyclopedia passage that appears beside it and check your time when you finish and try to remember the main facts read carefully starting now remember your time and see how long it takes you to read part of a letter with similar information and the same number of words start now how much time did that one take probably less than the first because it was simpler and so was your purpose in reading it remember your reading speed should usually be determined by the type of material and your purpose that's why each of us needs several speeds slow for difficult textbooks faster for a light story faster yet for skimming what's your speed for material of average difficulty you're about to find out we'll start with a rate of 150 words per minute get ready to step it up to 250 words per minute still faster how about 500 Words a minute think that's fast then try a speed of 1,000 words a minute yaow hold everything there after all you don't need Super speeds what you do need is several speeds each as fast as possible for the material and your purpose [Music] remember no matter how well you read there's always room for improvement and if you want to do it you can do it [Music]