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1、【标题】浅谈如何提高英语的阅读速度 【作者】马 莉 【关键词】英语阅读；速度；障碍；方法 【指导老师】游 伟 【专业】英语 【正文】I. IntroductionReading is closely linked with peoples study, work and life. After China accessed to the WTO, English has become more and more important. The main purpose of studying English is that understands English and obtains the
2、latest information for work and research. However, in the reading process, the main problem is that people read too slowly. So how to improve English reading speed appears increasingly important.Reading speed is very crucial to the reading, readers come into contact with language materials frequentl
3、y could learn and master a large number of vocabularies; meanwhile, extensive reading can let readers understand the society and cultural history of English country. Moreover, the understanding of English-speaking countries is also essential to the professional quality for English majors. Improving
4、the ability of understanding the language, master the reading skills, enrich the language knowledge to broaden their range of knowledge, develop the ability of independent reading and speed reading skills, which are extremely important for improving the reading ability, and have great significances
5、to their study, work and life.This paper main analyses some factors which affect the English reading speed, such as vocabulary, reading habit and the background knowledge of culture and so on. Aiming at these problems, this paper also introduces some methods and strategies to improve the speed of re
6、ading. These methods included five aspects: A. skim reading and scan reading; B. meaning guessing strategies; C. good reading habit; D. mind concentration; E. wide knowledge scope. Therefore, this paper analyses some main obstacles in English reading speed and raise a lot of efficient strategies to
7、improve it.II. Obstacles in English Reading Speed In the reading process, readers usually meet some problems or obstacles, such as, vocabulary, reading habit, the background knowledge of culture and so on. And these obstacles will influence their reading speed. So this paper will analyze these obsta
8、cles carefully as follows:A. VocabularyIn the reading, readers can easily find many new words. Vocabulary, like pronunciation and grammar, is an elementary building block for a language.It is one of the important factors of reading skills, having decisive influence to the reading speed. D.A.Wilkins,
9、 a famous British linguist, once said that without grammar very little can be conveyed; without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed.1 English word like the characters of Chinese language are a basic phonetic material. If readers lack the necessary words, or do not know the meaning of words, they will
10、 fail to receive the message or respond correctly in communication, let alone improve reading speed. New words prevent them from reading fast. When they meet unfamiliar words, they will either deep in thought, or look up dictionary, so it must waste their time and influence their reading speed. So t
11、he vocabulary is one of the main obstacles of reading speed.B. Bad Reading HabitThe reading habit has direct influence to the reading speed. The good reading habit can speed reading, but bad reading habit will prevent readers from reading fast. Many people have bad reading habits as follows:1. Readi
12、ng by FingersWhile reading, some readers often point at the words with a finger, a pen or something else. That is nothing but to slow down the reading speed and cause them to focus their attention on individual words or unimportant information rather than the idea that the author is trying to commun
13、icate with them.2. VocalizationVocalization is the worst obstacle that prevents readers from reading fast. Readers with this habit usually move their mouth, pronouncing quite softly or whispering the words while reading. Sometimes, they may just move their lips soundlessly; at other times, they may
14、merely make tongue or throat movements without lip movement, they are saying each word to themselves. In fact, for efficient readers, there is no sound effect in their brains. This bad habit will slow down the reading speed.3. Short Eye SpanSome readers always read word-by-word and sentence-by-sente
15、nce or use their pens to point the words from side to side while reading the context. As a result, they cannot accomplish the task of reading within the required time. That is a bad habit in reading and it will slow down the speed of reading.4. RegressionA regression is a backward movement along a l
16、ine of print, that is, re-reads a word or phrase that has been read. Readers with this habit cant concentrate on reading and often move their eyes back and forth and sometimes they even go back over several words or a phrase several times before going on to the next part of the line. When they come
17、across new words, regression is made more frequently. Generally speaking, this is a sign of poor reading. In fact, all readers make some slight regression, but good readers make very few, while the poor ones make many.5. Over-dependence on the DictionaryMost readers have the habit of looking up the
18、dictionary whenever they meet a new word or an unfamiliar phrase. Actually, readers can get on well with the article without knowing the exact meaning of every word. Some unfamiliar words are not obstacle at all. Whats more, more dependence on dictionary will decrease reading speed and interrupt the
19、 overall understanding.C. PsychologyConcentration is a very important factor to the reading speed. If readers do not concentrate well when they read, then achieving greater concentration will be a necessary step to improving their reading speed. Reading speed is also related to readers attitude and
20、mood. Some readers have negative attitudes toward reading because they do not find the course or subject matter interesting, and they usually said,“this is boring” or“I hate reading biology.” And other readers said,“I can not do it, its so difficult.” So these bad psychological factors hindered the
21、reading speed.D. The Background Knowledge of CulturePeople usually think vocabulary is the main obstacle in reading speed. The vocabulary quantity has certain influence to the reading speed, but if they don not familiar with the content of the article and lack related background knowledge, it is ver
22、y hard to understand the article, thus influence their reading speed. Whereas, if they familiar with the material, reading would be speed up. So there is a close relationship between the reading speed and the background knowledge of culture. And it is very important to master some history culture an
23、d background knowledge and education and science and technology of English countries for improving their reading speed.III. The Ways to Improve English Reading Speed What mentioned above are obstacles in English reading speed. Next, there will introduce some ways to conquer these problems and improv
24、e the reading speed.A. Skim Reading and Scan Reading1. SkimmingSkimming is the eyes run over the text to discover the main ideas and the gist. For example, when reading a newspaper, the reader often glances over the headlines until he finds an article that catches his interest. When he doses this, h
25、e is skimming for the general sense or the gist of the article. One may not have the time, the interest, or the need to read many items carefully. So it may be very useful to skim over something quickly to get the main idea, to build up ones curiosity about the topic without spending a lot of time o
26、n it. Readers need to be able to skim a text to get a general idea of what it is about, if they try to gather all the details at this stage, it will influence their reading speed, because they are concentrating too hard on specifics.When one begins to practice skimming, one may find that it is not f
27、aster than normal reading. However, with a little practice one should be able to cover materials at two or four times the rate of normal reading.2. ScanningScanning is a reading skill to find a particular point of information quickly. Readers scan figures, train schedules, timetable, phone numbers,
28、news headlines, etc. It is very useful for readers to scan the text for particular bits of information they are searching for. This skill means that they do not have to read every word and line; on the contrary, such an approach would stop them scanning successfully.Skimming can let readers infer th
29、e main idea and understand the article rapidly and accurately. The purpose for scanning is to quickly read by concentrate on the keywords and sentence.3. The Main IdeaWhat is the most important element in any paragraph or passage? Without a doubt, it is the main idea or the central idea, which gives
30、 the paragraph or passages a purpose and direction. When readers are reading paragraphs for the main idea, try to read a bit faster than usual. By doing so, they will find it easier to concentrate on ideas and the relationships between ideas. The slow reader usually cares too much about individual w
31、ords and thus may actually comprehend less than the quick reader. In reading paragraphs, they will inevitably come across some words they dont understand. Dont waste too much time worrying about them. Just continue reading. The most important thing is to understand the material as a whole and one or
32、 two unknown words wont make much difference. Therefore, when reading an article, readers must grasp the main idea as soon as possible.4. The Topic SentenceMore often than not, one sentence in a paragraph tells the reader exactly what the subject of the paragraph is and thus gives the main idea. Thi
33、s main idea sentence is called a topic sentence or topic statement. The topic sentence states briefly an idea whose full meaning and significance are developed by the supporting details. It may appear at the beginning, or in the middle, or at the end of a paragraph. The topic sentence is very import
34、ant to the paragraph and the whole text, if readers find it quickly, and then their reading speed will be improved.4.1 At the BeginningThe most frequent placement of a stated topic sentence is as paragraphs first sentence. And the main idea of each paragraph is most commonly expressed in the first s
35、entence. Here is an example of a paragraph that begins with the main idea.Londons weather is very strange. It can rain several times a day: each time the rain may come suddenly after the sun is shining brightly. The air is damp and chill right through July2From this paragraph, readers can find the t
36、opic sentence is the first sentence quickly. In fact, the topic sentence of each paragraph is most commonly expressed in the first sentence, so they can find it easily.4.2 In the MiddleOccasionally readers will find the topic sentence in the middle of a paragraph. Often, with this placement, the wri
37、ter begins with a transition from the previous paragraph or with several details to catch the readers attention before stating the main idea. The topic sentence is then followed by additional details. Here is an example of this pattern:The average American preschooler watches more than twenty-seven
38、hours of television per week. This might not be bad if these young children understood what they were watching. But they dont. Up through ages three and four, most children are unable to distinguish fact from fantasy on TV, and remain unable to do so despite adult coaching. In the minds of young chi
39、ldren, television is a source of entirely factual information regarding how the world works. There are no limits to their credulity. To cite one example, an Indiana school board had to issue an advisory to young children that, no, there is no such thing as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Children had
40、been crawling down storm drains looking for them. 3The paragraph begins with a startling statisticthe number of hours per week that preschoolers watch televisionand then moves to the even more distressing fact that these children do not know what they are watching. This idea, the paragraphs main ide
41、a, is then stated in a positive rather than negative structure: children believe that what they are watching factually recreates the real world. A specific example then follows to illustrate childrens inability to distinguish between fact and fiction on TV. So readers can find easily the topic sente
42、nce is located in the middle of this paragraph, i.e.“In the minds of young childrenhow the world works”.4.3 At the EndAnother placement of the topic sentence is at the end of a paragraph. In this pattern, the topic sentence states what the details“add up to” or prove. An example of this pattern is s
43、hown in the following paragraph.To meet their expenses, the mass media sell their product in two ways. Either they derive their income from selling a product directly to mass audiences, as do the movie, record and book industries, or the derive their income from advertisers who pay for the access to
44、 mass audiences that the media provide, as do newspapers, magazines, radio and television. In short, the mass media operate in a capitalistic environment, and, with few exceptions, they are in business to make money. 4Although the first sentence sounds like a generalization that could be a topic sen
45、tence, the last sentence is more general. Note also the signal words“in short” to announce the paragraphs summary statement: the media are in business to make money.4.4 At the Beginning and the EndIn some paragraphs the topic sentence appears both at the beginning and the end of the passage. The wri
46、ter repeats or, more accurately, restates the paragraphs main idea. Theres an example:Media-depicted violence scares far more people than it inspires to violence, and this, according to George Gerbner, a leading researcher on screen violence, leads some people to believe the world is more dangerous
47、than it really is. Garbner calculates that 1 in 10 television characters are involved in violence in any given week. In real life, the chances are only about 1 in 100 per year. People who watch a lot of television, Gerbner found, see their own chances of being involved in violence nearer the distort
48、ed television level than their local crime statistics or even their own experience would suggest. It seems that television violence leads people to think they are in far greater real-life jeopardy than they really are.5From this paragraph, readers can find the topic sentence is the first sentence an
49、d last sentence. Because of the details are wrapped within the first sentence and the last sentence, and the last sentence is a restatement of the first sentence.5. Important Facts or DetailsIn order to improve the reading speed, readers need not to know so many details, but they just need to find the important facts or details. Readers should remember one point that not all the details are important, their goals are those details that related to the main idea. Here are some ways
