These days the influence of the English language is increasing

These days the influence of the English language is increasing. Today no matter you like it or not, English is the closet thing to a lingua franca around the globe; English is very widely used for business. Between different countries, most business letters around the world are written in English, and three quarters of the world‟s books and newspapers are made in English. Reading is one of the four basic skills which learners are required to master if they want to learn a foreign language. English reading can improve reader‟s perception so as to give a lot of help to improve listening, speaking and writing. It can increase knowledge, widen their visions, and enhance their interest in English. So it is clear that it‟s very important to do a lot of English reading. But the problem is that many English learners seem to have difficulty in reading accurately and efficiently. Moreover, in various international and domestic examinations, English reading has taken larger and larger part. In this situation, how to improve English reading draws more and more attention. This paper tries to state some points as how to help English reader improve their reading ability.

2. Improve your language knowledge

The language knowledge here mainly refers to vocabulary and grammar. Your language knowledge can help you read both fast and with high comprehension.

2.1 Vocabulary The English language has about 750, 000 words, and more new words are coming into use daily. Also, words are constantly being redefined. Each word takes additional meanings as time passes until it has many meanings. It has been proved that the readers with small store of vocabulary will find it very difficult in reading comprehension. How to solve this problem? According to the study of Hatch and Brown，learners' strategies for 1earning vocabulary fall into five essential steps: 1) having sources for encountering new words; 2) getting the forms of the new words; 3) learning the meanings of the words; 4)making a strong memory of the words; and 5) using the words. This word acquisition theory not only manifests the inner rule or vocabulary learning but also reveals the three important aspects of vocabulary learning: word form, word meaning and word use. Therefore, we can build up our vocabulary from the following aspects:

Firstly, learn about word formation. You can enlarge your vocabulary by using the rules of word formation, Many words in the English language are made up of word parts called roots, prefixes, and suffixes, like“ sad ”, “sadly”, “sadness”, and so on. Therefore, this method is used to help readers get the meaning of an unknown word by analyzing the word structure, which is by dividing words into usable parts such as roots, prefixes and suffixes. If you know a number of commonly used prefixes, roots and suffixes, they will be of use in unlocking the meanings of unknown words that you find in your reading. For example, when you know the word “courage”, “ encourage，discourage，courageous” will not be new to you. Secondly, collect the new words you often meet in reading. That doesn‟t mean encouraging you to consult the dictionary whenever you meet a new word in reading. The appropriate way is to try to guess the word meanings from context clues, from the words around it, and then you will gradually know the clear meaning of the word after meeting it often. And now, if you look it up in the dictionary, you will have a good memory of it. Thirdly, learn a certain number of new words by heart every day. Young students have good memories. It is possible for you to memorize some words every day without much difficulty. You can choose some words for yourself, which is very helpfu1. When you meet these words in your reading，you will feel easy, “Aha, I‟ve known their meanings. ” You will feel confident and more interested in reading.

2.2 Grammar

Language is composed of words and grammatical structures. The accurate rate of comprehension is based on the mastering degree of the words and grammar. In case of learning a language, for instance, a child or a beginner who learns a foreign language, learns some words first, then begins to get in touch with the regulation of sentence --grammar, then he can use words to make sentences himself. Only by understanding the rules of the game, you can win the game. Sometimes, we find some learners recite a large number of words and they can say the meaning of them as they see them, but when these words are arranged into a sentence, these learners cannot make sense of them. Why? That is because they are not familiar with grammar. Grammar is the skeleton, which produces the variety of different words combinations. We know that if you thread coins with a cord, you can carry away many coins at a time easily; if the coins scatter on the floor, it is hard to pick up every one. Grammar is like the cord to give life to the combination of words and make the expression diversified. It makes us know the approval, interrogatory or surprising tone and the like. Mastering grammar is the basic step to make progress on English reading. More exercises on grammar are all too good and no harm can come of it. Sometimes, in the reading, you will find that comprehension of an entire passage depends on your ability to understand a single sentence. Sentences, which are very long, sentences, which have more than one meaning, or sentences, which contain difficult grammatical patterns often, cause comprehension problems. In this case, readers should keep the following points in mind. (1) If the sentence is long, try to break it up into small parts:

The general then added, “The only reasonable solution to the sort of problems caused by the current unstable political situation is one of diplomacy and economic measures and not the use of military force.” You should read the sentence like this:” The only reasonable solution to the sort of problems/caused by the current unstable political situation/is one of the diplomacy and economic measures/and not the use of military force.”

(2) Look for key words that tell you the relationship within a sentence.

“The West had sent armies to capture and hold Jerusalem; instead they themselves fell victim to new ideas and subtle influences,”

“ Instead ”indicates that something happened contrary to expectations.

Form a good habit of reading

If you are reading for meaning，try to read fast. Some people read very slowly. They think that reading slowly helps them understand better. That is not right. As a mater of fact, the faster you read, the better you understand. The expression“haste makes waste” does not apply to reading.

Remember, nothing hurts concentration more than reading too slowly. Your mind will keep up with your reading speed if you ask it to. By always reading at your top speed, you challenge your understanding and make it easier for your mind to concentrate on the materia1. To improve your reading speed, you must get rid of the following bad habits:

a．Point at words or hold a pen or a pencil or ruler under the line while reading;

b．Mumble the words to yourself or say the words in your mind，though other people cannot hear you reading;

c．Read back from time to time;

d．Stop reading at occurrence of the unknown words to look them up in the dictionary.

A good reader should develop a correct method of reading. That is to train himself to read attentively ( not to read back) and silently (not to read aloud), sentence by sentence, not word by word. Whenever meeting a new word, try to guess the meaning from the context. Consulting the dictionary from time to time not only affects one‟s reading speed and the comprehension of the reading material, but also gets the reader frustrated.

Scanning: for a specific focus

The technique you use when you're looking up a name in the phone book: you move your eye quickly over the page to find particular words or phrases that are relevant to the task you're doing. It's useful to scan parts of texts to see if they're going to be useful to you:

the introduction or preface of a book  the first or last paragraphs of chapters  the concluding chapter of a book.



Skimming: for getting the gist of something

The technique you use when you're going through a newspaper or magazine: you read quickly to get the main points, and skip over the detail. It's useful to skim:

to preview a passage before you read it in detail

 to refresh your understand of a passage after you've read it in detail.



Use skimming when you're trying to decide if a book in the library or bookshop is right for you.

Detailed reading: for extracting information accurately Where you read every word, and work to learn from the text. In this careful reading, you may find it helpful to skim first, to get a general idea, but then go back to read in detail. Use a dictionary to make sure you understand all the words used.

2. Active reading

When you're reading for your course, you need to make sure you're actively involved with the text. It's a waste of your time to just passively read, the way you'd read a thriller on holiday.

Always make notes to keep up your concentration and understanding. Here are four tips for active reading. Underlining and highlighting

Pick out what you think are the most important parts of what you are reading. Do this with your own copy of texts or on photocopies, not with borrowed books.

If you are a visual learner, you'll find it helpful to use different colours to highlight different aspects of what you're reading. Note key words

Record the main headings as you read. Use one or two keywords for each point. When you don't want to mark the text, keep a folder of notes you make while reading.

5. Apply various reading skills

5.1 Prediction Prediction refers to thinking in advance about what to be read. It is a major factor in reading. An efficient reader usually predicts what he or she is going to read. Why is prediction so important? Predicting is very crucial in the reading process in two aspects:

Firstly, by predicting the topic, reader‟s existing schemata, which is referred to as content schemata, can be activated and thereby facilitate reading comprehension in the reading phase. As Nuttall says: “Prediction is important because it activates schemata: that is, it calls into mind any experiences and associated knowledge that we already have about the topic of the test.”

Secondly, Learners' predicting before reading not only serves as a purpose for reading the text, but also draws their attention in the reading process. It has been assumed in many theories that attention and purpose are absolutely bound up with reading, determine whether it happens at all, and what form it takes if it does. The incidental learning is clearly both possible and effective when the demands of a task focus attention on what is to be learned.

Therefore, before reading a text, it's important for you to predict, what you expect to see in the text. Then you become more involved in reading in order to confirm your expectations about the information that you think the text will contain. You prepare yourself or the reading task and familiarize yourself with the topic. Human beings can cope with most situations better if they know what to expect. Predicting helps us to know what to expect in the texts we read, and it also helps us to remember words relevant to the topic we will meet. The burden of understanding is therefore lessened, and we can read more effectively.

5.2. Finding out the topic sentences

This skill is a basic one to grasp the main idea of an article. The two basic parts of a paragraph are the main idea and the supporting details. The author‟s point or purpose, the main idea is usually stated in a single sentence. The sentence that states the main idea in a paragraph is called the topic sentence. According to the topic sentences, we can learn not only what or whom the article describes but also what the author wants the readers to know. The topic sentence always appears at the beginning or at the end of a paragraph. Sometimes we can read the first and last sentences in each paragraph only, omit the rest of them. By doing this, we can get the meaning of each paragraph easily. This reading skill will reduce time of reading the unimportant message, make our reading speed quickly and make us find the relevant messages quickly. Especially when the article is an exposition, this skill is helpful. Finding out the topic sentences of an article can make us understand completely what you are reading and grasp the theme quickly. When you can use this skill freely, your ability in reading is improved.

5.3 Skimming and scanning

Skimming and scanning are skills for making fast search for information. 5.3.1 Skimming

Skimming is a way of reading materials quickly, in order to look for a general idea, especially when we try to decide whether careful reading would be desirable or when there is not enough time to read carefully. This skill-type reading can be used when reading newspapers, magazines, novels and the like, which can not only enlarge horizon but also bring enjoyment of language. But how can we skim? Force your eyes to move fast. Sweep across each and every line. Pick up only a few key words in each line. You and I may not pick up exactly the same words when we skim the same piece, but we‟11 both get a pretty similar idea of what it‟s all about. As we begin to skim a passage, we should read the first paragraph at normal speed all the way through. Because the opening paragraph contains an introduction or overview of what will be talked about. Then, from the second paragraph on, we can only read as much of each paragraph as we have to in order to discover whether it contains a main idea or any important details. We skip over the parts, which are nonessential to us until we reach the ending paragraphs, which we should read more carefully because they often contain a summary. This skill of reading is widely used when one read an exposition or an essay. When one begins to practice skimming, one may find that it is not faster 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, with comprehension that will be enough for one‟s purposes.

5.3.2 Scanning

Like skimming, scanning is also quick reading. However, in this case, the search is more focused. To scan is to read quickly in order to find a particular point of information. Scanning skill is particularly helpful when we want to consult a dictionary, look for a certain advertisement (hunting for a job, renting a house, etc.). For example, when we look for the amount or the number of something, we simply look at the Arabic numerals; when we want to find the name of a person or an organization, we just scan for the words beginning with a capital letter.Sometimes before we read articles of this kind, we can read the questions first. When reading, you need to keep the questions in your mind all the time, read it with some aims，then read the article as quickly as you can．The parts that are not relevant with the questions are swallowed at a high speed, and the other relevant messages are tasted at a little slow speed. The answers of scanning must be accurate. It‟s warned that you should not pay attention to the reading speed, if so, you can‟t locate the right answers and scanning is of no use at a11.

Scanning and skimming are important skills; they do not remove the need for careful reading, but they

enable the reader to select texts, or parts of texts, that are worth spending time on.

5.4 Guessing the meanings of the new words or expressions

Everyone knows that new words and expressions are always easily found when reading an article. Some of them can be ignored because they are not so necessary for you to grasp the main idea of an article or answer the questions. However, there are also a lot of new words, which are key words to the article. Not knowing the meanings of these words will greatly affect the understanding of the article. So the ability of guessing the meanings of the new words is very important in reading comprehension. For this reason, you must try to improve their ability of conjecturing the meanings of the new words or expressions.

5.4.1 Guessing the meanings from the contexts

The meanings of the words can be guessed from the given information in the contexts, for example: Mr. Joes got on the motorbike, I sat behind him on the pillion, and we roared off into the night. Suppose you don‟t know the meaning of the word “pillion”, you can guess it in the following way. Since the above sentence tells that “Mark got on the motorbike”and “I sat behind him”. The meaning of the word “pillion ” probably means: saddle for a passenger behind the driver of a motorbike.

5.4.2 Guessing the meanings from the definitions

When writing an article，sometimes the writer will give a suitable definition to a word. We can guess the meanings of the new words by these given definitions easily, for example,

He is a resolute man, that is to say, once he sets up a goal, he won‟t give it up half way.

If the meaning of the word “resolute” in this sentence is unknown, you can conjecture it by the meaning of the latter sentence“Once he sets up a goal, he won‟t give it up half way”. So it must mean：fixed in determination or purpose, firm.

5.4.4 Guessing the meanings from the contrasts

During the course of reading an article，sometimes the students can infer an opposite or similar meaning by the meanings of the given words. For example: George was cautious, not careless, with the gun.

Suppose the word “cautious ” is new to the us, however, in the sentence we can judge that cautious is an adjective at first, and then the meaning of the word „„careless” is familiar to us, and it means failing to take care, George was not careless, he did take care, he was careful, so cautious must mean careful. 5.4.5 Guessing the meanings from the word-formation

For most of the new words，we can guess the meaning of them by their word—formation. Compounding, prefixation, suffixation and conversion are the main types of word—formation.Knowing the ways of the formation of the words, you can guess the meanings of the new words without much difficulty. Take the word “uneventful”for example，we can divide the word into three parts: un-, event and -fu1. Un- is a prefix, which means：“not”，event is the root．And -ful is a suffix with the meaning “full of, having the quality of”. Then we know the word “eventful” means:“full of notable events”and so“uneventful”means：without any notable events‟‟.

While I did practice teaching at a middle school, I tried to make the students use this skill in reading freely. Every day, before the class was over, I wrote one or two sentences with at least one new word on the blackboard. I required the students to conjecture the meanings of them using the ways mentioned above.

Besides, they had also to tell me which way they used to guess the meanings of the words or

expressions, e.g. In the sentence “Unlike her gregarious sister; Mary is a shy person who does not like to go to parties or to make new friends…” The word “gregarious”was a new one to the students. The students had to not only guess its meaning was“not shy ”but also understand that the meaning of it was conjectured by the contrast. After one and a half months‟ practice, almost all the students could conjecture the meanings of the new words and expressions in an article.

6 .Be confident and active in reading

During my time of doing practice teaching, I found the fact that some students had no self-confidence in reading. Before reading, they feared that they could not understand the passage. When they met with new words，they would feel so nervous as to lose the courage to go on reading it. These students were defeated not by their weakness in English but by their lack of confidence.

We know that people read to get information or to learn and absorb or to enjoy themselves. So, when you are reading，there is no need to feel any pressure. Just try to get the information you need or enjoy yourself. But this is not enough. A good reader should also try to communicate with the author actively. Try to guess the author‟s real meaning between the lines and don‟t force your own thoughts upon the author‟s. Even if there are some new words, that doesn‟t matter much. You don‟t have to know the exact meaning of every new word, just try to guess the meaning of the word from the context.

To become a good reader, you should also read often and read a lot. And to learn about English culture will be of great help, too.

7. Conclusion

As stated above, it is very necessary and important to develop the students‟ ability of reading through improving language knowledge, enlarging the readers‟ schema, forming a good habit of reading, applying reading skills, be confident and active in reading. However, reading is an art never completely mastered. Rome was not built in a day. In other words, you will not become great overnight. It is necessary for us to keep on applying these methods to our daily reading in order to consolidate and improve our reading ability. Here another thing should be made clear. Each person has his own advantages and disadvantages. One should keep on accumulating experience and seek out the drawbacks. The discussion above on reading is just an attempt to find out the methods in English reading. Only in the process of reading, can you discover the right way for yourself.

he 21st century is an \"information explosion\" era. With the expansion of \"Internet\" and China's entering WTO, people will have to read more to get information than ever before. That urges us to train efficient readers as many as possible to meet the challenge of information explosion. The purpose of reading competence should be developed from early age; in middle school time is a critical period. So the ultimate aim of teaching reading in middle school is to cultivate students’ reading skills and develop their ability of reading, that is, in a word, to learn to read. So that students can obtain useful knowledge by reading to improve self-quality, achieve self-perfection and self-development

Learning reading skills and cultivating reading competence in middle school mainly depend on

class teaching and students’ physical and psychological. Most of them are teenagers.

In the middle school, each subject requires observation of students. Students can focus on objects to cognize subject much longer, understand them more deeply and more comprehensively, which lay a solid base for future study. Students in middle school develop their purpose and consciousness of observation. Their generalization is more precise. Students' thought transforms from objective thought to abstract thought, and from experiential type to theoretical type, sometimes, is one-side. Those are features of cognition.

Bad habits in reading there: 1 verbatim held

Have the students read to meet every new words to check out, to read, the reading speed is very slow. They just focus on individual words, rather than the entire text understanding, often is read back, in front of the content that has been forgotten for almost. This is not a good reading habit, not only affect the speed of reading but also has an impact on the understanding of the article. 2 look and read

It has several different forms. Some people are reading, it is easy to perceive. Some people do not make a sound, but silently. Read a book when the lips, tongue, throat are slightly fibrillation. Some people use a pencil or a finger, a row to move down, it is called to read. There was also the mind reading, despite the articulatory organs without significant action, their hearts are in a word word to say, then they are breathing rhythms and read rhythm basically consistent, this is a very bad reading habits. Either way the look and read are conducive to the improvement of reading speed and comprehension of texts. 3Read back

Here put back into two cases. A reading is the ability of poor readers often repeated reading just read the words and phrases. This is not only because of their language level is relatively low, there are still some mental disorder. Their reading ability has always been lack of confidence, always think not

understand; reading is not to understand the basic thought and content, and seize a word on the. Reading ability of the readers will look back,\" To do this he may have to return to earlier parts of the text and reinterpret them.In this case, regression is the sign of an active and responsive reader, not an Inc ompetent or insecure one.\" [6 ] but the reading ability is poor readers are not so. Their back as behavior is often used, often quite frequently, even very simple sentences and words, they also want to read. It will affect the reading speed and comprehension of texts.

4 error considered

The character recognizing ability, long ignored character recognizing ability, develop a so-called erroneously regarded this bad habit. Erroneously regarded can lead to poor effort, serious in. The reader will according to word error mean completely misinterpreted the meaning of the original sentence. For example, I saw a beautiful girl was a beautiful girl into I.

( four) to develop good reading habits, master effective reading skills

Try to develop good reading habits, requires more than usual to read, recite wonderful passages and articles, to cultivate a sense of language. In addition, some students in the reading reading aloud, reading or reading back, these bad habits will affect the reading speed and comprehension of texts. So to overcome these bad habits, do not read back, not read, not read. Only in this way can we accelerate the understanding, reading speed, the accuracy can be improved.

In addition to good reading habits, to master the correct reading skills. The teacher should guide the students to form the correct thinking method. General reading should pay attention to the following points:

1, skimming ( Skimming ) that is quickly read the text, grasp the main ideas of the text and topic sentences, clear the attitudes and intentions two) enlarge students' vocabulary, grammar and training system

Determines the ability of English reading comprehension of many factors,

people thinks generally, vocabulary, the background knowledge, reading skills, reading ability and English reading comprehension. On non English major students, English reading comprehension is mainly to see the students

vocabulary, the larger vocabulary, understanding the sooner the better. If the student does not reach a certain number of words, it is difficult to apply

inductive analysis, inference ability. Therefore, to improve the students' ability of English reading comprehension, teachers should be in the promotion of students' vocabulary learning from spontaneity to consciousness

transformation principle, from word-building, polysemy, a term translation and other aspects to enlarge students' vocabulary, teach students according to the context and the root, affix and guess the meaning of the word, for reading comprehension obstacle.

Reading is not a kind of isolated language skills, it is in the mastery of a certain amount of understanding of lexical basis must also possess certain grammar. Higher vocational students' mastery of grammar is not comprehensive, it is necessary for them to have a system of grammar training, especially to

strengthen the analysis and comprehension of difficult sentences.

Understanding complex sentences is the key to grasp the backbone of the sentence, the sentence structure and the logical relation between sentences, eventually seize the core meaning of.

( five) the cultivation of students' English cultural foundation

In the reading process, if the students are lack of cultural background knowledge, if can understand every word, may not be able to correctly understand the meaning of articles. A large number of language test instructions, English reading obstacle exists not only in vocabulary and grammar, that is carried by language background knowledge and cultural

information is one of the main obstacles in reading comprehension. Language is an important carrier of culture, language and culture are closely linked. Long-term since, in the teaching of English in the relation between language and culture has not been given sufficient attention. In fact because of not

understanding the background of language and culture, do not understand the differences between Chinese and Western cultures, in English and

communicate in English often misunderstood frequently arise ambiguity, pragmatic failures one after another phenomenon.

In short, reading can be said to be a person of language knowledge,

background knowledge and other knowledge interaction process, is based on the existing language materials, cultural knowledge and logic inference are hypothesized and correcting process. Therefore, only when teachers guide in teaching, teachers must fully mobilize the enthusiasm of the students, and constantly overcome in the process of reading habits, encourages students to use reading methods and skills, increasing the amount of reading, to enlarge English vocabulary, can really improve the reading level.

[Abstract ] reading to English learners requires knowledge is one of the four basic skills, English reading can improve the reader's cognitive ability, thus promoting the English listening, speaking and writing ability. Reading can make increase knowledge, broaden their horizons, but also improve the learners' interest in English, so to improve their English reading the English learners become a very important task. However, in foreign language learning,

many Chinese learners in reading accurately seem to have difficulty, it is

because they did not master correct reading methods. This article will present how to through the following ways to improve English reading ability : the growth of language knowledge; broaden the reader's background knowledge; change the bad habit of reading, form a good habit of reading; applying reading skills; to establish confidence, active in reading.

[ Key words] reading level; language knowledge; reading; reading skills two, bad reading habits

Improve reading comprehension ability, should first establish, develop good reading habits, overcome, reduce the existing various bad reading habits, in order to improve the speed and efficiency of their reading. Common bad

reading habits including verbatim reading, reading aloud, lip reading, laryngeal heart means that the word reading, swinging, read back etc..

English reading is always of the English exam score in big, can say in English reading score directly affects the final result. However, the improvement of English reading ability is not the work of a short duration of time, but a long and difficult process. If you want to take what shortcut, a stuttering fat that is impossible. However, this is not to say English reading skills do not need to pay attention to what the reading method. In the reading process, to learn the correct method for guidance, and constantly sum up experience lesson, it is the key to improve reading ability. It should be from which aspect to improve English reading ability the key?