Reading Comprehension
Concept Growth Lab
Reading ability is a cognitive disposition acquired over years of learning and practice – both conscious and unconscious. Reading ability depends, to a greater extent, on readability – the attribute of the reading material.
You should not assume that your reading ability is poor simply by assessing the speed with which you have read, say a passage on philosophy. Even if you have previous reading in philosophy, you require more time to read a philosophy passage owing not only to the abstraction involved but also to the implicit meaning underlying such text than read a passage on a concrete readable text.
At the same time you should realize that there are certain cognitive behaviours that are peculiar to efficient readers,
- concentration
- mental translation as one navigates through the passage
- summation
- connecting ideas
- inferring
- judging the material.
While reading a passage
- make a mental map
- what each of the paragraphs deals with,
- the author’s intent…
- Read a passage and form a mental summary
This exercise serves two purposes:
- Build comprehension and speed by getting started with easier and shorter passages.
- Prepare you for verbal questions in which you are required to choose the summary of a short paragraph.
To begin do this small exercise
