Come, Learn and Create your own World of Words!

FRANCIS BACON SAID: "READING MAKES A FULL MAN; CONFERENCE A READY MAN; AND WRITING AN EXACT MAN"

Step 1
Reading
YES Alumni Peshawar: School of Writing

Purpose of Reading
For

information: Textbooks, newspapers. For entertainment: Novels, magazines.

YES Alumni Peshawar: School of Writing

Importance of reading
Stronger

imagination Knowledge about customs, cultures, lifestyles. Knowledge about other disciplines: politics, religion, science, psychology, crime. Better speaking abilities. Builds up vocabulary Provides a foundation and inspiration for writing
YES Alumni Peshawar: School of Writing

 Reading

helps cultivate your imagination Reading helps you visualize a scene without missing the details. Reading helps you retain the information for a longer time Movie is more commercial Movie distorts informs
YES Alumni Peshawar: School of Writing

Different Strategies
SKIMMING
SCANNING SPEED

READING INTENSIVE READING EXTENSIVE READING

Skimming

Skimming is used to quickly identify the main ideas of a text. For example, newspaper. Skimming is done at a speed three to four times faster than normal reading. People often skim when they have lots of material to read in a limited amount of time. E.g. use skimming when you want to see if an article may be of interest in your research.

How to Skim

Read the title. Read the introduction or the first paragraph. Read the first sentence of every other paragraph. Read any headings and sub-headings. Notice any pictures, charts, or graphs. Notice any italicized or boldface words or phrases. Read the summary or last paragraph.

Scanning
Scanning

is a technique you often use when looking up a word in the telephone book or dictionary. In most cases, you know what you're looking for, so you're concentrating on finding a particular answer. Scanning involves moving your eyes quickly down the page seeking specific words and phrases.

How to Scan?

State the specific information you are looking for. Try to anticipate how the answer will appear and what clues you might use to help you locate the answer. For example, if you were looking for a certain date, you would quickly read the paragraph looking only for numbers. Use headings and any other aids that will help you identify which sections might contain the information you are looking for. Selectively read and skip through sections of the passage.

Speed Reading

Speed

reading is a collection of reading methods which attempt to increase rates of reading without greatly reducing comprehension or retention. Methods include chunking and eliminating subvocalization. Speed reading is characterized by an analysis of trade-offs between measures of speed and comprehension

Intensive Reading

Intensive reading refers to reading for accuracy. It involves approaching the text (passage) under the guidance of a teacher or with a specified task which forces the learners to pay close attention to the materials to be read. Intensive reading aims at giving the reader a deep and detailed understanding (comprehension) of the text

Extensive Reading
Extensive

reading is an approach to language learning, including foreign language learning, by the means of a large amount of reading. The learners view and review of unknown words in specific context will allow the learner to infer the word's meaning

What strategies would you apply to the following?

The Whats On section of the local paper: A novel A newspaper A text in class A poem The telephone directory A postcard A train timetable A recipe A travel brochure

Reading Techniques
Preview Question Take

notes Summarize Review and reflect

YES Alumni Peshawar: School of Writing

Preview
Ask

yourself why you are reading the passage Read the: Title Writers name Date of publication First paragraph Sub headings Pick up key points and transition words like however, in addition, on the other hand, therefore, moreover, on the contrary etc, which would signify a change in direction of ideas
YES Alumni Peshawar: School of Writing

Question
Create

a mind map of major concepts connecting them. (Visual diagram) Purpose of reading Look for connections and relationships Look at the way ideas are structured and developed. Determine writers purpose. Look up meanings of uncertain/difficult words.
YES Alumni Peshawar: School of Writing

Take notes
Be

attentive as you read, because there will be some crucial points the writer talks about. Analyze the assumptions and rhetorical strategies of the writer Use headings Keep notes brief Notes provide you with a summary

YES Alumni Peshawar: School of Writing

Summarize
Record

main points Put writers ideas in your own words Provides material for further reference

YES Alumni Peshawar: School of Writing

Review and Reflect

Write

down the meaning and usefulness the material has for understanding other concepts and principles. Evaluate the text in terms of its informativeness, soundness of argument, relevance. Create grid: write the point in one column and write your personal reaction in the next column. Read in the context
YES Alumni Peshawar: School of Writing

Must reads

Alchemist by Paulo Coelho Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teenagers by Sean Covey Dawn magazine or US magazine Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini Plays by George Bernard Shaw How to Read a Book by Adler Mortimer To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Sophies World by Jostein Gaarder The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
YES Alumni Peshawar: School of Writing

The Far Pavilions by M M Kaye Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Great Expectations by Charles Dickens North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell Animal Farm by George Orwell Othello by Shakespeare Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Books by Georgette Heyer, Catherine Cookson. Classics by Jane Austen; Plays by Oscar Wilde, Henrik Ibsen. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton Novels and Short Stories by Thomas Hardy
YES Alumni Peshawar: School of Writing

Application
Read

the following text using the strategies you have learnt: Answer the following questions:

What is the writers main idea? What is the theme of the passage? Can you connect it to your life/surroundings/experiences/opinion?

YES Alumni Peshawar: School of Writing

Passage 1
A

Hanging by George Orwell It was in Burma, a sodden morning of the rains. A sickly light, like yellow tinfoil, was slanting over the high walls into the jail yard. We were waiting outside the condemned cells, a row of sheds fronted with double bars, like small animal cages. Each cell measured about ten feet by ten and was quite bare within except for a plank bed and a pot of drinking water. In some of them brown silent men were squatting at the inner bars, with their blankets draped round them. These were the condemned men, due to be hanged within the next week or two. It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide.
YES Alumni Peshawar: School of Writing

 This

man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his body were workingbowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming--all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned--reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone--one mind less, one world less.
YES Alumni Peshawar: School of Writing