Common characteristics of good English language readers

2497 COMMON CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD ENGLISH LANGUAGE READERS Pham Thi Phuong Dung, Pham Kieu Gia Han, Le Quoc Phuong Faculty of English, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HUTECH) Supervisor: Tran Quoc Thao (PH.D) ABSTRACT Globalizations has resulted in the growth and spread of English. It has become increasingly essential in various fields such as education and business, etc. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of improving English reading skills. Accordingly, this paper will identify some of the most common characteristics of good or experienced readers and how to become an effectual reader. It is hoped that students can learn more about the characteristics of good readers and use knowledge of effectiveness in reading strategies to improve their English reading skill. Keywords: Good reader; reading skill; read. 1 INTRODUCTION In the life of the modern century, understanding multiple languages has always been the basis for all success. Learning new languages begins with reading and memorizing their alphabet. This reading seems to be one of the basic skills, but it is also a huge challenge that learners might face. How about learning to read in English? First of all, the role of reading is mentioned in learning English. The basic reason anyone can think of is that reading helps them improve our English learning skills such as spelling, grammar, and speaking fluency. Moreover, the student will be more motivated to study more in-depth things like starting to read the study. Then, students can become good readers of the English language with a huge amount of knowledge. The second thing about the benefits mentioned is that learners can quickly read and understand the information of an article or essay of another person. Realizing the problem and formulating their thoughts and make some comments about the article. Regarding the role of reading, Nuttall (1996) in "Teaching reading skills in a foreign language" after living with native speakers, has realized it as one of the best ways to enrich knowledge and develop an ability to use a foreign language. Reading not only helps students enrich their vocabulary, improve their reading speed, but it also helps strengthen their grammar, develop their writing skills, and shape their reading habits. Curiosity will make people especially interested in whether or not the good English readers are due to effort or circumstance? What are their common characteristics? That is the main purpose of the study. 2498 2 COMMON CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD ENGLISH LANGUAGE READERS Rarely do people know which characteristics make them become a good reader. Therefore, there will have a discussion about which characteristics are the most common inside a really effective reader. 2.1 Good readers have a purpose for reading Reading purpose is significant since as above discussed, students need an abundant number of reading materials or documents for any purpose. Students can reread to others because of the simple satisfaction of it, or pick a document to read because they interest in a certain discussing topic. Furthermore, they can read to find a specific question and keep reading to find the specific answer to that question. When people grow and develop as a good reader, they will find it easier to know that not only books can exist on many forms (such as press, etc), as a reader, they can participate in reading for various purposes. (Schmidt & Ceaser, 1997, p.16) 2.2 Good readers just skim sometimes and judiciously read slowly at other times Good reader's reading speed is depended on their intention and the genre of the document that they are working on. The ability to strategically substitute the speed at reading is effectual reading ability. The good readers also assume that it is sometimes pleasurable to slowly enjoy the literature skill of the author in books, and sometimes it is indispensable to determine specific information quickly in a limited time amount or read at a rate that allows for retention of text material. (Schmidt & Ceaser, 1997, p.20). 2.3 Good readers often self-correct Using strategies of monitoring and problem solving such as skipping unknown words, reading again, reading ahead, or using outside sources, good readers can monitor their reading and write at all levels. They may expel various strategies to solve the problem in their reading process. Furthermore, the teacher should teach their students how to skip words, reread, or how to read ahead can support students’ independent reading as well as learning strategies building. Knowing when to stop or try again is proof of the reader's readjustment and should be commended. (Schmidt & Ceaser, 1997, p.30) 2.4 Good readers take time to read, read, and read Because of logging lots of reading mileage, good readers can take profit from many opportunities in class and out to focus on their ongoing document. For instance, people learn language by using language, learn to talk by talking, and learn to read by reading. Consequently, students need to practice to perform better at a process. This is why schools throughout the world (in general) are enthusiastically promoting reading programs, offering incentives, occurring motivational campaigns to encourage students to read more, and enlisting parental support. (Schmidt & Ceaser, 1997, p.40) 2499 2.5 Good readers validate predictions. Good readers make their predictions as they read because comprehension equals confirmed predictions. They have the ability to make and match which is in their head and what the author wrote. Their predictions are the state that is on target and by knowing that state is reinforcement. An opposing argument is that people should preview and make predictions. Nevertheless, this method is only helpful if people have time and opportunity to check their think-ahead strategies after reading. (Schmidt & Ceaser, 1997, p.44) 3 WAYS TO BECOME A GOOD ENGLISH LANGUAGE READER Developing students’ strong reading skill is one of the key goals of every early education program. To clarify that, learners need to find ways to help themselves to become good English readers. First, learners need to acknowledge our weaknesses and the reason why they are not good at it in reading. Acknowledging their weaknesses is a necessary part since they do not only identify them, but they also improve upon them as well. Most EFL students find it hard to read in English because of the interference between the new language and the mother tongue and unfamiliarity with the code makes the process much more complex and students get confused. Maxwell (1969; cited in Diaz & Laguado, 2013, p.138) stated that skimming can help the students to find the keywords that permit them to infer the general sense of a text to interpret text faster and advance the reading process. Moreover, according to Langan (1992, p.394), there are 3 steps to follow in the skimming for the main ideas as followed: First, learners need to find a definition. Second, located enumerations and after that look for the key paragraphs. Finally, points marked by emphasis word and main ideas in what seem to be key paragraphs. Students all know that English is not their first language so sometimes it hard for them to understand all of those words that in the text so skimming techniques can tell you what general information is within a section. People always think that good English language readers need to read quickly but that is not always be true because the faster learners read, the less focus on the main details of the text and they may miss. The best advice is to slow down when needed, especially when learners face with weighty concepts or new words that learners never saw it before. In case, they cannot understand or have no idea about the information, they should not hesitate to re-read the passage all over again. Scientists have pointed out the basic and important ways to help them to become a better English reader and if they follow these ways to learn English reading, learners might suddenly discover that they are reading better and understanding more. 4 CONCLUSION To summarize the main points, people who are good at reading has some common characteristics which is based on their reading habits such as reading for purposes, skimming skill, self-correct, practising how to read, and make their predictions when reading. The findings of this study suggest that learners can refer these characteristics and make a list of a variety of strategies to improve their reading skills as well as their reading habits. Considerably, more work will need to be done to 2500 determine that improving English reading skill can also improve English communication skill in order to give more clear evidence about the importance of reading in learning English. Because practise makes perfect, one should not be lazy or afraid of reading. REFERENCES [1] Burns, M. S., Griffin, P., & Snow, C. E. (2003). Preventing reading difficulties in young children: Intellectual property in the information age. National Academy Press. Washington, DC. [2] Maxwell, M. (1978). Learning style and other correlates of performance on a scanning experiment. Journal of Reading Behavior, 10(1), 49-55. [3] Nuttall, C. (1996). Teaching reading skills in a foreign language. Portsmouth: Heinemann. [4] Schmidt, B. A., & Ceaser, L. (1997). What good teachers do to help literacy happen: From A to Z: A practical handbook of strategies for success. Costa Mesa, CA: California Reading Association.