Common strategies to improve english reading comprehension

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COMMON STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE 
ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION 
Nguyen Huynh Tram 
Faculty of English, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HUTECH) 
Supervisor: Trần Quốc Thao (Ph.D) 
ABSTRACT 
Reading is a lifelong skill that anyone should master in their lives. While reading in a mother tongue 
is not always possible to have a thorough understanding, reading comprehension in a foreign 
language is a challenge at all times to students, especially to the English-majored ones. Therefore, 
this paper aims at giving common strategies for the students to improve English reading 
comprehension, in both academic and general scenarios. Throughout the research, there are 
essential related perspectives to be mentioned about, from the importance and benefits of reading 
comprehension, the common strategies to suggestions for effective reading practice. 
Keywords: Common strategies; effective reading practice; English-majored students; reading 
comprehension 
1 INTRODUCTION 
Having the knowledge of English, Vietnamese students have tons of chances to get exposure to this 
world’s most popular language. Thus, English reading is called basic life skill, according to 
Anderson (Anderson, et al., 1985). When in lower grades from primary to high school, they have 
been used to English reading described as a receptive skill of recognizing words and their 
meanings to answer text-related questions. Meanwhile, reading is a process requiring the use of 
particular strategies in the acquisition, storage, and retrieval of information (Singhal, 2011). And that 
process is always attached with that of comprehension, to long-termly broaden information and 
knowledge. Nevertheless, reading comprehension increases students’ enjoyment, reading efficacy 
(Smith, 2011) in academic, professional, and personal life. Academically, reading comprehension 
enhances fundamental skills in English which are writing, speaking, and listening, especially 
vocabulary and grammar. Furthermore, having a strong reading comprehension skill helps 
students with their intellectual development, imagination, and the ability to perceive second-hand 
experience from what they read. This is a bridge between active readers and passive ones. Due to 
the lack of a reading comprehension skill, many English-majored students struggle with guessing 
the author’s message, words’ meanings, and misunderstanding (Olshavsky, 1976). Therefore, 
reading strategies are important and urgent to improve reading comprehension among English-
majored students, not only academically but in real life. According to Adam and Patterson (2008) 
and Block and Israel (2005), this research selectively and creatively divides the strategies into three 
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timelines during the reading process, which are pre-reading, while-reading, and post-reading 
strategies, for students to follow easier. 
2 COMMON STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION 
2.1 Pre-Reading 
2.1.1 Skimming 
Skimming can save students hours of laborious reading. Skimming is a technique that allows 
readers to skip the details and get the main ideas of the passage. The purpose of skimming is to 
have an overview of the organization and a general feeling toward the text. Whorter (1987) suggests 
a topic sentence can appear differently within a paragraph. The most common location of a topic 
sentence appears in the first sentence of the first paragraph. The second most likely place for 
a topic sentence is the first sentence of the last paragraph. In the case of the appearance of 
headings, it is easier to skim them to formulate questions related to the text. To effectively skim, 
students should pay attention to typographical cues-headings, boldface and italic type, indenting, 
bulleted and numbered lists, keywords and phrases, the names of people and places, dates, 
nouns, and unfamiliar words. 
2.1.2 Scanning 
Similar to the skimming technique, scanning also uses keywords and organizational cues. 
Otherwise, the purpose of scanning is to not only locate and swoop down on specific facts but also 
save time when effectively retrieving main ideas. It is easier to scan using a finger to navigate the 
necessary words and pay more attention to the text. Scanning skill is often used in searching for 
essential information. In real life, we scan with both eyes and a finger when looking up the 
dictionary or look for a name in a thousand-word list. In academic writing, we highlight the 
keywords or phrases in the question and use this technique to ‚squeeze‛ them out of the text for 
better understanding. Besides, a part of Vietnamese students tend to subvocalizing and read every 
single word trying not to skip anything. According to Frank Smith (2012), subvocalizing is ‚speaking‛ 
the words in the head and considered as a harmful habit to readers’ reading speed. Similarly, 
reading every word is self-restraint, when most people’s eyes span is 1.5 inches, which means we 
can read about five words at a time. Therefore, mastering this scanning skill can make the reading 
process less struggling and avoid all detrimental reading habits. 
2.1.3 Questioning 
Questioning techniques are crucial for active readers to build reading comprehension. Questioning 
helps students monitor their understanding and stay engaged and interested in their reading. 
Readers can use the questioning technique before, during, and after reading. The questioning 
process requires readers to ask questions of themselves to construct meaning, enhance 
understanding, find answers, solve problems, find information, and discover new information 
(Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). In this strategy, students should ask appropriate questions about 
subjects such as Who, What, When, Why, Where, How (5W1H), which is a mind-map technique to 
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clarify and systematize information more easily. It’s necessary to jot down these questions into a 
piece of paper and get back whenever there are answers for them. Questioning helps English-
majored students in becoming independent readers and having more effective reading 
comprehension. Besides, in academic writing, text-related questionnaire whose phrases contain 
new words locate which paragraph or context students should concentrate. 
2.2 While-Reading 
2.2.1 Relating 
Relating is a reading comprehension strategy that helps students find meaning in a text by 
connecting it to their background knowledge. Life experiences are different among each student. 
Therefore, the reading process is one of the most effective ways to test them, as well as to 
encourage them to use the richness of their own experience and distinguish students' performance. 
Therefore, "Text to Self, Text to Text, and Text to World" is a most-used strategy that helps students 
make their best relations (Teele, 2004). First of all, with the ‚Text to Self‛, students can link their 
experience and the context together to have a deeper understanding. Secondly, with the "Text to 
Text", their entire reading experience will be subtly used to rewind for relating that text to the now-
reading text. Finally, students will be more advance to apply the "Text to World" technique to make 
connections to the community and the world around them. By relating what students have 
experience and what they are reading, it is easier to raise motivation in reading and develop 
knowledge to the comprehension stage. 
2.2.2 Visualizing 
To picture is to remember. Visualizing is the reading strategy that helps students create a picture in 
their head of what they’re reading (Adler, 2001). This strategy works best on children when their 
minds are pure to imagine things. But to young adults, it works well in a different way, when they 
can imagine in the limit of reality. The purpose of reading is to visualize the words into a picture in 
mind. So, reading boosts the ability to visualize, and visualizing strongly enhances reading 
comprehension. 
2.3 Post-Reading 
2.3.1 Inferring 
As a reading strategy, inferring requires readers to use prior knowledge, and the information stated 
in a text to conclude (Serafini, 2004). It is significant to ensure that English-majored students have 
sufficient background knowledge of the concepts addressed, to combine personal knowledge with 
evidence (from the text or an object or event) to generate inferences. In other words, inferring can be 
considered as predicting things not directly stated, based on hints and clues collected during the 
reading process. Without the skill of inferring, students will not grasp the deeper essence of the texts 
they read (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). 
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2.3.2 Summarizing 
According to Adler (2001), the process of summarization requires the reader to determine what is 
essential when reading and to condense the information in the readers' own words. The skill of 
summarizing helps English-majored students recognize main ideas and consolidate precise details 
that support them and enables them to focus on keywords or phrases of an assigned text that are 
worth noting and remembering. According to Jones (2012), "When summarizing, we strip away the 
extra verbiage and extraneous examples. We focus on the heart of the matter. We try to find the 
keywords and phrases that, when uttered later, still manage to capture the gist of what we have 
read. We are trying to capture the main ideas and the crucial details necessary for supporting 
them" (p.118). 
3 CONCLUSION 
Not only is reading comprehension an indispensable lifelong skill but also a technique to be 
mastered by English-majored students. In the paper, the mentioned strategies are highly 
recommended to improve English reading comprehension. When reading along with the timelines 
pre-reading, while-reading, and post-reading, it is no more challenging to keep up with the 
author’s message. Besides, English-majored students can always create their strategies based on 
individual learning styles and the passion for this internationally common language. 
To be proficient in reading comprehension, it is obvious to read more and begin with simple-
sentence books. Without putting ourselves under any pressure, we will realize the power of words 
and raise significant enjoyment to the reading process. Thus, we should set a reading plan which 
we can stick to as well as read with a small amount of time and words, perseveringly and 
responsibly. ‚The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the 
more places you'll go‛ (Seuss, 1978, p.30). 
REFERENCES 
[1] Anderson, R., Hiebert, E., Scott J., & Wilkinson, I. (1985). Becoming a Nation of Readers: The 
Report of the Commission on Reading. Washington: National Institute of Education and the 
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[2] Adams, W. & Patterson, B. (2008), Developing Reading Versatility. Toronto: Thomson 
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