INTRODUCTION
Reading and Writing are skills that are necessary in the present times since most of what is going on in the world today is through reading and writing. For success in life, the skills of reading and writing should be adequately developed. Again, in a situation where English is the second language like in Nigeria, adequate emphasis has to be placed on reading and writing skills. This is because if one cannot read, he will be lost in the present scheme of things. The same thing applies to the ability to write so as to be able to communicate to people within and outside one’s immediate society.
Searching for more knowledge and understanding is made easy because of your ability to read and write. These skills are especially important to you in your studies in an Open and Distant system such as the National Open University of Nigeria.
3.1 WHAT IS READING?
Reading has to do with the ability to identify letters, linking them together to form words and linking the words together to form sentences. One should be able to read such words that are linked together and understand what such a collection of words means.
note that reading is of different types depending on the p of the reading. It can be extensive and intensive. Extensive reading is wide reading, which is not as deep as intensive type. It is like reading for pleasure when compared with reading for examination, which is intensive reading. Whatever type it might be, one important thing is the understanding of what one is reading. This is because one can read and
may not comprehend what he has read. Reading becomes effective when one has understood what he has read. However, no matter what type the reading might be, there are certain problems associated with reading and we shall touch on them below.
3.1.1 Problems of Reading
In order to assist learners to read effectively, one should be mindful of the following:
Bad eyesight is a major problem which can badly affect one’s reading ability. Medical treatment is usually recommended for this;
Head wagging is another problem. Instead of the eyes to be moving, a deficient reader will be moving the head as if it is the head that is pronouncing the words;
Vocalisation, which is saying the words while reading, slows down reading a great deal.
Other Problems Include the Following
Slow reading rate
Inability to understand the linguistic patterns effectively.
The problems are more than those stated but those will serve as a kind of clue to the problems that are hampering efficient reading.
For effective reading to take place, the problems stated have to be adequately handled especially when the medium of expression is
English, which incidentally is a second language in Nigeria. Before we proceed, let us have a pause here.
Self-Assessment Exercise
1. Can you itemize some other problems that can hamper reading of
English texts in Nigeria?
2. What solutions can you suggest for these problems?
3.2 What is writing?
Writing is very important to the human race and the art of writing is not just putting pen to paper. It consists of having something to say that is worth saying and knowing how best to convey it in writing. It then means that the subject of what we have to write will determine its form. You should know that to be able to write well, one must have acquired the skills of listening and speaking in the language concerned. Being able to listen and understand and speak English bears on what one is writing. One must also have acquired a wide range of English vocabulary to be able to convey meaningful ideas through writing.
3.3 How to Develop Reading Skills
Reading is a complex skill which has different stages of development. In the development of this skill, the first step is the ability to recognize letters on paper. This is an elementary stage which is known as ‘mechanical stage’. The second stage is the ability to correlate these letters on paper with language learning. This is the ‘phonic stage’. The third step is the ability to identify letters on paper with the meanings they symbolize. This stage is an intellectual one and it entails other factors depending on the purpose of one’sreading.
The purpose may be to survey a text by glancing quickly and not thoroughly through the material being read. This is known as ‘survey reading’. It might also be called ‘scanning’. One might want to do skimming – a situation where a particular item of information is being sought from a mass of information. Superficial reading is just to have a superficial comprehension. Content-study reading is to study in detail the content of the text being read while linguistic study reading is where you study the language in which the text is written.
Since reading is intended to aid hearing, speaking and writing, it is advocated that the skill is properly developed. This can be through asking questions on the language being taught and requiring answer in the same training for reading skill is normally done through comprehension which is normally termed’ the acquisition of information about meaning or the extraction of meaning from a text’ .
Learners should as well summarize or retell passages read to ensure comprehension. Sentence structure, paragraph structure and comprehension, vocabulary development also will aid effective and efficient reading in English.
3.4 How to Develop Writing Skill
Writing is the visual representation of the spoken language and it can be in different forms. It might be to narrate, to describe, to argue or to imagine one thing or the other. In a situation where English is a second language, I want you to have it at the back of your mind that there is the need for adequate knowledge of the other skills since they are related. Adequate knowledge of English is the needed panacea that can promote the ability to write.
Writing can be at different levels of complexity. Paragraph at the earlier stage, controlled writing can serve as a launching pad for the development of the skill. This is done by asking learners to substitute missing or deleted words from certain parts of a story or by providing a set of pictures accompanied with an incomplete passage, and asking the learner to complete the passage. Paragraph writing can also be guided. Here, learners have more freedom to write guided by questions that will lead to what they will write. For paragraph in a free or creative writing, the learner has the total freedom to manipulate language the way he likes based on his knowledge and skills of vocabulary, grammar, ideas etc.
It is advisable to give exercises to learners in the different forms writing as these will continue to widen the knowledge of the learner. The purpose of writing should also be another guiding principle. Learners should be taught to focus on the purpose of any writing task so as to select appropriate words, grammar, language expressions and appropriate ideas.
4.0 CONCLUSION
As noted earlier, writing and especially, using English as a second language to carry out the exercise is herculean. The same thing goes for reading. The two skills are complementary.
5.0 SUMMARY
In this unit, we have been discussing both reading and writing skills especially in the context of English as a second language. We have intimated you of the need to acquire the knowledge of the language so as to manipulate it effectively in reading and writing. Since English is widespread across the globe, the ability to read and to write in the language is like placing oneself in the global Internet of language.
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENTS
1. Define reading and writing as basic language skills
2. List some major ways of developing the skills of reading and writing in EL2 situation
7.0 REFERNCES/FURTHER READINGS
McCree, H. (1969) From Controlled to Creative Writing. African
Obanya, P. (1982) Secondary English Teaching. Ibadan: Macmillan.
Obanya, P. (1964) General Method of Teaching. Ibadan: Macmillan University Press.
Unoh, S.O. (1979) Remember Ibadan University
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