What are Reading Skills?

Reading describes the ability to understand and interpret printed words. Reading involves building on social, cognitive and linguistic skills. Reading skills are abilities that allow readers to find meaning in the written language. The reader has to be able to interact with words in order to realize the significant relationships between words meanings, and the overall meaning within context.

Strategies to Develop Reading Skills

A number of strategies can help learners read more effectively. Some strategies include previewing. This is the practice of trying to understand the structure and content of the reading by using photo captions, section headings and other visual methods. Another strategy is called predicting. This technique uses information on the subject matter to predict the content and vocabulary. Paraphrasing is another strategy used. This is when comprehension of the subject matter is tested by asking the student to restate the phrases in his or her own words to gain ideas about the text.

Reading Development

Reading development typically goes through five stages. The stages are the emerging pre-reader also known as reading readiness. The novice reading stage, called the selective association comes next. The decoding reader is more confident and can read many words. Next is the comprehending reader who is fluent and can spell most words. At this stage, the reader comprehends what he is reading. The final stage is the expert reader. This reader reads sentences and does so automatically without spending much time on the words. People move through these stages at different rates.

Methods of Teaching

Education sectors have failed to agree on the best method of teaching people how to read. The two main methods are the whole language, which teaches people how to focus on the words, sentences and paragraphs, rather than on the letters. The phonics method on the other hand emphasizes character sounds and how they are applied to spelling and reading.