Apart from the reading skills we have been talking about, such as skimming and scanning, we should also attach importance to the skill we should acquire before reading, i.e. making good preparations for reading.
Make good preparations for reading
The basic mechanism of reading is to connect the ideas on the page to what you already know. If you know nothing about a subject, then pouring words of text into your mind is like pouring water into your hand. You don't retain much.
For example, if you like sports, then reading sports pages is easy because you already have a framework in your mind for reading, understanding and storing information.
In this sense, making good preparations before reading is one important skill in improving reading comprehension.
Make full use of your “prepared knowledge” when reading
When reading, first read the title to identify the subject. And on occasion it will be necessary to browse the article in order to identify the subject. And then search your memory for anything you already know about your reading material. The more you know about what you're reading, the easier it will be to better understand the content and to solve problems in reading comprehension.
Consider the following questions when you begin to read:
What is the title?
What does it tell you about the essay?
What do you already know about the subject?
What do you expect the essay to say about it?
Example
Look at the title “The Melissa Virus: A call to Action” of Passage A and answer the following questions:
1. What do you expect the reading passage is about?
The reading passage might be about the fight against the Melissa virus, disastrous results from the virus, serious damage from the virus, even details about the losses from the virus.
2. What do you know about the Melissa virus?
That is a kind of virus that attacks our computer systems.
