According to this table, the students almost have the same starting reading level. If 40 scores are equal to 100 scores, then 24 scores are equal to the pass score (60 scores). Up to now, the student’s average score is about 19 scores. The students have not got the pass score (24 scores). So the comprehension rate by Grade A tests is quite low and needs to be improved.

2.3.7 Reading Requirements of the Syllabus (2000: 2-6)

The syllabus directs the teaching and states what the students should know or will have known by the end of the course. The teachers should be instructed by the syllabus in their teaching. But a syllabus only constitutes an approximate statement of what will be taught. The syllabus for non-English major in vocational colleges requires:

Grade A: The students should be able to read mid-level short English materials of general subjects and understand them correctly. The reading speed of material with less than 3% of unknown words should not be less than 70w/p.m. The students should be able to understand the short general and practical material such as letters, contract, etc. The understanding is correct.

Grade B: The students should be able to read mid-level short English materials of general subjects and understand them correctly. The reading speed of material with less than 3% of unknown words should not be less than 50w/p.m. The students should be able to understand the short general and practical material such as letters, contract, etc. The understanding is basically correct.

The syllabus only lists the final reading goals and gives a general list of language skills, without consideration of the students’ needs, such as:

---to understand the main idea of the passage

---to understand the concrete information

---to guess the meaning of the new words by reference according to the context

---to make a simple judgment and reference according to the context

---to identify the writer’s writing purpose, viewpoint and attitude

---to make a conclusion to the reading material

---to scan related information quickly

From the list, there are some similar needs between the syllabus and the students. The syllabus reflects parts of the students’ needs. But there are some syllabus needs that the students do not mention, and these needs are difficult for the students to meet at the beginning of study.

As to what to teach in practical teaching, the syllabus stipulates the teaching contents and aims objectively. In fact, the teaching should meet the needs of the syllabus and the needs of the students at the same time. To satisfy the needs of the students and of the syllabus, the teachers themselves can use any kinds of teaching methods and materials.

According to the reading needs researches and the requirements of the syllabus, what is planned in the syllabus and what actually happens in teaching are two different things.

According to the above investigation, the author comes to the following conclusions.

(1) The students believe that the students themselves are the most important factor in the success or failure in English study. They have strong motivation of improving reading and learning English. This lays a basis for the future teaching because they would like to study English.

(2) They have the strong needs to improve reading, but they do not have special or particular needs for their major. The students have clear reading needs and they only want to solve the problems they have come across in vocabulary, grammar, reading, etc.

(4) The syllabus requires the students to improve reading and clearly states the reading requirements. However, the students have their own problems and difficulties in reading. Both the syllabus and the students show the needs of improving reading. The two kinds of needs are coincident with each other, therefore the author can satisfy their needs simultaneously.

Part 3 Reading Teaching on the Basis of Reading Needs Researches

From the reading needs research and the requirements of the syllabus, the students’ reading level is quite low and the syllabus has clear demands for reading. It is necessary to improve the students’ reading. The most important of all, the students are keen to improve their reading ability at the moment. What is more, reading is an important way to acquire new language information and to perfect the students’ English. And the teachers have the responsibility of teaching the students to read efficiently.

The students read not only to get information, but also to learn new language knowledge. There are different reading purposes. Williams (see Jo McDonough and Shaw, 1996: 102 ) usefully classifies reading into:

(1) getting general information from the text

(2) getting specific information from a text

(3) for pleasure or for interest .

Rivers and Temperley (see JoMcDonough and Shaw, 1996:187) list some reasons that the students may need or want to read.

(1) to get information for some purpose or because the reader is curious about some topic.

(2) to obtain instructions on how to perform some task for the work or daily life.

(3) to keep in touch with friends by correspondence or to understand business letters.

(4) to know when or where something will take place or what is available

(5) to know what is happening or has happened (as reported in newspapers, magazines, reports)

(6) for enjoyment or excitement

In addition to the purposes above, the purpose of the author’s reading teaching is to satisfy needs of the students and the requirements of the syllabus. Generally speaking, the teachers would consider all the situations of the students, however, it is impossible for the teachers to meet the needs of all the students. Only the needs of the majority of students are to be met. The special needs of the students would be treated in a special way during class or after class.

Gerry Abbott and Peter Wingard (1990:83) point out efficient reading depends on having a purpose for reading, knowing why the students are reading a text. The purpose will usually determine the appropriate type of reading and the relevant reading skills to be used. The students should know the purpose for their reading before they actually read. However simple and obvious this may seem, it rarely happens. The students’ reading is usually purposeless and they often read everything in the same way and at the same speed. So it is important to have a clear purpose during reading teaching.

Language is a complex entity. It cannot be learnt and taught in one step. The author can break down the complex into manageable units. Even so, the author cannot decide what should be taught, or what should be excluded. The author has to follow the syllabus, but the syllabus only provides a set of criteria for reading. So the author should take the needs of students and the requirements of syllabus into consideration at the same time. There are the same demands between the students’ needs and the requirements of the syllabus. The author can begin teaching with these common parts.

Vocabulary is a big obstacle for the students to improve reading. It must be solved during reading teaching. Common parts about reading comprehension can be found between the students' needs and the requirements of the syllabus, such as:

---to improve reading speed

---to guess the meaning of unknown words correctly

---to know the main idea of the reading materials

---to understand the reading material correctly

Almost all the students’ needs, which are reflected in their self-comments, are the basic requirements of the syllabus.

There are some parts which are not mentioned in the students’ needs, but are required in the syllabus, such as understanding specific information, making a simple judgment or reference, recognizing the writer’s purpose, attitude and tone, making conclusion about the reading materials.

Why these parts are not mentioned in the students’ self-comments is that the students point out their basic needs which are eager to be satisfied. The real reasons are still to be studied. While taking the students’ needs and the requirements of the syllabus into considerations, the author also refers to a lot of other researches about reading.

Many reading experts believe that reading competence is composed of various kinds and different levels of small competence. The teaching and testing of reading competence in fact are just taught and tested through the small and various competences. Zou Shen provides the following summary on reading comprehension (1999: 26---27).

The latest division of reading competence by Weir in 1993 consists of A, B, and C levels.

A: Fast reading for scanning specific information, the outline, etc.

B: Understanding the main idea and the important details, the implied meaning

C: Grasping the language skills (understand grammar conception, syntax structure, signal words, the word meaning, etc.)

A and B are higher levels of small competence. C is a lower level of small competence.

Davis in 1944 and 1968 divided into small reading competence into 4 kinds:

(1) Identify meanings of words

(2) Acquire implied meanings

(3) Identify writing skills and the attitudes of a text

(4) Find the answers to the questions

Wen Qiufang (2003: 66) thinks that reading comprehension can be divided into three levels from low to high: (1) literal comprehension; (2) inferential comprehension and (3) critical comprehension.

Literal comprehension just understands the ideas and facts that are directly stated. It is fundamental to all reading skills at any level because the students must first understand what the writer has actually written before the students draw an inference or make an evaluation. The literal level is considered the easiest level of reading comprehension; therefore, less thinking is involved.

Inferential comprehension requires the students to “read between the lines”. Inferences are ideas that are received beneath the surface to sense relationships, put facts and ideas together to draw conclusions and make generalizations, and detect the mood and tone of the material. Making inferences requires more thinking on the students’ insight.

Critical comprehension requires an even higher degree of skill development and perception. It is the students’ comment on the material. To read critically does not mean merely looking for false statements; rather it means questioning, comparing and evaluating.

Three kinds of comprehension are connected with each other. The lower level is the basis of the higher level. The higher level of comprehension includes the lower level of comprehension.

No matter what kind of classification, their concrete demands for reading are similar to the students' needs and the requirements of the syllabus.

So what should be taught in the reading teaching? First, the students' needs should be satisfied. That is to say, the author solves their concerned problems about reading. Second, although some parts of reading are not required by the students, these parts are requested clearly in the syllabus and should be taught in reading teaching. Third, some skills, which could be helpful to improving reading ability, should also be taught. Fourth, some basic skills should be taught first because they are easy for the students to understand and apply to their reading.

The students point out that long and complex sentences influence their understanding of a text. Sometimes they do not know how to cope with these sentences and cannot apply grammatical knowledge to analyzing these sentences. There are different reasons that make some sentences difficult for the students to understand. As to this kind of problems, the author can choose some representative sentences from the reading materials, and ask the students to analyze the sentences. In analyzing the sentences, the students can review the grammar. If the students are asked to read the grammar books after class, they feel bored and would not like to read, even if they are eager to improve their grammar knowledge.

The following sentences are chosen from Extensive Reading for Business English:

(1) There are few places left that are in the state they were in before the Europeans arrived.

(2) Customers will not purchase a product or service until they are combined that they will benefit from owning that product or service.

(3) He was aware that there were a number of people who claimed to know a great deal about antiques, and even more people who would rather not admit that they did not and who accordingly practiced little tricks to conceal their ignorance or impress their neighbors.

(4) The women---they were mainly women---jostling around his stall, picking over his shoddy wares, would sometimes run a finger round the rim of a cup or hold it knowingly up to the light as if to test its luster, and plates were invariably turned down in search of china marks.

(5) The fact that these early entrepreneurs built great industries out of very little made them seem to millions of Americans like the heroes of the early frontier days who went into the vast wildness of the United States and turned forests into farms, villages, and small cities.

(6) The strong influence of the success stories of the early entrepreneurs on the masses of Americans can be found in the great popularity of the novels of Horatio Alger, which were published in late nineteenth---and early twentieth---century America.

(7) In downtown Detroit there are some fine skyscrapers and expensive restaurants stores, and right on the edge of the downtown area, facing Canada across the busy Detroit River, is the waterfront, and its civic center, with parks and a concert hall, home of the famous Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

(8) TV stations, which will each spend millions to go digital, will use the specifications approved by the Federal Communications Commission to send the higher-quality TV signals to America's homes.

(9) The product is Coca-Cola and, according to legend, it begin in a three-legged kettle in the back yard of Atlanta pharmacist Dr. John Styth Pemberton who carried a jug of his concoctive down the street to Jacob's Pharmacy where it was sold at the soda foundation for 5 cents a glass.

(10) It is significant that Pemberton spent almost twice as much money on advertising during the first years of operation as he made in profits, for the growth of Coke's popularity is as much due to the advertising and marketing strategy as it is to the quality of its product.

Long and complex sentences almost consist of many sentence elements. These elements play different roles in the sentences. If the students can distinguish these elements, and recognize the functions of these elements in the sentences, they must use grammar to analyze the sentences. Then after a period of conscious training the students can understand the long and complex sentences and review the grammar. So the analytical ability and grammar knowledge are improved. Here are the explanations of the sentences above.

(1) Past participle and that-clause are used to modify “few places”. In that clause, that is the subject.

(2) “Until” is used to link the main clause and the objective clause. In the until---clause, there is an objective sentence (that they will... or service).

(3) “Be aware” is followed by a long objective clause (there were...their neighbors). The clause is complex. In the “ there be” structure, there are two objectives: a number of people and more people. The two objects are modified by two “who...” clauses.

(4) This sentence is composed of two simple sentences. The first simple sentence is more complex than the second one. The subject (the women) is much more complex. But there are hyphens, which is used to explain the subject. Two present participles (jostling around his stall and picking over his shoddy wares) are also used to explain the subject. And there are two verbs: would run or hold.

(5) Although this sentence is long, the main structure is easy (The fact made them seem to millions of Americans like the heroes.). The subject ( the fact ) has an apposition ( that these early entrepreneurs built great industries out of very little). “That” is only a signal word. The heroes, the object of the preposition like, has an attributive clause “who... and small cities”.

(6) In the subject, “the influence” is used with “on”, which makes the subject longer. “Which” clause is an non-restrictive clause.

(7) This sentence is composed of two parts. The first part is “there be” structure. The second part is an inversion sentence. Prepositional phrases “right on the edge of the downtown area” is put at the beginning of the sentence. The present participle “facing...” modifies “area”.

(8) The subject “TV stations” has a non-restrictive sentence (which.... go digital). The past participles (approved by... to America's homes) are used to modify “the specifications”. There are two “to” infinitive structures. The first “ to” is to express purpose. The second “ to” is used with “send”.

(9) “Dr. John Styth Pemberton” is an apposition to “pharmacist”. The attributive clause “Who...for 5 cents a glass” is used to modify “Dr. John Smith Pemberton”. Who---clause has an adverb clause of place (Where...), used to modify “Jacob's Pharmacy”.

(10) “It is significant that...” is an emphasis pattern. In that---clause, “for...” is used to express reason. In this part there are two same structures “as much... as...”.

By studying these sentences, the students can come across various sentence patterns and use various grammars to analyze the sentences. If the students themselves could analyze these sentences, they would fully and clearly understand the sentence structures and review various grammars. Not all the grammars can be explained in this way. But in such a way, the students can generally realize the importance of grammar knowledge in analyzing the sentences. They begin to learn how to cope with long and complex sentences and have a clear idea of the sentence structures.

Learning new words is a long and hard task with English study. Forgetting some of the learned new words is natural so the students should review these words over and over. Without patience, learning would not last longer. Without a certain amount of vocabulary, the students cannot continue reading study.

If the majority of words are unknown to the students, they will soon lose interest in reading. However, a few unknown words---say, five---in a short text of about 300 words should be acceptable (Gerry Abbott & Peter Wingard, 1990: 95). Less than 3% of unknown words in the reading material are also permitted by the syllabus.

Then how to deal with these unknown words?

The easiest way is to omit them. Just do not get the meaning of the unknown words, if they are unimportant for the reading purpose and such words do not influence the understanding of the material. The students can deliberately exclude any preliminary vocabulary work.

Sometimes it is not essential to know the meaning of the unknown word. An unknown noun can often be read as “a thing or a person”. The students could be encouraged to use this strategy as a first step, which may be sufficient for some reading purposes.

However, meanings of unknown words as key words are crucial to the understanding of the material. The students have to guess the meanings as correctly as possible. By the usual means of illustrations, demonstrations, synonyms and definitions, etc, the author can help remove much of the uncertainty and frustration the students feel when meeting new words in the reading materials.

Generally speaking, the most useful method is to use word-formation devices. The prefix, the root, and the suffix can be introduced. The author can choose the prefix, the root and the suffix which often appear in the new words and which are easy to understand. At least they can help the students to decipher something. The students soon show great interest in learning new words. This method is effective for the students to enlarge their vocabulary.

All the meanings of unknown words should be decided in the context. The meanings cannot be separated from the reading material, especially if there are several explanations. The students have to choose the appropriate meaning according to the context, e.g. looking for clues in the rest of the sentences, so that an intelligent guess is likely to be correct.

When explaining new words and expressions, the author sometimes classifies them into nouns, verbs, and adjectives, explains them one by one and writes the usage on the blackboard as the students require. Sometimes the author asks the students to combine them into a phrase by using a noun, a verb and an adjective. Sometimes the author asks the students to introduce to other students how they remember new words.

The author consciously collects others’ related papers, copies them and introduces them to the students. These articles benefit them and the students can form their own methods to enlarge their vocabulary.

At the same time the author tries to resist the temptation to explain every new word. The students should be encouraged to learn to cope with passages which include lexical items and grammar structures that they have not met. Students must realize that they can enjoy a material without the help of a dictionary or a teacher. If they persist in reading a lot, the students’ reading will gradually become more fluent and the difficulties will diminish.

3.4.3 Improving Reading Speed

What causes the students slow reading? The students themselves do not mention the reasons. They are only anxious to improve reading speed. Slow readers are the product of the habit. They often mouth the words one by one as they read and try to make sense of each word. They focus their attention on each particular word. The author asks the students to read in a sense group.

The author does not allow too much time for reading sometimes. The students are constantly urged towards greater reading speed, bearing in mind the purpose of the reading. Different purposes affect reading speed. Many years’ practices of reading without a purpose result in reading everything in the same way and at the same speed. The normal procedure is that the students are required to read a passage and then answer the questions that follow. Their reading is usually purposeless because they have not read the questions first, and have no idea of what they will be asked. They try to get all the information, some of which could be irrelevant. No wonder a uniform slow pace develops. Pre-reading questions can be useful because they focus students’ attention on the types of information that they are about to read.

Different reading purposes demand different speeds. A clear reading purpose decides the proper speed needed to accomplish that purpose. The author tries to provide the students with as many reading opportunities as possible, including various types of reading (fast, slow, skimming, scanning, studying). The aim is to encourage autoimmunization of recognizing common words or word-combinations, which is crucial to reading speed. The students can learn to control and adopt their reading speed according to different reading materials and different reading purposes.

Some unknown words prevent the students from reading quickly. The students should be told it is not necessary to get the meaning of every new word. The dictionary is often over-used, resulting in slower and less fluent reading, as well as frequent misunderstanding through the selection of the wrong definition. The students should know how to use the dictionary, but they should also learn where it is necessary and when an intelligent guess is preferable. On the whole, the dictionary is best used as a means to confirm or disprove a preliminary guess of their own, based on the understanding of the context.

Although only two students ask to improve reading skills in their self-comments, the author thinks they should be introduced to the students because reading skills can help improve reading speed and obtain main information.

The students read different materials for various reasons. They read a novel for pleasure, read a railway schedule or a newspaper for information, read a scholarly journal or book for knowledge, read a guidebook for curiosity, read instructions for a new machine to satisfy the need. The purpose in real reading is not to scrutinize every word or analyze the syntax. The students should adopt appropriate reading skills depending on the purposes and the reading materials.

Scanning, skimming, intensive reading, extensive reading are commonly used in reading. The teachers can assign different tasks by asking the students to use these four skills. They are basic skill requirements for the students and are helpful to the improvement of reading ability. The aim is to adopt these skills flexibly in different reading materials.

By skimming, the students run the eyes quickly over the reading materials to get the main idea or the gist. By scanning, the students are to look for a particular item or items in the reading materials. Again it is fairly fast reading with instant rejection of all irrelevant data, perhaps most of the reading material. The two skills are quite widely practiced in the reading and useful for the students to operate. Skilled students scan to locate specific information in reading materials and skim to extract general information from what they read or to discover what the material is about. Intensive reading, also called study reading, involves close study of the materials.

The transferability of principled flexible skills to different types of reading materials is one of the most effective things to develop in reading. Different reading purposes can decide what skills would be chosen.

Scanning is not used in reading the entire text. After a period of training, the students can use it automatically. The following tasks can be used in teaching:

Find new words for old ones This is a good way to focus upon a new word or useful phrase. Tell the students to find anonyms or antonyms, giving the clues in words that they already know. For example the teachers can ask them to find a word which means dirty (filthy), to find a phrase which has the opposite meaning of she was interested (she was bored).

Locate grammar features Make a list of specified grammar features, such as all the irregular past tense verbs, the prepositions of place, the conjunctions, verb forms ending in ---ing.

Find a specified advertisement Find an item specified on a whole page of advertisements, or the time of a specific radio programmer or TV shows in the entertainments page of a newspaper or programmer guide.

Compare details Check a set of brochure cuttings to find which airlines offer midweek flights from, e.g. London to Rome.

Check dates Using a short biography or obituary notice, ask the class to identify a person's date and place of birth. Alternatively, the students can calculate their age at entry to a profession, or their age today( if still alive ) or at death.

Shopping lists List all the vegetables available in the different parts of a menu or find the cheapest dry white wine in the brochure of a wine merchant. With a long shopping list, note all the products that would be bought in a specific shop.

Make word sets List specified sets of words (those beginning with a prefix, adjectives, collective nouns, topic vocabulary, etc).

Newspaper headlines Cram a selection of newspaper headlines onto a worksheet and ask the students to find the one (or more ) that treats a specified topic.

Skimming tasks

Unlike scanning, skimming involves reading, but it is done at a fast speed. Most of these tasks can usually be given orally. The students can be asked to do any of the following tasks:

Compare values Find the best value saucepan, washing machine, divan bed, or whatever the teachers to choose, from a set of similar advertisements for the product.

Find and compare events From an obituary of biography, decide the major achievement of a person's life.

Select a title Choose the most appropriate title for a passage from a multiple-choice array on the same page or on a separate worksheet or poster.

Draw inferences Draw inferences about the writer's attitude to a situation or topic.

Decide the question Decide what question the writer set out to answer.

Create a title Compose an alternative title or subtitle for the text or for each paragraph.

This involves the class in the close reading of a passage, normally a fairly short one. Students can be asked to perform tasks as follows:

Match nouns and verbs Circle all the subject nouns or noun phrases and indicate the verb that goes with each one.

Split sentences Put a slash between the two or more parts of a longer sentence to show where it could be broken down into shorter sentences. List the words that would be removed in the process.

Combine sentences Indicate where shorter sentences could be combined, suggesting the connecting words (link words) that might be used.

Make summaries Produce a summarizing sentence for each paragraph.

Reorder sentences Read a jigsaw sentence paragraph and decide the order of the sentences in the original.

Reorder paragraphs Read a longer passage where the paragraphs have been jumbled and reorder them.

Fill the gaps Read a gapped passage and provide suitable words for each gap.

Complete tables and graphs Read an article and list the events. Complete a table or a graph to present any data visually.

Take sides List arguments for and against a proposition, those that are given in the passage and those that the students themselves might like to make.

Read and choose Chose among multiple-choice stimuli. These can be at the level of vocabulary, comprehension of detail or inference.

Select a summary Choose the best of several summaries of a passage, but with slightly different emphases.

Compare versions Compare two newspaper reports of the same incident. The students should make lists of points that are reported in both articles and those that are listed in only one, identifying any factual differences.

Identify facts Read an article or report and separate facts from opinions.

Focus on form and style List all examples of specified grammatical points in the text, such as use of the passive voice, indirect speech, the past perfect simple tense, etc.

This is often associated with supplementary reading books read outside the classroom. Its main value is to foster fluency. This type of reading is usually a very private matter, teacher-free and below frustration level in difficulty. It is desirable for students to aim at a fairly good speed.

This implies a supply of long reading materials that students can take away to read in their leisure time. It also implies a measure of freedom and noninterference from the teachers, so there should be little follow-up. The aim is to read for enjoyment. Even so, the teachers have to show interest and allow the students to offer some form of feedback. The teachers can ask them to do some of the following:

Keep records Just the routine of keeping records of what they have read is motivating and can encourage students to read more, especially if the teachers commend avid students from time to time. Let them keep a little booklet, with the names of the writers, the titles and the date on which they read each book. An alternative procedure is for the teachers to keep a class record, checking the student's reaction when a book is returned.

Wall chart Some teachers put a poster on the wall, listing the books available. The students are allowed to initial the titles of the books they have read and award a mark out of ten for each one. This mark is for its interest. A succession of high marks encourages other students to take the book home.

Make summaries The students can be asked to write a short summary of each charter of the book as a whole. This report can be done in their record books or their exercise books.

Indicate the difficulty Stick a slip of paper in the front of each book. Ask the students to award a grade (A, B, C, or D) for the level of difficulty and to initial their awareness. An A grade indicates that they find it easy; a D shows that it was difficult. Again, a succession of A's and B's encourages others to borrow the book (although the teachers must ensure that it is not too simple for this class). A succession of D's tells the teachers that this book really belongs in the book box for the class above.

Through these exercises, the students can fully understand the reading materials. If these skills are improved, reading comprehension can be improved in general. Improvements of reading comprehension are affected by many factors. The syllabus lists some factors and the students have strong needs for these factors. Here are some of them.

---to understand the main idea of the passage

---to understand the concrete information

---to guess the meaning of the new words by reference according to the context

---to make a simple judgment and reference according to the context

---to identify the writer's writing purpose, viewpoint and attitude

---to make a conclusion to the reading material

---to scan related information quickly

During reading teaching, the students are often required to consider these questions. By doing so, the students can improve their reading ability. How to succeed in improving comprehension skills? The students must be trained. The teachers should explain them one by one in the whole reading teaching.

(1) Identify the main idea

(2) Recognize and recall specific details and facts

(3) Recognize the relationship between the main ideas and their expansion (examples, etc,) with the help of signal words

(4) Follow the sequence, e.g. events, instructions, stages of an argument

(5) Anticipate the form and the content

(6) Infer from the text (read between the lines)

(7) Draw a conclusion

(8) Recognize the writer's purpose and attitude

The main idea is the essence of a piece of writing, or what the writer is trying to get across to the students. If the students were to discard the main idea, the remaining sentences would be practically meaningless.

Some paragraphs contain a topic sentence that tells the students the exact main idea. This topic sentence would include who or what the paragraph is about (the topic) and what the writer wants the students to understand about the topic. This topic sentence would be the stated main idea.

A stated main idea is often found in the first sentence in a paragraph, and is followed by supporting details. But this is not always the case. Some writers prefer to give the supporting details first and to end with the main idea. Others give some details, the main idea, and then more details.

In some paragraphs, all the information is equally important and the students must summarize the entire paragraph in order to get the main idea. On the other hand, there are paragraphs which do not directly state the main idea but which require the students to infer the meaning based on the information given. Therefore, the students get the implied main idea by “reading between the lines.” Because it could be found anywhere in the paragraph and could be stated or implied, the students should have the ability to find the main idea. This could be done by asking the following questions after the students read a paragraph could help the students get the main idea:

(1) What is the topic of the paragraph? The topic of the paragraph is who or what the paragraph is about---the subject being discussed, for example, the topic could be onions.

(2) What aspect of the topic is the writer discussing? Most topics are broken down into small aspects. For example, if the subject is onions, the writer might discuss how they are grown, how they are marketed, the varieties of onions, unique ways to cook them, how to chop them without crying, or even the beauty of their layered construction. When the students determine the aspect of the subject that the writer is discussing, the students are ready to ask the third question, which will give the students the main idea, whether it is stated or implied.

(3) What main idea does the writer want the students to know about the topic in relation to the aspect being discussed? If the writer’s topic is onions, and the aspect is chopping onions without tears, then he might want the students to know that chopping a chilled onion submerged in water can prevent eye irritation---thus no tears.

The main idea is the most important idea the writer intends. But in order to gain a complete understanding, this main idea may need to be defined, explained, proved, or analyzed. In other words, the writer uses details to fill in this important information. Some of these details directly support the main idea and are essential to understanding the idea. These are the major details in the passage. Writers use minor details to indirectly support the main idea. Although these details make the reading more interesting and they relate to the main idea, it is not essential to remember them to comprehend the passage. Without major details, the meaning might not be clear because basic information could not been included. Without minor details, the material might not be as readable but would be just as understandable.

It is important to distinguish major details from minor details.

When deciding whether a detail is major or minor, the students should determine the purpose and need for the information as well as the main idea that the writer wants the students to understand.

The main idea and major supporting details are often all that the students need for a clear and complete understanding of a reading passage. However, there are times when both the major and the minor details would be very important. For example, if a student learned that he had a certain illness, he would be more likely to want to read detailed information about it and would be interested in every detail.

Signal words are like traffic lights or road signs. They warn the students of abrupt changes in direction, and guide the students smoothly along the path of thought set down by the writer. They can be a valuable aid in anticipating what is coming next; they can also help to identify the pattern the writer is using to get the point across. Signal words may be found anywhere in a paragraph or may be used to provide a smooth transition from one paragraph to the next.

Some commonly used signal words are grouped and explained.

(1) Signal a contrast or reversal of thought: although, but, however, on the other hand, nevertheless, on the contrary, instead, yet, unlike, conversely. When one of these words or phrases is found in a sentence, it is a signal that there is a change of the thought. The writer may be comparing or contrasting or may simply be reversing the direction of thought. In other words, the writer is presenting two or more sides of a situation.

(2) Signal additional information: also, in addition, furthermore, and, likewise, moreover, besides, another. The words or phrases signal that more of the same kind of information is to be added to what the students just read.

(3) Signal reasoning and explanation: because, the reason for, in order that. Information is easier to understand and remember when the writer gives reasons for the information of especially difficult material. The additional information helps to make difficult words easier to understand by providing an explanation.

(4) Signal an example or illustration: for example, for instance, in other words, such as. Most of the students understand ideas much better, whether simple or complex, if an example or an illustration is given, therefore, when an idea or a concept is difficult and the students see one of these signal words, the students should take note and benefit from the example relationship.

(5) Signal enumeration, such as time order, sequence or listing: one, two, three; first, second, third; next; then; finally; time of day; dates (day, month, year). These signal words indicate that it would be helpful for the students to understand the time order or sequence in which something did or should take place or that there is more than one factor to consider. Usually information that is presented in some kind of order is easier to understand.

(6) Signal a summary or conclusion: therefore, consequently, thus, in summary, in conclusion, in short. Often, at the end of a paragraph, a passage, or a chapter, the author will signal the students that a summary or conclusion will be forthcoming.

The main idea is what the writer wants the students to understand about the topic being discussed. The main idea is supported by details, both major and minor, that help the students understand the topic. The writer uses a variety of patterns to relate the supporting details to the main idea. Some of these patterns are explanations, examples, comparisons and contrasts, causes and ef