The Main Six Strategies to Improve Reading Skill in Academic Context

Strategies to Improve Reading Skill in Academic Context According to Oscar Wilde, "If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all." Reading is an essential part of language at every level of learning because it supports in multiple ways. Often students rely on their linguistic knowledge, a bottom up strategy. Bottom-up processing starts with the words in the text and builds up meaning from this linguistic input (Gough 1972, in Bruce 2011:142). 

However, students should focus on top-down strategy to adjust their reading behavior to deal with different situations, types of input, and reading purposes. As a matter of fact, we need complete and explicit reading in any context and principally in an academic context at any rate. Reading to learn the language: Students need a variety of materials to read. Teachers should provide proper vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, discourse structure within authentic context. Students gain the capability of how to convey meaning. Reading for content information: Students' purpose of reading is generally gathered the information about the subject, language, and learning classroom as well. Reading for cultural knowledge and awareness: Students can insight into the different lifestyles and worldviews by reading materials. Nowadays, students have to access the newspaper, magazines, and websites which expose the culture. Critical reading or academic reading should involve presenting a reasoned argument that analyses and evaluates what you have already read. Being critical in an academic sense - means advancing the understanding, not dismissing or closing off learning. EAP students are at the center of this reading, learning process and EAP teachers must have to construct the student-centered approaches and materials. 

There are lots of strategies that can help students read more quickly and effectively. The six key strategies help students to develop their reading skill in academic context prominently. 

First of all, vocabulary and language development. Teachers can introduce new concepts or ideas by discussing new key vocabulary words through this strategy. It helps to build the students' background knowledge. 

Secondly, guided interaction. Teachers should structure the lessons in a way, so that students work together to understand what they read - by listening, speaking, reading, and writing collaboratively about the academic context. 

Thirdly, metacognition and authentic assessment. Generally, students memorize information. Teachers have to teach thinking skills or help to create the metacognitive ability. 

Fourthly, explicit instruction. It upholds the direct teaching of concepts, academic language, and reading comprehension as strategies which needed to complete classroom tasks. 

The fifth strategy is the use of meaning-based context and universal themes. It refers to something meaningful from every day's life and applying it in academic concepts. Students are highly motivated, when they can connect their lives or cultural background to something interesting. In that case, their learning progress is satisfactory.

Finally, the use of modeling, graphic organizers, and visuals. The use of a variety of visual aids, including pictures, diagrams, and charts is benevolent for students, especially ELL (English Language Learner) students. The language and the content, both become accessible to students through visuals. 

Context clues can significantly increase reading comprehension and consistently read academic context. Even, students should reconsider the different types of contextual clues, such as synonyms, antonyms, definitions, examples, and experiences whilst reading thoroughly the text. Students need re-read for better understanding or better learning.