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All about reading

READING FOR PLEASURE: A scene at a workshop on `Reading Skills,' organised by the British Library, for children in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday. — Photo: C. Ratheesh Kumar

Who is a good reader? This was the difficult question put to children attending a workshop on reading skills at the British Library here on Tuesday.

You can read out a text given to you beautifully. Does it make you a good reader, asks reading skills expert Sajni Koruth. The children, aged between eight and 14, are ready with their answers.

"No," says young Roshan. "You become a good reader when you can also comprehend what you read."

Arathi does not share the view. In her impeccable convent school accent, she says that you are a good reader only if your accent is right and can pronounce your words well.

For bright little kids like Arathi, perhaps, comprehension comes naturally. But, the level of comprehension, or the nature of comprehension called for, will vary from case to case. For instance, you do not read a letter from a friend the same way as the review on a film you want to see.

When you read the letter, you hear your friend's voice and imagine him speaking to you with a smile on the face. You experience the warmth of his love radiating from his letter. The review, on the other hand, you read merely to learn whether the film is worth seeing after all.

A skilful reader is one who can orient his or her reading focus according to the reading material in hand and the purpose of reading it.

Sometimes you can predict what is to evolve from the very name of the author.

Edgar Alan Poe will mean cloak-and-dagger, most of the times. And Enid Blyton, a lot of brilliant detective work by the Famous Five. You skim through a book when all you want to know is its contents in general and you scan the pages of another book looking for some specific information somewhere in it. You read yet another book to get its gist. When you come to your school textbook you are into what is called intensive reading, going to the very depths.

And, some of you have what is called extensive reading, which means you love reading for pleasure and nothing can stop you. To get the most out of reading, you will have to master all these skills, Ms. Sajni Koruth told the children.

And who said reading habit is dying? There were 36 enthusiastic children at the workshop with desire to learn the nuances of reading.

P. Venugopal

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