Purpose of Reading The Nature of Reading

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b. Purpose of Reading

Learning a foreign language, especially reading skill is often used for purpose. A person may read for enjoyment or to improve his knowledge. Besides, the purpose of reading determines the appropriate approach of reading. A person, hence, selects what they want to read. For instance, a person goes to the restaurant, he wants to know the price of the food, so he reads a menu in the restaurant, although he doesn’t need to know the name of food listed. A person reading poetry of enjoyment needs to recognize the words the poet uses and the ways they are put together, but he doesn’t need to identify the main idea and supporting idea of the poetry, just for enjoying. Further, a person reading scientific article to support his background knowledge needs to know vocabulary that is used, understand the facts that are presented in text and recognize ideas that are presented as hypotheses and givens. A person reads something because he wants to comprehend something from reading materials that he reads. Nuttal states: In FL learning reading is often used for purposes which are different from those found in mother-tongue learning. For example, we noted that reading aloud is often used mistakenly, most experts agree as one form of pronunciation teaching. But the most typical use of reading in a foreign language class is to teach the language itself. The typical text in a FL course book is one that helps the teacher to present or practise specific linguistics items-vocabulary, structures and so on 1987: 19. Reading is an activity which has a purpose. A person might read in order to get some information from written message that he reads or may be he wants to verify his existing knowledge or may be he wants to express his criticism of the writer’s ideas or writing style. 34 Good reader read extensively, integrates information in the text with existing knowledge, have a flexible reading style, depending on what they are reading. There are some different skills interacting: perceptual processing, phonemic processing, and recall. Reading is a purpose; reading serves a function. It means that if reader gets the opportunities like what have said, reader will read more text. They spend their time on texts intended to improve their knowledge or their language.

c. Reading and Language Teaching