READING

=How is Academic Reading Important?=

= =

**Now check your answers:**

 * ANSWER1:university:10:1:0
 * ANSWER2:discovered:10:2:0
 * ANSWER3:fact:10:3:0
 * ANSWER4:most:10:4:0
 * ANSWER5:taken:10:5:0
 * ANSWER6:imagine:10:6:0
 * ANSWER7:like:10:7:0
 * ANSWER8:extremely:10:8:0
 * ANSWER9:however:10:9:0
 * ANSWER10:skill:10:10:0

**Now, without looking at the text again, tell your partner what you think the main message was:**
You probably found it hard to remember the content of the text immediately. Why do you think that happened? How were you reading? Now read the text again and concentrate on the message it is communicating.

If you are studying at university you will already have discovered how important reading is. The skill of reading efficiently is, in fact, one of the most valuable things that you can learn. Reading is often taken for granted by many of us, but if we stop to imagine what life would be like without this skill we will quickly realise that everything would become extremely difficult. Reading at university, however, is not only valuable but essential and not only the skill of reading but also of reading actively, and critically.



Donal Weber for The New York Times Jacques Demers, 61, has lived a life of pain but he is laughing now.

Now look at this [|text] and answer these questions? (you have ten minutes at the most to read the text)
How does Jacques Demers, the Montreal Hockey coach,feel? In what ways did he lie to cover up the fact that he was illiterate? How did his wife find out about his illiteracy?

Now you might like to turn to VOCABULARY matters

Risk taking Activity
If you have already done the work on the listening page you will have a good idea as to what the original article said. //Tell your partner what you can remember.// Now you will have the chance to read the article, so you will have more time to process the information, and you will see that it is easier to understand as the factors of pronunciation and time that we discussed when listening do not create the same difficulties. Read the article fairly quickly and make a list of the notes you think the writer made before actually drafting the article.

Reading for Academic Purposes: critical reading
When you read a lot because you are studying you need to be able to process information quickly and effectively, understanding first of all what the writer is "really" saying,and then later interpreting the information or deciding whether you agree or not with the viewpoint being expressed. This skill is usually referred to as "Critical Reading". You are going to look at an article entitled:

//"Staying home with Mamma" by Carla Power, (from Newsweek August 14th 2000)// What do you expect to read about? Read the article quickly and see what surprises you. Discuss this with your partner. Look at each section and decide, in your own words, what the main point is. Now compare your ideas with the original ideas. (Click on the link below.)

http://www.mywire.com/pubs/Newsweek/2000/08/14/317061?&pbl=222

1) About 70% of young Italian men live with their parents. 2) The reason is that apartments are expensive and jobs are rare. 3) Most say they like their comfortable life at home. 4) It is culturally unacceptable to leave home until marriage. 5) Women compensate for inadequate social benefits both as mothers and later daughters.

Finally you can use this as a framework for a short summary. Look at this activity. Complete the gaps in a suitable way.

It is well known that a lot of Italian men.................................with their parents until well into their thirties. Why does this happen? The author.................. by saying it is for ........................................because jobs are hard ...........................and badly .................... whereas ............................ tend to be expensive, and it is not because, as people commonly think, the Italian ..................................... so strong. The article then says,................................, that most people........................................ the situation even if they would prefer to .................................., because they are actually quite happy with the living situation where ........................... for them and their father .................................... financially. Another ........................................ is that it is culturally unacceptable in Italy to .............................. until people get married, something which is happening later and later. The writer .................................... the women are compensating in Italy today for ................................................. as first mothers have to look after adult children and then daughters have to look after ......................................

Now compare your ideas with the original version.

It is well known that a lot of Italian men stay at home with their parents until well into their thirties. Why does this happen? The author begins by saying it for economic reasons because jobs are hard to find and badly paid whereas apartments tend to be expensive, and it is not because, as people commonly think, the Italian family unit is so strong. The article then says, however, that most people come to terms with the situation even if they would prefer to leave home, because they are actually quite happy with the living situation where their mother does everything for them and their father supports them financially. Another factor that is mentioned is that it is culturally unacceptable in Italy to leave home until people get married, something which is happening later and later. The writer concludes that the women are compensating in Italy today for inadequate social benefits as first mothers havae to look after adult children and then daughters have to look after sick,elderly parents.

Now go back to the "Risk taking" article above
Approach this in a similar way to the way you worked with the "Staying with Mamma" article. Decide on the main points for each section (Be careful to notice what the writer is saying and not what you yourself think at this stage.) Then use those notes to make a short summary of the text. To do this you can look back at the sample summary provided with the "Staying with Mamma" article. Think carefully about how you want to organise the information linking sections with logical connectors. You can use the vocabluary from the text but **__use your own words__** when writing your summary.

If you want to say, for instance, with reference to Section 3:
//Risk sports also have their positive side They can help people to overcome their fears// The second statement is a logical **consequence** of the first, so you need an appropriate connector such as "because" or "so":

//Risk sports also have their positive side because they can help people to overcome their fears. Or People need to overcome their fears in everyday life and risksports help them to do this so they have a positive side too.//

Other ways in which we organise information into logical relations are:

Comparisons; Additional Information; Sequence; Attitude**
 * Contrasts;

If you would like to develop your knowledge of connectors there are two useful activities you can do at the Cla Webclass under Hartle (C1) Composition. Do the Crossword activity first and then the Tricky Links Quiz. (Click on the link below) http://centri.univr.it/cla/

Now compare your notes explaining to your partner how you have done the activity.

Critical Reading and Logic
When write develop a line of reasoning it is important to be able to follow their logic or lack of it, as the case may be. We have already looked above at some basic logical relations between ideas but here is another look at false logic. A fallacy in logic refers to an argument which is based on a false premise of some kind. For example: Premise 1: All horses are animals. Premise 2: All horses have four legs Therefore: All animals have four legs What is the problem with this argument? (Look at the diagram below to help you)




 * Now look at this worksheet to see how this type of logical fallacy or a subjective or imprecise use of terminology, reference or lexis can interfere with the logic of an argument. Read the arguments in the text below and discuss with your partner the problems with them:**



A closer look at vocabulary
Now, look at the vocabulary exercise. This is similar to the one connected to English as a European Language that you have already done. Choose the most suitable deifinition for the items in the list under the text. Now go back to the vocabulary page by clicking on this link: vocabulary.