Chapter 6 Punctuation

I teach the students to know punctuation is partly based on

grammar. For example, commas are often used to separate

clauses. If the student understands the meaning and usage

of punctuation marks, it will be easier to understand the

grammatical structures. Punctuation marks also indicate

how the author wants the student to interpret a piece of

passage. For example, if the author puts something in

brackets, the part of the sentence should be interpreted as

an addition to the sentence. Sometimes the parentheses

indicate the author's point of view.

Chapter 7 Summarizing

•We know that it is very difficult to remember the complete

contents of long passages. For that reason it is often

advisable to make notes of information in the passage that is

essential for the student. The result is a short outline of the

passage containing all aspects of the passage.  In this way

students can grasp the main ideas of the passage. I ask the

students to follow these steps:

•1) Familiarize(熟习 ) with the material. After students have

read the passage or a section of it, they can start

summarizing. The length of the section read through depends

on the structure and the complexity(复杂 ) of the passage.

•2) Select important information. I ask the students to go

through each paragraph, sentence by sentence, asking

themselves which information is absolutely essential to the

argument. They should point out complete sentences as much

as possible. An alternative is to underline or highlight

important sentences or phrases. Pay attention to these

important points: author, title, reason why the passage was

written, purpose, theme, key words, link words, all major

aspects, explanations, author’s opinion.  Less important

points: introduction, summary, repetition, examples, important

figures and dates.

•3) Paraphrase the information. I ask the students to point

out the information of the previous step in their own words.

And writing down information in their own words forces

them to completely understand what they are writing down.

They should try to shorten long and complex sentences into

much shorter ones.

•4) Insert links between sentences and paragraphs. Let

students make sure that the connection between sentences is

clear and logical and that each group of sentences smoothly fit

in one paragraph.

•5) Adjust the length of the summary. If they have to make a

summary as part of an assignment and they are assigned a

maximum number of words, count the words and leave out

information that is not essential or add important information.

Chapter 8 Main idea and Supporting Details

Through the training of the reading skills of skimming and

scanning, author's viewpoint, structure of passages,

structure of paragraphs, students', anticipation,

punctuation, and summarizing, students know the steps of

how to understand a passage and particularly how to deal

with the comprehension questions in the examination. But

we know reading is a practise of long period and we must

have a lot of practice.

In order to cultivate the reading ability, students need

knowledge of grammar, a good master of vocabulary, a good

ability of analysis and a good memory as well. So we must try

to train the students enlarge their vocabulary, the skills of

reading, broaden their background knowledge and cultivate

the ability of question analysis and resolution. Only in this

way can we raise the student's comprehension ability.