“For many students, reading is by far the most important of the four skills in a second language, particularly in English as a second or foreign language”. In Middle School, English is learned as a foreign language by Students and face-to-face communication with native speakers of English is still largely confined, reading is paramount.” Reading is certainly the most crucial to a student entering into a means by which academic environment, for it is the priming means by which academic Knowledge is transmitted”. English is not only learned primarily as a means of information through the written language, but also reading provides the most efficient and hence the most important channel of linguistic input through which students improve their linguistic competence. Reading courses constitute a very large part of the English curricula in Middle School. Reading makes up a large proportion of the total score in important English tests at various levels such as PET(1),College Entrance

Reading is an important and necessary skill to be developed when Examination and so on, for example, it is the quarter of the total score in PET(1).In this sense, good reading ability is aprerequisite for successful learning of English. So a learner want to learn English well, he must first of all develop his reading ability.learning a foreign language. This paper concentrates on possible ways of improving students’ English reading ability.

1.1.      What is Reading?

Advanced ability in reading English as a foreign language requires improvement in reading speed. We should know the following points.

“Reading refers to getting out of the text as closely as possible the message that writer puts into it and it is the ability to recognize the black marks, to correlate the result with meaning. Reading has four features: it is purposeful, selective, anticipating and based on comprehension.”

1.2.      Problems of reading English

     In Middle School, Reading is regarded as a most difficult skill to be developed. For example, some students read too slowly ,students translate to Li all the time ,students do not know how to read and so on. As English teachers, we should try to find some ways to help students to solve these problems, to develop students’ reading ability, first, Learners must improve their reading speed.

1.3.      Why Students Reading too slowly

     Firstly, students can not remember enough English words. When they do their reading, students meet many new words which prevent them from understanding the full meaning of the text. If they want to understand, they have to read it again and again.

      Secondly, when Students do their reading, they prefer to look up a dictionary rather than guess the meaning from the context.

      Thirdly, some students have bad reading habits, such as: finger pointing, head moving, sub vocalization, regression, etc.

      Fourthly, some students’ reading techniques are not quite right, they do not know how to read and they want to know the exact meaning of every word, when reading.

      Fifthly, some students do not read enough and cannot fulfill the reading requirements assigned by teachers and they seldom read new materials chosen by themselves.

1.4.      How to Improve Students’ English Reading Speed

Step One

1) Enlarge students’ vocabulary .Vocabulary is the base foundation for reading. If students want to understand the texts they read, they must know enough words. So in teaching, teachers must be strict with students, ask students to remember the new words of the English text books. At the same time, teachers must teach the ways of remembering the English words, and help students to memorize them as soon as possible.

2) Get rid of the bad reading habits. These bad reading habits, such as: finger pointing, head moving, subvocalization, regression and so on, can easily slow down students’ reading speed. So students must pay attention to do their best to get rid of them.

3) Choose more easy and interesting passages for students.

Step Two

4) Recording reading. Teachers must require each student to record his/her own reading speed and comprehension and check them regularly. Students should choose more reading passages to read so that they can read faster.

5) Teachers should try their best to introduce as many reading techniques as possible for students.

Step Three

6) Test reading. Teachers should test students’ reading speed regularly while they read, asking questions and comprehension, presentation in class, communication with others, etc.

7) Teachers should give students many kinds of interesting and original materials, concerning a wide range of interesting topics.

8) Students should do many kinds of readings, such as : intensive reading, extensive reading, speed reading, scanning, skimming and so on.

9) Teachers should give students more hours in the week for extensive reading. Teachers should carry our extra-curriculum activities to give students as many chances to learn reading as possible.

Improving students’ reading speed is a hard job. We cannot finish it in one move, we should persist in doing what teachers should do. A good English teacher ought to be very careful and particular about students’ English reading speed. If we try our best to help students do their reading, we can improve their English reading speed through a continued training and practice.

2. The techniques to Develop Reading Ability

Reading is different from speaking, in that reading is a productive skill. For students, reading is a skill. Reading is said to be learned rather than taught. For students, reading is the skill they most often depend on to help get them through a program of English language learning. So effective reading is critical. “Professionals in second/foreign language education should be vitally connected with approaches, that can improve the reading skills of learners”. According to Clark, “reading skills, from the methodological viewpoint, include scanning, skimming, reading for thorough comprehension and critical reading.”

2.1 Reading Techniques Used Often

2.1.1 Skimming and Scanning

“Skimming and scanning are useful skills. They do not remove the need for careful reading, but they enable the reader to select the texts, or the portions of a text, that are worth spending time on.” Skimming refers to glancing very quickly through a text to determine its gist. It is a fast reading technique which skip details, minor ideas. The purpose is to know the main ideas of the material in the shortest possible time. For convenience, skimming can be divided into three kinds: previewing, browsing, reviewing.

Scanning refers to glancing very quickly through a text to search for a specific piece of information. Scanning is a fast technique to look for facts, information, and answers to the question one intends to find like skimming, it’s used to read something as a whole, but unlike skimming, one uses scanning when he is reading for. Fast techniques help find information under pressure of time.

2.1.2 Word-Attack Skill

It’s a skill to guess from the context the meaning of new words, punctuality and grammartical structures and the author’s intention.

2.1.3 Reading for Thorough Understanding

It’s a slow technique used in intensive reading by studying the contents carefully to comprehension what the text is about.

2.1.4 Critical Reading

The technique tells the readers not to believe everything in the reading. The reader has to read the material for thorough reading to form his own comment on it. At intermediate and advanced levels, critical reading plays a leading role.

2.1.5 Paragraph Study

The role of the technique is to grasp paragraph meaning by finding topic sentences and analyzing types of writing and induction.

2.1.6 Sentence Study

It’s a method to comprehend a sentence by breaking a long sentence into small segments, by finding key words and recognizing structural clue. The point is that the teacher mustn’t isolate the organization from the context.

2.1.7 Reading in Chunks

Nuttall said, “…one characteristic of an efficient reader is his ability to chunk a text into sense unit…” “It is quicker to take in the sence of two or three chunks and fit then together than to do the same with a larger number of small chunks.” So Teachers should tell students not to read word by word and get them more phrase reading words. Ask them to pay more attention to the sentence rather than to a separate word.

2.1.8 Guessing meaning contextually

Just said, “For a context to be helpful, the reader must recognize the connection between the unfamiliar word and the cue or definition.” “…a connecting word or phrase may tie together the unfamiliar word and the explanatory context.” So teachers should tell students not to depend too much on dictionary. It will slow your reading speed. Teachers can help students to work out the general meaning from context, instead of stopping and puzzling over each unfamiliar word. Nation and Coady (1989) both see learning vocabulary through context as the major way of increasing vocabulary knowledge and guessing skill as central to reading comprehension. Nattinger (1989) argues that guessing vocabulary from context is the most frequent way we discover the meaning of new words.Twaddle (1973) states that it is impossible to teach learners all the words they need to know, and so it is important to teach them guessing strategies that will enable them to tackle unknown words and lose their reliance on dictionaries.                                                                                     

2.2         Intensive and Extensive Reading

In Middle School, we not only teach the texts as intensive               

reading but also as extensive reading.

                    Intensive reading, just as Brumfit points out, means  reading for accuracy and extensive means reading for fluency. To improve the teaching, it is necessary that the teachers of English be acquainted with the two kinds of reading.

          Intensive reading is an elaborate study of the language. It is learning the texts in detail. For example, analyzing the difficult structures, explaining idiomatic expressions, doing word study and discussing the organization, types of writing, figures of speech and other points there in.

          Extensive reading has two purposes：broadening knowledge and enlarging vocabulary through reading. In texts, the teacher manages to have students read quickly and widely to train them to read independently. He motivates the students by re commending reading materials or discussing problems of common interest while teaching them reading techniques.

          To conclude, the teacher stresses the main points by utilizing different reading techniques in class. All in all, advantages are：

A.   The students gain a good understanding of the contents;

B.    Regular recurrence helps students learn the material by

Heart;

          C. Reading proficiency is improved because of effective techniques proficiency is improved because of effective techniques practiced in class;

          D. The students’ sense of the language becomes stronger, so the ability to analyze and integrate is also improve;

          E. The difficulties are overcome separately in varies class; so students don’t feel burdened.

2.3. The Integrated Exercise

          To reinforce the learned lesson, students may do varies exercises related to the text.

        2.3.1 Comprehension Question

       Questions, based on the central idea of a paragraph, the relevant plots, etc, favour the understanding of passage and the development of students’ intelligence. The questions, including Yes/No or Multiple choice or WH-questions, In the English texts of High school, there are some questions are designed according to the texts on the workbook. Teachers can design some questions by themselves, too. When we teach the texts, first we can require students go through these questions and make sure they understand them, then read the texts with these questions and ask or discuss them. After doing that, students can understand the passages and develop their reading ability.

        2.3.2 Cloze Passages

       It’s a process of systematically deleting from a passage and replacing them with blanks to be filled the students, students are encouraged to guess the meaning from the context in the exercises. For example, teachers can put away some important words, let students fill them by trying to remember the texts or understand the whole texts.

        2.3.3 Shortening and Rewriting

       After studying a text, teachers can require students to retell it in their own words or practice shortening or recognizing texts. It can improve students comprehension, oral and writing.

        2.3.4 Context Clue

       The teacher make up sentences with the new words in the text and then designs multiple choices for students to select the one whose meaning is similar to the new word.

          2.3.5 True or False

         The teacher designs True or False choices for students to improve reading techniques and comprehension.

          2.4 The Benefits of Reading

         It’s worth taking some time to do reading. Students are able to learn more knowledge and in charge of reading technique by reading. The number of words a reader knows determines the difficulty and complexity of the material he can read; the effective technique savetime and promote comprehension.

          2.4.1 The Necessity of Fast----Reading

         Fast----Reading makes readers more efficient by speeding up the process generally, readers can get the rough outline of what they are reading at the quickest while maintaining correct comprehension. Do Fast----Reading, students can obtain more information in his time. So teachers should tell students why they must practice fast reading. In order to make Fast----Reading effective, students must get rid of some bad habits, such as: finger pointing, head moving, lip moving, repeating and so on. At first, teachers can give students some easy materials to read. Students can use some reading techniques to read quickly. Fast-reading depends upon three aspects----expectation ability, visual skipping and intelligence guessing, so long as learners go on practicing as planned, the average speed they can fasten. Fast-Reading is necessary and possible.

       2.4.2 Discussing reading lessons

         In order to make students more active participants in reading lessons. First students respond to each other and make individual comments on what they are reading. Having read the material they choose, the students begin to design some questions by themselves. Then the class is divided into small groups, and the students start to ask each other questions and discuss to arrive at agreement. Then the class form a large circle for a whole class discussion in which one representative from each group expresses it opinion. The teacher is only a director in the lessons. Secondly, the teacher can design some questions about the reaching materials, then let students discuss them by themselves in pairs or in groups or in class. After discussing, the teacher check the answers with students.

           2.4.3 The organization of Outside-class Reading

          In China, especially in middle school, English isn’t the students’ natural environment. Therefore, besides the limited Amount of English learned in class, outside-class reading is probably the best way for learning English. The teacher can select some easy, interesting and humorous materials for students. The teacher requires students to read two or three passages in a week and regularly check how well they read by requesting students’ linguistic knowledge, while finding recreation and enjoyment.

          Conclusion

          This paper tries to explore some of the many ways of helping students to acquire reading skills and develop reading ability. Reading is connected with listening, speaking and writing as well as vocabulary and grammar in teaching. By organizing varied reading lessons, the teacher ensures that the students take an active part in language learning. Reading is learnt rather than taught, and one learns reading by reading.