Academic Skills and Speed Reading for university students

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Corso di Laurea: Psicologia Insegnamento: Lezione nº: 18 Lingua Inglese Titolo: Attività nº: Academic Skills - Introduction 00 Facoltà di Psicologia

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Academic Skills Introduction

Corso di Laurea: Psicologia Lingua Inglese 18 Insegnamento: Lezione nº: Titolo: Attività nº: Academic Skills - Introduction 00 Facoltà di Psicologia

Hello and welcome to this part of the course which is dedicated to academic skills. Academic skills are a set of abilities that you need to acquire in order to get through your university studies successfully. Students enrolling at university come from very different backgrounds, languages, knowledge and expertise and they might lack a specific training in what is required at university level. Most student learn some scattered academic skills through trial and error or helped by a friend or relative. They might often be troubled or delayed in their work due to the lack of direction. To give you a visual example it's like when you walk through the woods without following a marked path. You will eventually come out of it but the task was difficult, tortuous, frustrating and time consuming. Academic skills serve the purpose of walking you through the woods with a precise direction so that you can enjoy the landscape.

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Student Activities in Academia

Corso di Laurea: Psicologia Lingua Inglese 18 Insegnamento: Lezione nº: Titolo: Attività nº: Academic Skills - Introduction 00 Facoltà di Psicologia

The main activity that a student performs in academia is reading. This activity takes out the majority of your time then there is note taking and filing your notes. Then you might be ready to write. This is when you need vocabulary. A solid vocabulary is very important for both reading and writing and for a non-native English student, it could present a barrier. But you are not alone, international students worldwide are constantly increasing in number. Hans de Wit, director of the Centre for International Higher Education, Boston College in the US, says there are predictions that by 2025 the number of international students could have risen to eight million. The largest numbers of international students come from China, India and South Korea, but Nigeria is catching up fast. Within Europe, according to the Academic Co-operation Association, the number of university courses taught in English in non-English-speaking countries has increased by more than 300% in seven years.

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Coping with Academic Standards

Corso di Laurea: Psicologia Lingua Inglese 18 Insegnamento: Lezione nº: Titolo: Attività nº: Academic Skills - Introduction 00 Facoltà di Psicologia

So, how are students like yourself coping with the demands of academic standards in English? A recent study conducted by Ashton-Hay, S. A., & Doncaster of the Southern Cross University asserts that ... The findings indicate that students who attended Academic Skills performed better than those who did not attend Academic Skills and the difference is greater for those who attended more consultations. Student GPA (grade point average) was also higher and more students completed their degree as a result. A recommendation is made for universities to strategically position and resource academic language and learning support services in order to enhance the student experience.

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Academic Skills Study Areas

Corso di Laurea: Psicologia Insegnamento: Lezione nº: 18 Lingua Inglese Titolo: Attività nº: Academic Skills - Introduction 00 Facoltà di Psicologia

Academic skills are set out to help all university students as the general academic scenario is becoming more and more diverse. Academic skills comprise the following study areas:

• Reading
• Vocabulary
• Writing
• Note-taking (reading)
• Note-taking (lecture)
• Listening (lecture)

The first skill we are going to tackle is SPEED READING.

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Speed Reading Introduction

UNIVERSITÀ Corso di Laurea: Psicologia Insegnamento: Lingua Inglese Numero lezione: 18 Titolo: Academic Skills - Speed Reading Attività: 01 Psicologia Lesson 18 Academic Skills - Speed Reading

What is Speed Reading?

What is speed - reading? As the name suggests it is a combination of techniques that help you read fast. Slow reading then means to read slowly and more carefully. When you read slowly you read every detail, when you read in a language other than your own, reading could become very slow because you need to look up in a dictionary all the words that you don't know ... but do you? If you have to read a very long paper, especially in a different language, it's going to take you very long time and you might even find that you didn't really need all that information or, even worse, that the paper that you have chosen is not relevant to your own research. This is why you need to speed up your reading. Does speed-reading mean jumping from one paragraph to another without really understanding what's written? And, more importantly how can you increase the speed of your reading and still retain information?

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Purpose of Reading Academic Texts

UNIVERSITÀ Corso di Laurea: Psicologia Insegnamento: Lingua Inglese Numero lezione: 18 Titolo: Academic Skills - Speed Reading Attività: 01 Psicologia

This depends largely on your purpose. When you study or research the type of reading it's not the same as lying down on your couch with a cup of tea and your favourite book! (that's called extensive reading) When reading academic texts you have something specific in mind such as

• to get information (facts, data)
• to understand ideas or theories
• to understand the author's viewpoint
• to support your own views using citation or quotes

You go through academic papers with the purpose of getting any of the above to write your essay or for your thesis. You might be working or/and have family commitments and time is never enough! So if you don't master some basic reading skills you will easily end up very stressed out.

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Speed Reading Exercise

Corso di Laurea: Psicologia Insegnamento: Lezione nº: 18 Lingua Inglese Titolo: Attività nº: Speed Reading - Exercise 02 Facoltà di Psicologia

Speed Reading Method

SPEED READING A simple way to do this initially is to divide the page vertically into three or four sections, either by folding it or drawing lines, and to look only at the middle of each section. As this habit becomes more natural, you will not need to fold the page or draw lines, and may even be able to reduce the number of sections to two per page. If we take a look at the following example, we can clearly see what the keywords of the passage are. Write them down on a piece of paper and check your answer.

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Reading Fluency Development

Corso di Laurea: Psicologia Insegnamento: Lingua Inglese Lezione nº: 18 Titolo: Attività nº: Speed Reading - Exercise 02 Facoltà di Psicologia

Timed Reading Activity

SPEED READING To develop reading fluency, a 13-week timed reading activity was integrated into a normal curriculum with the aim of improving students' reading rates. Participants were 84 college students divided into an experimental and a control group. The test instruments involved pre-tests and post-tests on reading speed and comprehension. Students' perceptions were based on a final written report toward the end of the course activity. Results show that students doing the timed reading activity increased their reading speed on average by 29 words per minute (25%) and comprehension by 63 (4%). [ ... ] Students who did the timed reading activity became more confident in their reading and were impressed with the amount of the reading they had done without the teachers' guidance.

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Check Your Answer

Corso di Laurea: Psicologia Insegnamento: Lezione nº: 18 Lingua Inglese Titolo: Attività nº: Speed Reading - Exercise 02 Facoltà di Psicologia

Keywords for Reading Fluency

CHECK YOUR ANSWER: Develop reading fluency 13 week timed reading Improving Integrated Curriculum Experimental Test Students who did Post-tests Comprehension by 63% Perception Final written report End of course Results show Timed reading Timed per minute 25% Increased Confident in their reading Speed Impressed with Reading activity Teacher's guidance

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Applying Speed Reading Method

e CAMPUS UNIVERSITÀ Corso di Laurea: Psicologia Insegnamento: Lezione nº: 18 Lingua Inglese Titolo: Attività nº: Speed Reading - Exercise 02 Facoltà di Psicologia

Gist and Information Retrieval

SPEED READING If you apply this method on the whole page, you will get more words but you will still have a good idea of the gist of the article and, more importantly, if this is the type of information that you are looking for. Once you have identified the ideas that interest you, you can read in detail. As a non-native English reader you might need a larger number of words in order to gain a broad understanding of the page. With this method, however, you only have to check out a selection of words which is still time-saving. In the above example these may be: Fluency, Improving, Increased, Confident. Or ... none! How many did you have to look up? Were you still able to understand the passage? Try and experiment with this method, it also works in Italian!

C 2007 - 2016 Università degli Studi eCampus - Via Isimbardi 10 - 22060 Novedrate (Co) - C.F. 9002752130 - Tel: 031.79421 - Fax: 031.7942501 - Mail: info@uniecampus.it