Sáng kiến kinh nghiệm cách giải quyết những khó khăn trong các dạng bài tập đọc hiểu

asp and tackle them. 
In this practical research, I’d like to make clear the identity of various types of reading exercises and point out the strategies to deal with them with a hope to enable students in our centre to get better results in their reading tests. 
II. DIFFERENT TYPES OF READING EXERCISES: PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS. 
TYPE1: GRAMMAR AND STRUCTURE MULTIPLE CHOICE TESTS. 
A. PROBLEMS. 
l. A reading comprehension test is bound to have one part reserved for questions about grammar and structures in the form of multiple choice. 
2. This type of test may cover a lot of grammatical areas in English. 
3. There are innumerable test books of this type. However they do not offer their readers a systematic view and drill on essential grammar points in English. To be precise, they don’t take this aspect into consideration because a real grammar test can’t be composed of only one grammar problem. They must be made up of different aspects of English grammar. 
4. Therefore, the difficulty is how to know what grammatical points will be asked about and how to devour a mountain of multiple choice test books available in the market now. 
B. SOLUTIONS: 
1 .The tests should be graded according to the requirements of each level of study: elementary, intermediate, or advanced. In other words, teachers must limit the amount of grammar knowledge to be taught in a term or in a year. They must also test what they have taught their students. For example, questions about the inversions or present subjunctive should not be included in the tests for first-year or A level students. 
2.The best way to prepare for this test is to have a systematic review of English grammar and do the tests which focus on one special point at a time. The list of drills may be like this: 
• Verb tenses 	• Pronouns 
• Infinitive 	• Adjectives 
• Gerund 	• Noun clause 
• Present participle 	• Adjective clause 
• Past participle 	• Adverb clause 
• Tag questions 	• Passive voice 
• Modal verbs 	• Subjunctive mood 
• Causative forms 	• Agreement of S + V 
• Conditional sentences 	• Reported speech 
• Nouns 	• Prepositions 
Of course, books of this sort are not available as stated above. If necessary, students should collect and arrange grammar items into particular topics, do these tests one by one, step by step and review them now and then. Once they have mastered all the fundamental things in English grammar, I bet they will be able to find the correct answers to the questions in whatever situations or sentences they appear. In fact, one grammatical problem may happen in different contexts but it remains the same because we can’t alter the syntactic system of a language: “All roads lead to Rome”. 
3. Below is a sample grammar review exercise focusing on a particular topic. 
VERB TENSES
• I_________ Louisiana State University. 
A. am attending 	B. attend 	C. was attending 	D. attended. 
• He has been selling motorcycles_____________ 
A. ten years ago 	B. since ten years 	C. for ten years ago 	D. for ten years 
• Columbus America____________ more than 400 years ago. 
A. discovered 	B. has discovered 	C. had discovered 	D. has gone 
• He fell down when he__________ towards the church. 
A. run 	B. runs 	C. was running 	D. had run 
• We_________ there when our father died. 
A. still lived 	B. lived still 	C. was still living 	D. were still living 
TYPE 2: READING PASSAGES WITH QUESTIONS IN MULTIPLE CHOICE FORMS. 
A. PROBLEMS. 
1. Exercises of this sort usually consist of reading passages followed by multiple choice questions. 
2. Reading comprehension questions are often of the following categories: 
• Explaining the meaning of key words or expressions. 
• Getting the main idea. 
• Understanding details. 
3. The fact that students do not have enough related skills and techniques to deal with questions may get them into trouble and lower their mark in this part of the test. 
B. SOLUTIONS: 
1. Teachers should teach students necessary reading skills and help them get into direct contact with various passages for practice. 
2. Students must be shown how to get the meaning of words, or the main idea of a paragraph, pick out the topic sentence, distinguish it from the details and locate the information for specific questions etc. 
3. Remember that 
• The meaning of words may be implied in the context. 
• The main idea of a paragraph often lies in the topic sentence. 
• The details usually support the topic sentence. 
• A writer generally uses the deductive method or the inductive one to develop a paragraph. 
• A paragraph often contains a topic sentence. This one may appear at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a paragraph. 
4. Below is a paragraph which serves as an example to the above statements: Read the following passage, pick out the topic sentence, and point out the details which support that sentence. 
Vic Bostik, the lead guitarist of the Rats Pop Group is dead. He was found unconscious in his Mayfair flat early this morning. Bostik was rushed to St Swithin ‘s Hospital, but doctors were unable to save his life. (From Streamline Connections, Unit 66). 
The topic sentence is the first one in the passage. 
The details supporting this topic sentence are: unconscious - rushed to hospital - unable to save his life. 
TYPE 3: CLOZE TESTS OR GAP FILLING EXERCISES 
A. PROBLEMS: 
1. According to Oxford Dictionary, cloze tests are tests in which there are passages with gaps to fill in. 
2. Gap_filling exercises have their own characteristics, when mastered, they will be of great help to the students. For instance, the gapped words are usually of two types: 
• FUNCTION OR GRAMMATICAL WORDS: (conjunctions, articles, prepositions). Ex: If the snake senses someone coming, it would rather glide away ________ confront that person. 
The verb WOULD RATHER would give us the clue to the suitable function word which best fits the blank here. That is the conjunction THAN. 
• LEXICAL OR CONTENT WORDS (nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs) 
Ex: These snakes __________ in forests or in dense vegetation. 
The word needed is “live” (a content word) 
B. SOLUTIONS. 
To solve the problems arising from this kind of exercise, students should take these hints/ strategies into account: 
1. Pay attention to the words around the gaps. 
2. Parts of speech must be taken into consideration. 
3. Apply grammatical rules you have learnt. 
Look at these examples: 
- The EEC was actually seeking to ___________ the Soviets by encouraging alcoholism, by selling cheap wine to the communist countries. 
KEY: By looking at the words around the gap we know that the EEC wanted to do something bad towards the Soviet thanks to such words as ENCOURAGING ALCOHOLISM, SELLING CHEAP WINE. 
In terms of grammar, the part of speech of the gapped word here must be a verb in the infinitive form. And the suitable verb for this gap is HARM 
- Some of them make themselves look fierce and frightening ________fitting large circles of wood into________ lower lips. 
KEY: Using the same strategies, we can easily find that the required words for the blanks in the above sentence are: BY and THEIR (function words) 
TYPE 4: SENTENCE BUILDING 
A. PROBLEMS 
1. Sentence building means making up complete sentences, using the suggested words or phrases. 
2. The unfinished sentence is marked by the slashes (/) which show that something is still missing or needs to be corrected. 
3. The wrong use of the slashes in this kind of exercise has caused a lot of difficulties to the examinees. The designers of the tests should be aware of the correct use of the slashes so as not to confuse the students and the sentences given should contain basic grammatical patterns arranged in the order of difficulty to fit the level required. 
B. SOLUTIONS: 
If the slashes are put in their correct place in the given sentences, the following strategies will facilitate the students’ process of building complete sentences: 
1. Identify the pattern of the given sentence. 
2. Get the general meaning of the whole sentence. 
3. Combine the given words or phrases into a complete sentence, taking grammar, verb forms, and ideas into consideration. 
Ex: It / necessary / she / take / hospital now. (present subjunctive after it’s necessary that...) 
- It is necessary that she be taken to hospital now. 
At no time / he suspect / the money / been stolen. (inversion of S + V) 
- At no time did he suspect that the money had been stolen. 
The effective way to practise sentence building is through sentence patterns in conjunction with sufficient drills. Therefore, a sentence building exercise should look like this: 
PATTERN FOCUS: ADJECTIVE CLAUSE WITH WHO & THAT. 
Model: The computer / he / using / made /Japan. 
	The computer that he is using was made in Japan. 
Practice: 
	1. A farmer / doesn‘t / electricity can‘t use milking machines. 
	A farmer who doesn’t have electricity can‘t use milking machines. 
	2. A farmer / not improve his soil / not raise / big crop. 
	A farmer who didn’t improve his soil couldn’t raise a big crop. 
	3. Land/ is/ fertilized/ highly productive. 
	Lad that is fertilized is highly productive. 
	4. Land / is not planted / renew itself 
	Land that is not planted will renew itself 
TYPE 5: SENTENCE TRANSFORMATION 
A. PROBLEMS: 
1 .The transformation of sentences means the changing of the form of sentences without 
altering their sense. 
2. Students’ problems in doing sentence transformation exercises chiefly arise from the following facts: 
They are not provided with sufficient knowledge and techniques to transform sentences. They are usually asked to do this kind of exercise at random. There are not enough exercises which are set according to the textbooks the students are using. The sentences given often belong to something outside the course to challenge students. The students do not have lessons on sentence transformation in their textbooks or curriculum but at the end of the course they are tested in this area. If only the authorities set up the criteria for this and gave out the standard exercises for each level of study. 
B. SOLUTIONS: 
A frequent, thorough study and practice of the common types of sentence transformation will enhance students’ ability to solve the transformation problems and minimize their difficulties because “practice makes perfect”. And the best way to practise is to familiarize students with these four common types of sentence transformation, teach them transformational patterns and classify the patterns according to the degree of difficulty: 
1. GRAMMATICAL TRANSFORMATION 
If I’m lucky I might get the job I’ve applied for. 
It’s quite likely that I will get the job I’ve applied for. 
Notice that this type of transformation may have two variations. 
a. TRANSFORMATION WITH INITIAL WORDS GIVEN 
Who teaches you English? 
By whom are you taught English? 
b. TRANSFORMATION WITH ONE MID_WORD GIVEN 
My friend was the winner of the competition. 
(WON) My friend won the competition. 
2. LEXICAL TRANSFORMATION. 
Swimming is supposed to be good for you. 
Swimming is supposed to do you good. 
3. IDIOMATIC TRANSFORMATION. 
He could hardly live within his income. 
(ENDS) He could hardly make both ends meet. 
She is always cheerful these days. 
(SPIRITS) She is always in high spirits these days. 
4. NEWSPAPER TITLE TRANSFORMATION. 
• “Police attacked” says student leader. 
A student leader has claimed that the police attacked. 
• Quake toll rises. 
The number of victims of the earthquake has risen. 
Newspaper titles are frequently short and not easy to understand; students must know what they mean and rewrite them in complete and clear sentences. 
Drills on sentence transformation should focus students’ attention on one pattern at a time and provide them with enough practice sentences. For instance: 
TRANSFORMATION OF THE VERB “ May”.
Pattern: 
1. Perhaps + S + will... 
2.S + will + probably + V.... 
3.S + seem 
S + May +V 4.It is possible that... 
5. S + look + as if... 
6. There’s a good chance + S + will + V.... 
7.In all probability/likelihood + S + will + V.... 
8. It’s quite likely that + S + will + V... 
Practice: 
1. I think it may rain. 
It looks as if_________________ 
2. The house may have been occupied for several months. 
It looks as ______________________________________ 
3. It may solve my problem, but I just haven’t had time to read it. 
Perhaps it ______________________________________________ 
4. If I’m lucky I may get the job I‘ve applied for. 
There ‘s ________________________________________ 
5. The strikers may go back to work next week. 
In all ___________________________________ 
TYPE 6: COMPOSITIONS 
A. PROBLEMS 
Students often find it hard to write compositions because they 
- do not read much for ideas, words and structures. 
- do not force themselves to write often. 
- do not grasp the basic notions of how to write a paragraph effectively and how to organize a composition. 
- do not know the hints on writing. 
- do not store key words and expressions in their mind to take them out when necessary, i.e., they do not have inner strength. 
- write something that is beyond their ability or level. 
B. SOLUTIONS 
1. The best way to write is to write and read. Perfection can not be achieved without practice. 
2. Write in an unexpected, compulsory and unprepared situation. Imagine that you are now in an examination room and have to write about what you are required to. This situation will help you a lot in writing. You cannot depend on anybody or anything to fulfill your task. 
3. Here are some guidelines for, or hints on writing a composition: 
Plan what you are going to write / make an outline. 
Have a direct introduction. 
The body should contain only two or three paragraphs. Each paragraph is about one main point and must contain a topic sentence which gives the main idea of the whole paragraph and has supporting details / illustrations. 
4. Make smooth transitions among different parts of the composition by using transitional phrases such as: 
- It goes without saying that... 	- First of all... 
- It is obvious that... 	- First, Secondly, Lastly... 
- To start / begin with...	 - Moreover, furthermore, in addition. 
- Nevertheless	- As far as I know 
- Meanwhile, whereas	- As for me, for me, to me 
- Once ..... once 	- I bet. I hope. I think. In my opinion. 
- To sum up, in sum, in short 	- According to him 
- Finally	- To make the full use of 
- In conclusion	- To weigh the advantages and disadvantages of... 
- No wonder 	- It is said/ rumoured that 
- How can I...?	 - How pleasant / delightful it is to ....! 
- On one hand. On the other hand 	- On the contrary 
- As a matter of fact, In fact, Actually.	- Luckily, absolutely, consequently, as a result. 
- For instance, For example.	 - So on and so forth, etc. 
- Likewise, Otherwise, Or else.	 - From the above reasons /considerations. 
- Let alone 	- In the first place 
- Last but not least	- As far as I’m concerned 
- It is regarded / considered that... 	- From the educational point of view 
- It is important / imperative that... 	- I must admit that... 
- Nobody can deny that.	- One proverb goes like this... 
- To weigh the value of... 	- Hence 
- That is to say. It means that...	 - Everything has two sides. 
- It’s no use. It’s worth. 	- The other part of the proverb runs... 
- It is (un)likely that...	 - To take into consideration / account 
- Lest, In case.	 - So as to, in order that 
A MODEL FOR PRACTICE 
Write this composition in 20 minutes without any preparations in advance. There is no help and you have to crack your mind to do it. 
TOPIC: Explain the meaning of the following proverb in not more than 200 words: 
MONEY IS A GOOD SERVANT BUT A BAD MASTER. 
As a teacher, I wrote this composition myself together with my students in an unexpected situation. I’d like to present it here for reference: 
Nobody can deny the role of money in life but one proverb goes like this: Money is a good servant but a bad master. Let me try to weigh the value of this saying. 
First of all, it goes without saying that money is a good servant. That is to say, money plays an important role in the economy of every nation and in our individual life. As a matter of fact, can you imagine what our world will be like and how we can lead a happy life without money? Everything has two sides. Therefore, the other part of the proverb runs: Money is also a bad master. In fact, money enables you to gain wealth, fame, and power. Nevertheless, it can, when improperly used, ruin your happiness, friendship, family ties and enslave you. No wonder, the film industry of Mexico has offered us an attractive film entitled “The Rich Also Cry”. 
From the above considerations, we must admit that the proverb is a good lesson for us and we should learn how to make the wisest use of money. 
(185 words) 
III. SUMMARY 
In sum, starting from the problems of students in doing different types of reading comprehension exercises, I have thought of them over and over again, worked out measures, experimented with them and written this small research paper out of my experience to systematize what I have used to help students overcome their difficulties. 
In reality, after being instructed and guided in these various kinds of exercises, the students did get a thorough understanding of the nature of these exercises, acquire necessary skills and achieve better results in their reading comprehension tests. 
I make sure that if the students are equipped with proper knowledge of what they will be tested in and if they are shown the way to grasp the knowledge, they will be able to meet all the requirements posed to them in the reading tests. 
IV. REFERENCES. 
1. The Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English. 
2. Streamline Connections, Unit 66. 
3. Progress to Proficiency. 
BM04-NXĐGSKKN
	Sở Giáo Dục & Đào Tạo Đồng Nai	Cộng Hòa Xã Hội Chủ Nghĩa Việt Nam
	Đơn vị: TT Tin Học & Ngoại Ngữ Đồng Nai	Độc lập – Tự do – Hạnh phúc 
Biên Hòa, ngày 10 tháng 05 năm 2012
PHIẾU NHẬN XÉT ĐÁNH GIÁ SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM
Năm học : 2011 – 2012
Tên sáng kiến kinh nghiệm: Cách giải quyết những khó khăn trong các dạng bài tập đọc hiểu.
Họ và tên tác giả: Lê Văn Sự 	Chức vụ: Phó Giám Đốc
Đơn vị: Trung Tâm Tin Học Ngoại Ngữ Đồng Nai
Lĩnh vực: (Đánh dấu X vào các ô tương ứng, ghi rõ tên bộ môn hoặc lĩnh vực khác)
- Quản lý giáo dục	£	- Phương pháp dạy học bộ môn: Tiếng Anh	S
- Phương pháp giáo dục	£	- Lĩnh vực khác: 	£ 
Sáng kiến kinh nghiệm đã được triển khai áp dụng: Tại đơn vị 	S	Trong Ngành	£ 
Tính mới: ( Đánh dấu X vào 1 trong 2 ô dưới đây)
Có giải pháp hoàn toàn mới £
Có giải pháp cải tiến, đổi mới từ giải pháp đã có S 
Hiệu quả: ( Đánh dấu X vào 1 trong 4 ô dưới đây)
Hoàn toàn mới và đã triển khai áp dụng trong toàn ngành có hiệu quả cao £
Có tính cải tiến hoặc đổi mới từ những giải pháp đã có và đã triển khai áp dụng trong toàn ngành có hiệu quả cao £
Hoàn toàn mới và đã triển khai áp dụng tại đơn vị có hiệu quả cao £
Có tính cải tiến hoặc đổi mới từ những giải pháp đã có và đã triển khai áp dụng tại đơn vị có hiệu quả S 
Khả năng áp dụng: ( Đánh dấu X vào 1 trong 3 ô mỗi dòng dưới đây)
Cung cấp được các luận cứ khoa học cho việc hoạch định đường lối, chính sách:
	Tốt £	Khá S	Đạt £
Đưa ra các giải pháp khuyến nghị có khả năng ứng dụng thực tiễn, dễ thực hiện và dễ đi vào cuộc sống:	Tốt £	Khá S	Đạt £
Đã được áp dụng trong thực tế đạt hiệu quả hoặc có khả năng áp dụng đạt hiệu quả trong phạm vi rộng: 	Tốt £	Khá S	Đạt £
 Phiếu này được đánh dấu X đầy đủ các ô tương ứng, có ký tên xác nhận của người có thẩm quyền, đóng dấu của đơn vị và đóng kèm vào cuối mỗi bản sáng kiến kinh nghiệm.
	 XÁC NHẬN CỦA TỔ CHUYÊN MÔN	THỦ TRƯỞNG ĐƠN VỊ
	(Ký tên và ghi rõ họ và tên)	(Ký tên, ghi rõ họ tên và đóng dấu)