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English: skills for learning
English: skills for learning

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1.1 What do you read?

Reading is an activity many of us are familiar with both at home and at work. Reading is fundamental to modern life and this means that we are surrounded by texts; that is, pieces of writing such as magazines, text messages and advertisements. The next activity helps you to consider the different texts people read every day.

Activity 1

Timing: Allow approximately 5 minutes

Shown below are various people’s reading habits (Figure 2). Which of these reading habits are similar to your own? Make some notes in the box and then read my comment.

An image of people’s reading habits contained in speech bubbles.
Figure 2 People's reading habits
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An image of people’s reading habits contained in speech bubbles. The bubbles contain the following text: I read Facebook posts, Twitter, text messages. I read work emails and reports. I always read to my children stories, nature, and history books. I mainly read novels but also non-fiction books. I like reading websites, forums and blogs about music. I read the news on my phone. I read sports newspapers and magazines. I’m building my own motorbike. I’m reading a manual!

Figure 2 People's reading habits
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Comment

The answer is personal to you, but you are likely to read one or more of the text types mentioned above. Reading is likely to already be part of your life and you already know strategies that help you to read a variety of texts. This week you will learn that many of these strategies can be exploited to read university texts and help you to become a more effective reader in general.