Unlocking the Mystery of Poor English Reading Skills (Part 3)

Unlocking the Mystery of Poor English Reading Skills (Part 3)

Teacher Rowena

• 25 years of experience teaching English to adults, HKDSE candidates, and various student groups.
• Founder of the Double R Amalgam method (www.doubleramalgam.com).
• Author of the Penguin Buddies and Double R Kids-Professions series.
• Provided after-school English support programs for secondary schools and developed senior-level grammar curricula for primary schools using Double R Amalgam materials from 2017 to 2019.

Types of Reading Difficulties (2) Modes of Expression

Many people blame their reading difficulties on knowing too few English words, but I believe this explanation is too general. What is enough? Do you need to know 5,000 words? Or 10,000? Or perhaps every word in the dictionary? To understand the content of an article, it is not necessary to understand the meaning of every single word; rather, one should focus on understanding the author's purpose and the overall meaning of the content. Different writers have different styles and vocabularies, and they also use different modes of expression. Let's test everyone: please read the following example sentences carefully:

1. She is broke.
2. She is just scraping by.
3. She is pinching pennies.
4. She is scrimping and saving.

Do you know what these imply? In fact, each sentence refers to She is poor. Why not just use the word "poor" instead of adopting other vocabulary or phrases? This has a close relationship with British culture and ways of expression. They love to use different vocabulary to express the same meaning and also prefer indirect forms of expression. For example, in the following situations:

You cannot afford to ignore these circuitous ways of expressing English; if you rely solely on memorizing words, you will end up with half the result for twice the effort.

Additionally, "polysemy" (one word, multiple uses) is also a customary way of expressing things in English. Most people see the word "Well" and intuitively associate it with the meaning of "good." Please look at the following example sentences:

1. Did you sleep well last night?
2. Well, you may be right.
3. The frog in a well knows nothing of the world.
4. I feel well.
5. Tears well up in my eyes.

Example 1: The word "Well" is an adverb, meaning "good": Did you sleep well last night?
Example 2: The word "Well" is an interjection, meaning "oh": Oh, you may be right.
Example 3: The word "Well" is a noun, meaning "water well": The sentence means: The frog in a well knows nothing of the world.
Example 4: The word "Well" is an adjective, meaning "healthy": I feel healthy.
Example 5: The word "Well" is a verb, meaning "to rise to the surface/fill": Tears well up in my eyes.

Parts of speech dictate the meaning of English vocabulary. The beauty of English lies in using different words to repeat meanings, and reusing the same word to create new meanings. Finally, I would like to offer a hint to all English learners: to overcome reading difficulties, it all depends on one simple trick: understand English sentence structure more thoroughly.