Reading: Reading and understanding

BBC Teach > Skillswise

Male wearing glasses and pink shirt: It's very important when you're looking at a job description, because we need to not only read, but we also need to understand what the employer is looking for.

Let's look at what they are actually asking for.

They want people to do the picking and packing.

Now, you've done picking and packing before.

Male wearing red top: Yeah.

Male wearing glasses and pink shirt: So we can actually put that in.

We need to make sure that we understand the skills and experience that is needed for this job.

Collins: Literacy I think is important for all soldiers, no matter what employment they undertake in the army.

They have to be able to interpret orders, written and computerised orders, whether that's a demand through a military logistics computer system or that's a written demand.

So they have to be able to interpret and understand what is the intent of that particular order?

What, what is the requirement?

Female Florist: Here I have an order that came in.

So what I need to read and understand here is what time the flowers need to be there, that names are correct, and that I have the order correct, otherwise it is a big disaster and a very unsatisfied customer.

Reading text means more than just saying all the words out loud. It is important that you are also able to understand what is being said. A good way to check if you've understood some text, is to write a brief summary after you've finished reading it.

Quick tips for tutors

Reading and understanding includes:

Recognising a variety of text formats (e.g. newspaper articles, charts, summaries, adverts, reviews)
Using skills covered in other topics to aid reading: skimming, scanning detailed reading
Using skills covered in other topics to aid understanding: fact and opinion, images and charts, summarising, use of dictionary
Creating different texts: an advert, a poster, a book review