ABSTRACT
In this chapter we shall be concerned with reading strategies, the ways in which we read texts. Strategies are only part of good reading, as we saw in the last chapter, and it would be more logical to begin with reading purposes. However, beginning with strategies is easier, and also has the advantage of emphasising at once a key point: there is no one right way of reading. Different texts require different ways of reading – and the same text can be read differently if read with differing purposes. What we are trying to do is to increase your awareness of possible strategies and to help you to choose appropriately among them. Our particular aims in this chapter are: 1) to establish the existence of reading strategies; 2) to describe some of them; 3) to help you to begin to identify your own reading strategies. Once you are aware of them you may wish to change them. At any rate you will be in a better position to control them.
