23 and 24 September 2010 Celje, Slovenia

Reading Skills and Reading Comprehension in

English for Specific Purposes
M. Bojovic1
1University

of Kragujevac, Faculty of Agronomy Cacak, Serbia

Abstract Reading is a complex, purposeful, interactive,

comprehending, and flexible activity that takes considerable
time and resources to develop. Reading comprehension is a
process of getting meaning from and bringing meaning to a
text. Theoretical framework, concerning classification of
reading skills, criteria for skill ranking and skill transfer, is
presented. The balance between skills and language affects
the teaching of reading in English for Specific Purpose.
Adopting a range of reading styles, strategies and
techniques in second/foreign language classroom is
necessary for successful interaction with the authentic texts
in English for Specific Purpose implying more efficient
second language readers. Different techniques for testing
reading are also analyzed. Success in reading
comprehension task is studied by analyzing effects of the
type of the training students have undergone, for how long
they have studied English at the faculty, duration of training
in reading skills, frequency of testing, and the nature of texts
used as a basis for applying reading comprehension tests.
Index TermsReading, skills, comprehension, reading
assessment.

I.

INTRODUCTION
Reading is a complex, purposeful, interactive,
comprehending, flexible activity that takes considerable
time and resources to develop. Reading is rapid, which
means that readers should maintain flow of information at
a sufficient rate to make connections and inferences vital
to comprehension. The reader has a purpose for reading,
whether it is for entertainment, information, or research.
Reading for a purpose provides motivation - an important
aspect of being a good reader. It is interactive activity - the
reader makes use of information from his/her background
knowledge as well as information from the printed page;
reading is also interactive in the sense that many skills
work together simultaneously in the process. The reader
typically expects to understand what s/he is reading.
Reading is flexible, meaning that the reader employs a
range of strategies to read efficiently. Finally, reading
develops gradually; the reader does not become fluent
suddenly, or immediately following a reading
development course.

II. READING COMPREHENSION

Reading is not merely a process of exact identification
of letters, words, and ultimately sentences leading to
comprehension built from letter to word to phrase to
sentence [1]. Readers make use of their existing
background knowledge (schemata) to make predictions
about what is coming next in the text and about how some
new, unfamiliar piece of information relates to what is
already known, as in [2] and [3]. It is clear that basic

decoding processes are important for comprehension and

are used by readers in interaction with the more complex
processes of meaning generation, as referred in [4], [5],
and [6]. However, it is equally clear that readers engage in
reading in order to gain information. Reading purpose is a
central concern of English for Specific Purposes (ESP),
and purpose resides in the language learner's relationship
to the learning task. The purpose is assumed to be
comprehension of the message. Comprehension in
instructional settings is translated into some product, such
as completion of comprehension questions, a written
summary, or an oral report [7].

III. READING SKILLS

A reading skill is a cognitive ability which a person is
able to use when interacting with the written text. In the
taxonomies given in the following paragraph some skills
seem more inclusive than others.
According to the reference [8], reading skills involve:
identifying word meaning, drawing inferences, identifying
writers technique, recognizing mood of passage, finding
answers to questions. Reading skills [9] can also include:
recognizing the script of language; deducing the meaning,
use of unfamiliar lexical items; understanding explicitly
and non-explicitly stated information, conceptual
meaning, communicative value of sentences, relations
within the sentences and between parts of text through
lexical cohesion devices; recognizing indicators and main
point of information in discourse; distinguishing main idea
from supporting detail; selective extraction of relevant
points from the text; basic reference skills; skimming,
scanning, transcoding information from diagrams/charts.
According to [10], reading skills are as follows: word
meaning in context, literal comprehension, drawing
inferences, interpretation of metaphor, finding main ideas,
forming judgments. Reading skills, as in [11], also
involve: automatic recognition skills, vocabulary and
structural knowledge, formal discourse structure
knowledge, content/world background knowledge,
synthesis and evaluation skills/strategies, metacognitive
knowledge and skills monitoring.
Grabes taxonomy [11] uses very general categories,
equivalent to knowledge areas. If reading itself is a skill, it
must be possible to break this down into different levels of
component skills categories. Reference [12] suggests a
distinction between language related and reason
related skills. Some attempts have been made to arrange
skills into hierarchies. The taxonomy of Lunzer et al. [10]
is so arranged, with the lowest level skills at the top.
Munbys taxonomy [9] was not intended to be
hierarchically arranged, but it seems that some skills
presuppose the learning of other skills. Skills are
interdependent, and they are acquired at different rates and

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23 and 24 September 2010 Celje, Slovenia

for different purposes. Decoding words, for example, is a

necessary but not sufficient skill for comprehending
written texts.
This component skill approach is practical as it leads to
important insights into the reading process and classroom
practices and it can be useful for teaching of reading.
Possible criteria for ranking skills [13] are as follows:
logical implication one system component can
be considered to presuppose all components
below it;
pragmatic implication a reader displaying one
skill in the system can be assumed to posses all
the lower skills;
difficulty the components are arranged in order
of increasing difficulty;
developmental some skills are acquired earlier
than others (it is unwise to suppose that readers
pass through a period of comprehending
explicitly stated information before they arrive
at the stage of inferencing).
READING SKILLS IN ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC
PURPOSES
The purpose of reading and the balance between skills
and language affect the teaching of reading in English for
Specific Purposes. Two contributions to the approach to
reading in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) are of
prime importance, as in [14].
One of them is the shift from text as a linguistic object
to text as a vehicle of information [15]. The key principles
for ESP learners are that extracting information accurately
and quickly is more significant than language details; that
understanding the macrostructure comes before language
study; and that application of the information in the text is
extremely important. The reader first processes the
language and then links the ideas to prior knowledge.
The second significant contribution to teaching reading
on ESP courses is the recognition that good reading
requires language and skills. According to [16], less
successful foreign language learners had a fragmented
approach to text, while successful learners went for
overall meaning, guessing or skipping language and
information. As referred in [17], several hypotheses were
tested about the role of language and skills, showing that
poor reading in a foreign language is due in part to poor
reading in L1, together with an inadequate knowledge of
the foreign language. The learners need to reach a
threshold level of L2 before they are able to transfer any
L1 skills to their L2 reading tasks.
The reading component of an ESP course thus requires
a balance between skills and language development. Some
of the crucial skills to be learnt or transferred into the new
language are, as referred in [14]: selecting what is relevant
for the current purpose; using all the features of the text
such as headings, layout; skimming for content and
meaning; scanning for specifics; identifying organisational
patterns; understanding relations within a sentence and
between sentences; using cohesive and discourse markers;
predicting, inferring and guessing; identifying main ideas,
supporting ideas and examples; processing and evaluating
the information during reading; transferring or using the
information while or after reading.
IV.

Most of these skills are composed of several processes,

of which skimming and scanning are useful first stages for
determining whether to read a text or which parts to read
carefully. Once a text has been identified as relevant, then
ESP readers need to read carefully, extract meaning and
consider the authors attitude.

V. KINDS OF READING, CLASSROOM READING

PROCEDURES AND READING TESTING TECHNIQUES
The following types of reading are important to discuss
[13]: search reading - locating information on
predetermined topics; skimming - reading for gist;
scanning - reading selectively to achieve very specific
reading goals; careful reading - reader attempts to handle
majority of information in the text and to build up a
macrostructure. The reader may choose kind of reading
according to the perceived demands of the learning task.
Adopting a range of reading styles during pre-reading
(predicting, word association, discussions, text surveys),
while-reading (a list of questions, scanning and skimming
activities, working out the meaning of unfamiliar words,
pattern study guides, summarising, clarifying, questioning,
predicting, etc.) and post-reading activities (review of the
content, work on grammar, vocabulary in context or word
roots, discourse features, consolidation of what has been
read by relating the new information to the students
knowledge, interests, and opinions through a writing
assignment, discussions, debates, role-plays, project work)
in second language classroom is necessary for successful
interaction with the authentic texts, both in English for
Specific Purposes and General Purpose English.
Considering testing reading ability, two approaches can
be distinguished: discrete-point or analytic approaches and
integrative or integrated approaches [18]. In discrete-point
approaches, the intention is to test one aspect of reading
ability at a time. On the other hand, in integrative
approaches test designers aim to gain a global overview of
a readers ability to handle text. There are arguments that
it is more appropriate not to attempt to analyse reading
into component parts (as in discrete approach to testing
reading), which will distort the nature of reading:
consequently, a more global approach is more valid.
Methods of second language reading ability assessment
can be formal and informal, as in [18]. Techniques that
can be used in the formal, often pencil-and-paper-based,
assessment of reading involves the following: the cloze
test, gap-filling tests, multiple-choice techniques,
matching, ordering tasks, editing tests; then alternative
integrated approaches as the cloze elide test or negative
cloze, short-answer tests, the free-recall test, summary
test, the gapped summary; and finally, informationtransfer techniques where the student task is to identify in
the target text the required information and then to transfer
it (sometimes in transposed form) on to a table, diagram,
flow chart, or map. Informal methods of assessment in the
second-language reading context in common use include
interviewing readers about their habits, problems and
performance; the use of self-report techniques, including
think-alouds, diaries and reader reports, to assess levels of
reading achievements and proficiency; also, the cloze
technique could be used on sample passages selected from
library books to assess whether readers had understood
texts at the given level. Informal reading assessment

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23 and 24 September 2010 Celje, Slovenia

techniques seem more appropriate in assessing extensive

reading [19].
It is now generally accepted that it is inadequate to
measure comprehension of text by only one method. Good
reading tests usually employ number of different
techniques, possibly even on the same text, but certainly
across the range of texts tested this is a sensible concept
of making reading tests, since in real-life reading, readers
responds to texts in different ways.

VI. ORGANIZATION OF RESEARCH

The research objective is the improvement of reading
comprehension in English as a second language (ESP English in Agronomy, Agroeconomy, and Food
Technology). The research was carried out at Faculty of
Agronomy in Cacak (Serbia) during the period November
2007 - June 2009. The participants were undergraduate
students seniors, juniors, sophomores and freshmen - the
total number of students participating was 93, divided into
five groups.
The variables used in the research are:
the type of training students have undergone
ranging from highly intensive training to no
specific training in reading skills;
period of studying English at the Faculty
depending on the group, it ranges from zero to
three years of study;
duration of training in reading skills at the
faculty up to one year of study;
frequency of testing:
the change of the nature of the texts used in
testing ESP and GPE (General Purpose
English) texts and tests implemented.
The assumptions were that:
a) intensive reading training and testing
frequency, applied separately, can improve reading skills
in second language; and
b) change of the nature of the text used in testing
does not affect achievements in reading comprehension
tasks.
The research instruments applied involve authentic
English passages, followed by reading comprehension
tests items created for these texts (including multiple
choice, true/false technique, cloze test, filling gaps,
information
transfer
techniques

completing
diagrams/tables/flowcharts with the required information).
The reading comprehension questions were focused on
text meaning rather than structural elements. Statistical
procedure applied is descriptive statistics.

VII. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In Group I (Table I) seniors had lower scores than
juniors on the initial ESP test possibly because of higher
percentage of beginners among seniors than among
juniors. Duration of previous reading skill training and of
studying English at the Faculty did not influence the
scores on the initial ESP test, since the students with more
reading skill experience (seniors) had lower scores.

TABLE I.
PERCENTAGE OF CORRECT ANSWERS FOR GROUP I ON INITIAL AND FINAL ESP
TESTS AND ADDITIONAL GPE TEST

Group I
(agroeconomy)

Highly
intensive
training
in
reading
skills

Nr.

Nr.

Study-

of
students

of
beginners

ing
English
at
Faculty
(years)

Seniors

Juniors

Period
of
reading
skill
training
(years)

Initial

Final

GPE

ESP
test
(% )

(II)
ESP
Test
(%)

test
(III)
(%)

51

67.27

68.5

68.57

66.23

67.46

On the final ESP test (Table 1), seniors had better

scores comparing their initial ESP test and juniors final
ESP test, which can be attributed to positive influence of
highly intensive training and positive motivation on the
whole group, especially on beginners [20]. On the
additional GPE test (Table 1), seniors had even higher
scores comparing with their scores on the final ESP test,
while juniors reached their standard level. The shift from
ESP to GPE texts did not influence student achievements
at higher academic levels due to the fact that Group I
students have already achieved adequate level of reading
skills and knowledge of language.
Analyzing the results of Groups II and III (Table 2) on
the initial ESP test, Group II had considerably lower
scores than Group III, which can be explained by general
lower level of all language skills. Group II dramatically
increased their scores on the final ESP test due to frequent
testing and training in reading skills. Group III, not having
undergone specific training in reading skills, also
increased the scores on the final ESP test, which can be
ascribed to frequent testing [20]. On the additional GPE
test (Table 2), these two groups are at much the same level
of achievement. Group II had lower scores comparing to
the final ESP test (Table 2) despite intensive training in
reading skills and testing, which can be explained by
generally lower level of language skills manifested greatly
by the shift from ESP texts to GPE texts. Anyway, their
scores are far better than on initial ESP test, which means
that intensive training in reading skills and high frequency
of testing still have positive effects.
TABLE II.
PERCENTAGE OF CORRECT ANSWERS FOR GROUPS II AND III ON INITIAL AND
FINAL ESP TESTS AND ON ADDITIONAL GPE TEST

Groups II & III

Group II
sophomores
agronomy and
agroeconomymedium-intensity
training in
reading
Group III
sophomores
food technology with no specific
reading training

Nr.

Nr.

Study-

of
students

of
beginners

ing
English
at
Faculty
(years)

Period
of
reading
skill
training
(years)

Initial

Final

ESP
test
(% )

ESP
(IV)
test
(% )

GPE
(V)
test
(%)

13

33.60

71.79

9.40

11

46.85

60.61

59.60

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23 and 24 September 2010 Celje, Slovenia

Group III (Table 2) also had somewhat lower scores on

GPE test than on final ESP test (for 1.01 %) and can be
explained by lack of specific training in reading skills and
previously achieved levels of language skills. Their scores
on GPE test are better than on initial ESP test it can be
ascribed to high frequency of testing.
Group IV (Table 3) on the initial (GPE) test had lower
scores than seniors and juniors initial (ESP) test (Group I,
Table 1) for 6.89% and statistically significant 25.46%,
respectively, which can be explained by generally lower
level of knowledge and shorter period of studying
language at the faculty, though frequency of testing and
type of training in reading skills were pretty much at the
same level.
Comparing with the results of group III (Table 3), the
scores of Group IV were lower, which can be explained
by lower frequency of testing and higher proportion of
beginners in the tested group (though the difference of
3.74% is not statistically significant). However, Group IV
(Table 3) had higher scores than Group II (Table 2) on the
first test for 9.51%, which can be explained by duration of
previous reading training, even if the level of previously
achieved language skills were not satisfactory for both
groups.
The scores of Group IV on the second (ESP) test were
lower (Table 3) than on the first test (9.44%), which can
be ascribed to the shift from GPE test to ESP test the
nature of text used as test basis was changed and students
didnt have experienced reading such texts in their
previous training. That is also the reason why on the final
(second) test this group had lower scores than groups I, II
and III on their final ESP test for 33.60%, 33%, 34.12%
and 26.94%, respectively, and groups I, II and III on their
additional GPE test for 34.83%, 33.79%, 25.73% and
25.93%, respectively (Table 1 and Table 2). All these
differences are statistically significant. The other reasons
for such high score differences in the final tests are also
Group IV lower level of all language skills.
On the initial ESP test, Group V scores (Table 4) were
lower than the scores of Group I, both seniors and juniors
(Table 1), for 8.56% and 26.13%, respectively. This can
be explained by Group V shorter period of studying
language at the faculty, lack of any specific training in
reading skills, possible lack of background knowledge.
More frequent testing of Group V in this context didnt
have the effect it had at higher levels of academic
education (Table 2). Group V scores were also lower than
Group III scores (Table 2) for 4.41% (though not
statistically significant). It can be ascribed to lack of
background knowledge (not having specific ESP content
in the first term of university education), though frequency
of testing was almost the same. Group V, however, had
better scores than Groups II (Table 2) and IV (Table 3) for
8.84% and 8.77%, respectively, which can be ascribed to
Group II and IV general lower level of language skills
despite longer period of university education, presence of
background knowledge and medium-intense training in
reading skills, having in mind that Group IV also had
much lower frequency of testing.

TABLE III.
PERCENTAGE OF CORRECT ANSWERS FOR GROUP IV ON INITIAL (GPE) AND
FINAL (ESP) TESTS

Nr.
of
students

Group IV
elementary level
students true and
false beginners

Nr.
of true
beginners
/
false
beginners

Studying Period of
English
at
Faculty
(years)

reading
skill
training
(years)

Initial
(GPE)
test
(% )

Final
(ESP)
(II)
test
(% )

Sophomores
agronomy,
agroeconomy, food
technology
intensive reading
training

25

3/22

43.11

33.67

Considering the scores on final ESP test, Group V

scores (Table 4) were much lower than the scores of
Group I seniors and juniors (Table 1) for 24.39% and
23.35%, respectively. Such results can be explained by
Group I longer period of studying English at the faculty
and better background knowledge as well as the difference
in intensity of training in reading skills despite higher
proportion of beginners in senior group and higher
frequency of testing in Group V. On final ESP test, Group
V also had lower scores than Groups II (for 28.12%) and
III (for 17.73%) (Table 2) as the result of Group V shorter
period of studying English at the faculty, lower
background knowledge and lack of specific reading
training (particularly comparing to Group II). All
mentioned score differences are statistically significant.
Regarding the Group V scores on initial and final ESP
tests, the scores on the latter were slightly higher (for
0.44%) which is statistically insignificant.
Analyzing the scores on the GPE tests, Group V (Table
4) again had lower scores than Group I seniors (19.19%)
and juniors (for 18.15%), Group II (for 10.09%), and
Group III (for 10.29%) (Tables 1, 2, and 3), which can be
ascribed to lack of specific training in reading skills,
shorter period of academic education, and possibly lower
level of all language skills comparing to Groups I (both
seniors and juniors) and III in particular. On the additional
GPE test, Group V (Table 4) had somewhat higher scores
than on initial and final ESP tests (for 6.87% and 6.43%,
respectively), which can probably be explained by the
presence of familiar text background. At least, the shift
from ESP to GPE test and frequency of testing possibly
had some positive effects.
TABLE IV.
PERCENTAGE OF CORRECT ANSWERS FOR GROUP V ON INITIAL AND FINAL ESP
TESTS AND ON ADDITIONAL GPE TEST

Group V

Nr.

Nr.

Study-

Period

Initial

Final

GPE

of
students

of
beginners

ing
English
at
Faculty
(years)

of
reading
skill
training
(years)

ESP
test
(% )

(III)
ESP
test
(%)

(IV)
test
(%)

42.44

42.88

49.31

Freshmen
with
no
specific
reading
training

32

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23 and 24 September 2010 Celje, Slovenia

VIII. CONCLUSION
Groups I, II, III and V improved the results, while
Group IV scores decreased theirs. The most significant
improvement in reading comprehension was achieved by
Group II which had the lowest scores on the initial ESP
test, the highest ones on the final ESP test, and reasonably
good results on GPE test. The assumption that separately
applied intensive reading training and frequency of testing
improve students reading skills proved to be correct. The
combination of reading skill training of medium intensity
and high frequency of testing showed the best results
(Table 2, group II); it can be efficient with the students
with lower level of knowledge and achievement in
English language tasks. The second assumption that
change of the nature of the text used in testing does not
affect achievements in reading comprehension tasks also
proved to be correct, except with the students with
inadequate level of general foreign language skills (Group
II, Table 2 and Group IV, Table 3) and at low levels of
academic education (Group V, Table 4).

[9]
[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

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AUTHORS
M. Bojovic is with the Faculty of Agronomy,
University of Kragujevac, Cara Dusana 34, Serbia (e-mail:
milevicabojovic@gmail.com; milevicab@tfc.kg.ac.rs).

Manuscript submitted on 30 August, 2010.

Published as submitted by M. Bojovic.

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