Reading Power Vocabulary Text
Hello, this is AJ again. Big smile…deep breath. Move that body, let’s start the
vocabulary lesson for “The Power of Reading.”
Okay, one of the words we had in there was competence. Now, Dr. Krashen said
people develop competence when they read. They develop the competence they need
to move from the beginning level to a level where they can use the language for more
difficult purposes. Competence, competence. Competence means skill or ability. So
when you read you develop more advanced skill in English. You develop more
advanced competence in English. So competence means skill or ability.
And then we have the word demanding, right? He says you develop the competence
for more demanding purposes. More demanding purposes, more demanding actions.
More demanding challenges. Demanding just means difficult. Difficult. So in other
words you get better and better. You can do more difficult things with the language. So
in the beginning maybe you have very simple, low level English or maybe intermediate
level English. Probably most of you are intermediate level. If you read my website and
bought my lessons you are definitely intermediate level. So if you’re intermediate level
but you want to use English for more demanding purposes, more difficult purposes.
Maybe now you can talk a little bit but you can’t go to a high level business meeting and
use English very well. That’s a demanding purpose. It’s a more difficult situation. It’s a
more demanding situation. So again, demanding has this idea of difficult, something
that’s difficult.
Alright, then we also had the word literacy. Literacy, that people develop literacy by
reading. Surprise, surprise, that seems pretty logical. Literacy means the ability to read
well. So again, literacy is just the skill, the competence, the ability to read well. It has
this idea of proficiency or ability. It means you’re good at something. Now, usually it
means good at reading. We do sometimes use it in a more general way, where you
could say “I have good computer literacy,” for example. Now, we’re not talking about
reading. We’re just saying computer ability. Basic competence with a computer, we
would say computer literacy. It means I understand computers, I can use computers.
I’m not an expert but, y’know, I’m good enough. But more specifically, and in this article
especially, literacy just means the ability to read well.
Okay, we had another little phrase, well read. In the sentence it said “We rarely find well
read people who have serious problems with grammar.” Okay, so well read means, it
just means that you have read a lot of books. A well read person is someone who has
read a lot. That means you have read a lot. You know a lot about books. Well not
about books, it means you actually have read books. You’ve read a lot of books. So
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