In this post, we’ll learn about A Good Reader, which is a topic from Chapter 6, English Subject, Class 7.
Important Vocabularies For This Lesson
- Strategy – কৌশল
- Reason – কারণ
- Swift – দ্রুত
- Chew – চিবানো
- Endanger – বিপন্ন করা
- Mention – উল্লেখ করা
- Guess – অনুমান করা
- Consist of – গঠিত হওয়া
- Camouflage – ছদ্মবেশ
- Escape – পলায়ন
- Recognize – চিনতে পারা
a) What are the texts you usually read?
b) Do you face difficulties understanding them?
c) Can you remember a text you didn’t understand?
d) What was the text about? Was it a poem, essay, newspaper article, story or something else?
e) Why didn’t you understand the text? List your reasons in the given space.
Ans:
a. I usually read poem, story and essay.
b. I sometimes feel difficulties understanding them.
c. Yes, I can remember. I didn’t understand the text “How insomnia affects the lives of young adults”.
d. The text was about sleeping problem. It was a newspaper article.
e. Reasons of not understanding the words
1. Unknown or new words
2. Complicated structure of sentences
3. Started reading newspaper articles only a few months ago.
4. Tried to understand the text in my own way.
5. Never read any texts of such kind of topic.
6.2 | Time to know some new words! (এসো, নতুন কিছু শব্দ শিখি।)
Read the words in column A and their meanings in column B in pairs/ groups. Then, ask another group/pair the meaning of each word to check if you understood.
Ans:
S1: I think the meaning of the word ‘subspecies’ is ‘one of the types of a particular species. What do you think?
S3: I think you are correct. According to me, the meaning of ‘endangered’ is ‘someone/something is in danger”
S2: I think so. According to you, what are the meanings of the words ‘guess’ and ‘predators’?
S4: ‘Guess’ means ‘to form an opinion without knowing’ and ‘predator’ means ‘an animal that lives mostly by killing and eating other animals’.
S1: Correctly said you. I know that the meanings of the words ‘curious’ and ‘determine’ are ‘eager to learn or know’ and ‘to decide something’ respectively. Are they correct?
S3: Yes, they are correct.
S1: I have confusion with the meaning of ‘exotic’.
S2: As far as I know ‘exotic’ means ‘unusual and interesting’. Another meaning is the process of having babies’. So, no given meaning is matched with ‘exotic’.
S1: Thank you very much. Tomorrow, we will discuss another topic.
6.4 | Read the conversation again and complete the following sentences with meaningful words/phrases.
Ans:
a) Rodoshi and Kanko are talking about an article on Antelope.
b) Antelope is a kind of animal that is even-toed and eats tree shoots, leaves, plants, grasses and flowers.
c) After reading the article Rodoshi and Kanko couldn’t understand clearly why it was written.
d) Rodoshi and Kanko guessed antelope is an animal because antelopes eat and they have babies.
e) To find out where antelopes live, Rodoshi and Kanko search for the word ‘live’ in the article.
f) To find out the meaning of any written text, we have to read it carefully.
g) Pictures and headlines help to understand any written text.
6.6 | Now, read the conversation between Rodoshi and Kanko again. Then, find out the steps of the contextual clues technique they used to understand the text about Antelope. Later, in pairs/groups, fill in the following blanks with meaningful words. One is done for you.
Ans:
Steps: Rodoshi and Kanko found out
1. about their food habit.
2. that they have baby, which is called calf.
3. Lions and other predators hunt it.
Finally, , they understood that Antelope is an animal
Steps: Rodoshi and Kanko found out
1. The word live isn’t used here.
2. the first and last line.
3. the United States imports Antelopes
Finally, they decided that it lives in Africa and Eurasia
Steps: Rodoshi and Kanko found out
1. pictures or headlines
2. the antelopes are in endangered condition.
6.7 | Now in pairs/groups read the following situations and identify whether you will use skimming or scanning.
Ans:
| Types of situations | Types of reading |
| You are searching for the meaning of the word ‘Delight’ in 1. the dictionary. | 1. skimming |
| You were searching for the meaning of a word in a dictionary. You got the word and read the meaning. | 1. skimming 2. scanning |
| You need to call your class teacher. So, you are reading the. school diary to find out his/her number. | 1. skimming |
| You are going to order a gift for your mother on her birthday. So, you are checking the products of an online shop. | 1. scanning |
| You are in your school library. You are checking the catalog for a specific book. | 1. skimming |
6.8 | Read the list of reasons you have written in activity 6.1. Now, in pairs/ groups discuss the reasons again and make the necessary changes to the reasons. Use the following table to do this activity.
For example- In your list, one of the reasons is “new words”. But now you came to know that you didn’t use contextual clues.
Ans:
| Previous List of Reasons | Present List of Reasons |
| 1. New words | Unknown/New words and didn’t use contextual clues. |
| 2. Complicated structure of sentences | Complex sentences and didn’t scan the article. |
| 3. Started reading newspaper articles only a few months ago | New readers and didn’t have ideas about the techniques of reading |
| 4. Tried to understand the text in my own way. | Reading alone and didn’t discuss with a partner. |
| 5. Never read the texts of such kind of topic. | Had little idea about the topic |
6.9 | Now, in a group of 6-8 and read the text you have got. Then, discuss the meaning of the text following the strategies you have learnt in this unit. Later, explain the strategies you applied to understand the meaning of the texts to the whole class.
Ans:
Text-1
Meaning of the text:
Chocolate is a kind of food that we get from plant. To produce chocolate, farmers take out the seeds from the pods of eacao tree and grind them. Then, they mix it with vanilla, sugar, cinnamon and other spices. We use chocolate every day and on special occasions. In the past, chocolate was used as money, because it was valuable. 2,000 years ago, people in America used it as a drink. In 1502, Christopher Columbus took cacao beans to Spain. Later, people learnt to make solid chocolate. By 1847, people started eating chocolate as candy bars.
Text-2
Meaning of the text:
About 75% of the world is water. Water is everywhere- above the ground, under the ground and in the sky. We call it surface water, groundwater and vapour respectively. However, we can’t drink most of this water, because ninety-seven and a half percent of it is salt water. The rest is fresh water that is drinkable. But 70% of drinking water is frozen, and we can reach only 30% of groundwater. Most of the fresh water is polluted. We can drink only 1% of fresh water.
Text-3
Meaning of the text:
Pinku is a personal robot that can teach a new language and can recognize people’s face and voice. It can also recognize pictures and objects and tell their names in English or any other language. Moreover, It can correct pronunciation, tell jokes and sing songs. Pinku is a girl robot. More designs like animal robots are also available.
Text-4
Meaning of the text:
Cell phones are extremely durable. But they are not fully waterproof. If we drop a cell phone in the water, we shouldn’t panic. We don’t have to buy a new one if we quickly follow some steps and be patient about it. To save the phone, we have to take it out of the water quickly. We must not turn on the phone. We have to separate the battery and SIM card from the phone. We should dry everything carefully for some time. After that, we should put the phone in a bowl of dry rice and leave it overnight. After waiting 24 hours, we should check our phone. If the phone doesn’t work, we have to put it in the dry rice again.
Text-5
Meaning of the text:
Cheetahs and lions are big cats. They are skilled predators. They hunt other animals for food. They live in Africa. They live about 10-20 years. Cheetahs are faster than lions, but lions are bigger and stronger than cheetahs. Cheetahs use their spots to hide themselves. Lions don’t have such spots.
