Mind mapping as pre-reading activity to enhance understanding in reading / Ahmad Faizal Tajuddeen

Pupils acquire the skills of listening and speaking in their mother tongue, unless prevented by physical or mental illness. However, they need to be taught the skills of reading.
Learning to read is possibly a slow and difficult process. Learning to read takes time, effort and practice where the more practice students have, the more confident and competent they become. Reading is known as receptive skill, which means when a person reads; he receives what the writer has written. At the same time, as a reader he receives what the writer has written. At the same time, as a reader, he needs to reacts to what he reads so that he will understand what has been written. In the primary school syllabus, reading is taught integrated with listening, speaking and writing. They are all considered important. To achieve the aim as well-balanced learners students must acquire the four skills.
For teachers, the teaching of reading is not an easy job. Students take a long time to understand what they have read. Understanding a text is a must because students have to comprehend what they read in order to do other productive skills like speaking and writing.
After reading a text, students usually are unable to give answers to comprehension questions. Among other reasons, the students do not understand the text that they read.