How to become a critical reader / Sheela Paramasivam

Tertiary education requires a great deal of time and effort to be spent on reading. As such, academic reading should not be viewed as a passive activity but an an active process which contributes to the goals of learning. To become a critical reader requires one to possess good reading skills and have conscious effort on the part of the learner to understand the reading text, make links, understand and evaluate opinions and research as well as give opinions However, in this digital era, teaching critical reading to ESL students can be a great challenge. Students today prefer to read materials online and would rather scroll down their apps such as handphone, laptops or tablets than holding a hardcopy of a book. Statistics on Malaysian reading habit reveal that 80 % of Malaysians are “reluctant” readers. As such, as educators it is important for us to encourage and develop good reading skills in our students so that they become critical thinkers. The question is how can we do this? What is critical reading?