Reading Dysfluency in Indian Classrooms: An Insight

Abstract

Reading text in English is an important skill for students of higher education in India, as their understanding of their core subjects in specific and the world of information in general is based upon this skill. The ability to read English fluently, increases their job prospects also, as real time job environments use English as the official medium of communication and require that students read English with ease. Technical students who engage primarily with numerical data, diagrams and other non-textual content in their core subjects, have an especially hard time coping with tasks which involve reading textual English. There are several problems that lead to lack of fluency and thus lack of understanding of the content. This paper will study reading “ dysfluency “ problems technical students face, when reading English like word recognition difficulties, inability to read in sense groups, problems to do with accuracy, automaticity and expression. This paper will attempt to offer strategies to overcome this problem like Loud reading, Echo reading and Choral reading and some unconventional reading practices that can help solve this very common but important skill gap.