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CRITICAL READING: A KEY COMPONENT FOR ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE
Abduvoidova Gulchekhra Rustamovna
English teacher at school number 5 in Gulistan City.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13895398
Abstract. Critical reading is essential for academic success, enabling students to analyze
and evaluate information effectively. This review examines definitions and perspectives on critical
reading, highlighting its role in developing logical and rhetorical skills. Research shows a strong
link between critical reading abilities and academic performance, while also emphasizing its
broader impact on individuals' understanding of information. Various techniques, such as role-
playing and structured reading programs, are suggested to enhance critical reading skills. The
review underscores the importance of supportive learning environments and the critical role of
educators in fostering these abilities among students.
Key words: critical reading, academic success, logical skills, rhetorical skills, reading
comprehension, educational initiatives, teaching techniques, meta-cognitive process, supportive,
learning environments, student engagement.
КРИТИЧЕСКОЕ ЧТЕНИЕ: КЛЮЧЕВОЙ КОМПОНЕНТ АКАДЕМИЧЕСКОГО
ПРЕВОСХОДСТВА
Аннотация. Критическое чтение необходимо для академических успехов, позволяя
учащимся эффективно анализировать и оценивать информацию. В этом обзоре
рассматриваются определения и взгляды на критическое чтение, подчеркивая его роль в
развитии логических и риторических навыков. Исследования показывают тесную связь
между критическими способностями к чтению и академической успеваемостью, а также
подчеркивают ее более широкое влияние на понимание информации людьми. Для улучшения
навыков критического чтения предлагаются различные методы, такие как ролевые игры
и программы структурированного чтения. В обзоре подчеркивается важность
благоприятной среды обучения и решающая роль преподавателей в развитии этих
способностей среди учащихся.
Ключевые слова: критическое чтение, академический успех, логические навыки,
риторические навыки, понимание прочитанного, образовательные инициативы, методы
обучения, метакогнитивный процесс, поддерживающая среда обучения, вовлеченность
учащихся.
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Critical reading is a crucial precursor to academic success. Reading critically gives students
the chance to consider and assess the information critically, which allows them to evaluate the
situation they are in and perceive it from a wider perspective in connection with their critical
comprehension. Using logical and rhetorical abilities is necessary for critical reading. Critical
reading is vital because it enables to read and examine a text critically, dissecting it into its
constituent pieces and assessing its strengths and weaknesses. It also help understand the author's
intention for writing text and how it connects to real life. According to different relevant articles,
scope of the topic will be discussed in this review.
Several authors have provided various kinds of definitions to define critical reading.
For example, Ozensoy (2021) defined that analyzing textual and visual content using
objective standards, separating facts from views, asking questions, coming to logical conclusions,
and doing comparisons and evaluations are all examples of critical reading. This definition is
similar to that found in (Barnet & Bedau ,2011, as cited in Nguyen, 2020), who writes: critical
readers are individuals who can precisely summarize arguments, recognize claims, find explicit or
implied assumptions, analyze and assess the accuracy of the reasoning, and justify the usage of
facts from a reading material. El-Hindi (1997, as cited in Karabay, 2015) gave similar concept to
critical reading, “critical reading is a meta-cognitive process in which the reader interacts with
texts, asks questions, makes predictions, makes connections via prior knowledge and experiences,
breaks down prejudices, perceives hidden meanings and build new knowledge” (p. 2297).
Additionally, critical reading is an objective way of approaching to the any written work.
It is essential to conceive that critical reading is one of the important aspects to learn about
for academic purposes. Kucheria et el. (2019, as cited in Dotson & Incera, 2022) stated that to be
successful in academic contexts, critical reading is necessary. Academic success is strongly
correlated with reading comprehension abilities. According to research by Karabay (2015),
educational initiatives that included both critical reading and writing were more successful at
improving students' academic performance. Similarly, Koray and Çetinkılıç (2020) concluded that
teaching critical reading techniques was more successful in raising students' academic
achievement than teaching in accordance with the curriculum. However, many university students
struggle and take a long time to develop their critical reading skills, which is why so many of them
are not proficient (
Sultan et el.
, 2017, as cited in Nguyen, 2020). On the contrary, Alan and Amaç
(2021) noted that critical reading abilities should not be valued solely academically. It is a skill
that has a broad impact on people's lives. Any reader who does not have critical reading abilities
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may become ignorant of informatics as he or she reads. In order to make it easy and improve
student’s critical reading skills, various kinds of techniques and activities stated in the articles.
With the purpose of progressing critical reading skills on student’s studying, different
techniques are used. Jewett (2007, as cited in Zabihi & Pordel, 2011) used tactics like 'whose voice'
and 'conversations with characters' to help pupils read critically. In the former, students were
encouraged to consider which voices were heard (and which were not) in the stories, as well as
what those voices may have said. In the latter, some students play the roles of the characters in the
narrative, while other students pose questions to these fake individuals. By contrasting to above-
mentioned technique, Ozensoy (2021) suggested more simple way of improving critical reading
skills that Academic success test (AST) is applied as pre-test and post-test during the course in
order to get an answer whether learners is using critical reading skill or not. Differently, for the
instruction of effective reading, Zahibi and Pordel (2011) offer a list of guidelines. Their opinion
is that a reading program should be created and used for a variety of reading objectives, from
reading for informational purposes to reading to analyze texts. They assert that teaching students
how to acquire and integrate a variety of reading methods, such as previewing, setting a purpose,
forecasting, presenting questions, connecting to background knowledge, paying attention to text
structure, guessing words from context, critiquing, and commenting on the text, is necessary for
them to read well. It is also advised that students become proficient in a variety of text structures,
such as those typical of newspapers, stories, reports, and other types of texts. Even though there
were different kinds of strategies that were easy to use in the classroom, Nguyen (2020) tried to
find another approaches. He mentioned that instructors could also put the questions in a Socrative
quiz or a Socrative “space race” before or after reading tasks to help students enhance their
comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and critical thinking skills. Moreover, the main
requirement for fostering critical thinking in people from a young age is to create learning
environments where students can debate ideas, voice their own opinions, and come up with several
interpretations of the same event. This is due to the expectation that pupils' thinking abilities will
not advance unless they are provided with material to consider, or are engaged in challenging and
rewarding activities. Another crucial element that helps students develop critical reading is how
teachers work within a structured educational framework, view, and exhibit critical thinking.
By examining different techniques to enhance critical reading skills, a role of teachers and
learners in the classroom in the process of teaching should also be taken into consideration.
Students' roles in English Language Teaching (ELT) are influenced by the many roles that
teachers play in the classroom. These roles are crucial for establishing the favorable settings that
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promote learning and direct the objectives that teachers have (Dotson & Incera, 2022). It is stated
that if teachers want to enable students to take a more active part in the classroom, reflectively
connecting their knowledge and perspectives with newly learned topics, they must forsake spoon-
feeding education and give their students more flexibility to be active learners. Language teaching
and learning practices used in the past may not be as effective in the ELT context as teachers hope
for a variety of reasons, including the status of English as a global language, the early age at which
young children learn English, getting a better job, technological innovations, and viewing English
as the primary means of instruction at the university level. Nguyen (2020) added that students
become learners that are more independent when they play the role of negotiators at various levels
when working together and with the teacher. Teachers, on the other hand, are viewed as facilitators
and organizers who control the communication process between students and the studied
information and provide assistance when necessary. Similarly, Ozensoy (2021) claimed that when
students participate in a variety of activities and collaborate, they learn at their own pace and ask
critical questions of one another, which makes them more likely to learn best. He added that in
student-centered classrooms, learning is more than just getting grades; it is about fostering learning
since students have many opportunities to practice what they have learned and anticipate what will
be on tests. However, using critical reading skills while reading and its effects may probably be
based on students’ level.
Reading can be defined differently depending on the level of the students: for beginners, it
is primarily concerned with decoding and interpreting individual words, or it is an activity to learn
aspects of pronunciation and speaking; however, in most cases, one reads a text in order to obtain
the message or meaning intended by the author (Zabihi & Pordel, 2011). Reading was once thought
to be a decoding activity, with the reader's job being to decode the message that the writer had
encoded. However, the reader is not always able to decode the writer's encoded message, and he
or she may even get a different meaning from the text because the reader and writer may not share
a common assumption about a subject.
“The process of reading is different for different readers on different texts at different times
and with different purposes” (Alderson & Bachman, 2000, as cited in Zabihi & Pordel, 2011).
Similarly, Koray and Çetinkılıç (2020) have distinguished between the goals of reading
done at the high school level and the college level by stating that whereas college students read for
increasing their logical thinking skills, high school kids read for facts, and this can only be done
through critical reading. The reason for this difference is that readers have different schemas, and
the author may have made various assumptions that the readers are unaware of. As opposed to
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reading, where there is no one to ask if they do not grasp anything, competent readers must engage
in active interrogation of a book. As Nguyen (2020) mentioned that, one reason university students
fail to realize their full potential in class is a lack of reading abilities. Because higher education
classes involve a lot of reading, learning can become very abstract. A higher education student
must develop abilities that are relevant to the associated reading task. Students' reading
achievement can be identified through diagnostic. Students read content far too frequently as
solitary facts. Certain items become difficult to recall. Rather, instruction is required for university
students to grasp the relationship of content.
It is mentioned in the articles that type of text is also crucial while teaching reading
critically. According to Zabihi and Pordel (2011), the difference between intensive and extensive
reading is important as teaching reading. Reading carefully while concentrating on the linguistic
elements required to understand the message is referred to as intensive reading.
These results are similar to those reported by (Karabay, 2015) that intensive reading is
"approaching the text under the guidance of a teacher or a task that forces the student to focus on
the text" (p.2299). On the other hand, extensive reading is a method of reading that is similar to
that used by native speakers when reading in their own language; the learner reads at his own pace
and level while searching directly for meaning. It involves reading a lot of information and longer
texts repeatedly over a long period of time to gain a broad understanding. It can be done at home
or in class (Goatly,2000, as cited in Karabay, 2015). By synthesizing different ideas about the
influence of text types on reading, it is considered to be an investigation critical reading in reading
texts.
In conclusion, critical reading is a very high level of knowledge of written materials
involving interpretation and assessment skills that allow readers to discriminate between fact and
opinion, separate important information from inconsequential one, and ascertain the writer's intent
and tone. Moreover, reading with a critical eye entails responding to the text in a critical manner.
It is a process of connecting the reading's subject matter to one's own personal standards,
values, and attitudes. It is the understanding of something that goes beyond what has been spoken,
in other words. Finding facts and memorizing them are not the only goals of critical reading. It is
the ability to read for one's own interests, utilizing one's faculties to better integrate one's
experience of the outside world and to combine one's knowledge with that of others. This literature
review has emphasized numerous academic sources by synthesizing: what actually critical reading
is, several ways to improve critical reading skills, importance of it in academic success, and the
role of teachers as well as type of texts in the process of teaching.
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