Chunking practice
Practice Reading Words in Groups
Chunking means to read words in groups or “chunks,” rather than word by word.
As we saw in the introduction, too many eye movements create problems such as tired eyes and a lack of reading comprehension. Strong readers of English group words together based on their grammatical function.
Try to chunk the following sentence into word groups. Below are some suggestions.
Our biggest problem is the dirty water from the river flooding the clean basement.
Group a possessive adjective together with the noun(s) it modifies; group the subject and verb.
Group the article, adjective(s), and noun(s) which make up the phrase
Group prepositional phrases.
Group noun, verb, and adjective phrases.
Therefore, we may chunk the above sentence like this:
Advanced readers may chunk even larger grammatical units, such as whole clauses or even sentences. Your ability to chunk more and read faster will come with additional practice.
| Our biggest problem | is the dirty water | from the river | flooding the clean basement. |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |