Shevchenko S. Forming communicative English reading competence using computer technologies in higher educational establishments

The dissertation deals with the problem of forming communicative reading competence while using computer technologies in linguistic higher educational establishments. Specifically, the paper delineates the methodology of teaching reading for general understanding with the help of the computer instructional software "MasterReading" worked out by the author of the dissertation. The dissertation has concerned the following issues: the communicative reading competence components and the corresponding skills have been defined; the psychological and linguistic peculiarities of reading comprehension and abilities, which characterize effective reading have been considered; the special features of reading from a computer display have been analyzed and their influence on the selection and organization of texts for teaching reading for general understanding with computer support has been defined; the reasons for slow reading and ways of overcoming them have been analyzed; the methodological, technical, didacticaland psychogygienic requirements to computer instructional software have been defined; proceeding from the set requirements the present computer instructional software has been analyzed from the point of view of its appropriateness for teaching reading. The main results of the research have found their practical application in the process of teaching first-year-students oflinguistic higher educational establishments.