8 - Fluent Competence at Reading Texts of Medium Complexity

General description:

Learner is able to read some authentic texts of 2-3 pages within an unfamiliar and only partially predictable context of daily social, educational and work-related life experience.
Texts are mostly of factual but also of abstract nature. Language references to abstract ideas appear frequently.
Many words and idioms are unfamiliar, text can contain a wide range of complex structures. Meaning includes not only facts but attitudes and opinion. Some information is explicit and some is implied. Lexical, grammatical and rhetorical cohesion devices are complex in range and demanding to follow.
Learner often requires re-reading and clarification of parts with "journalese" or general use idiom and various culturally dependent implications and references.
Able to deal with ambiguity, e.g. unknown words, phrases, implications. Often attempts successfully to reconstruct the missing elements without a dictionary. Uses skimming and scanning, prediction and guessing to find general and specific information/meaning.
Uses a unilingual dictionary for precision vocabulary building.
Reads English for information, learning the language, reading skills development. May read simple newspaper and magazine articles and popular easy fiction for pleasure.
Can read silently for meaning; encounters problems with sounding out some words (incorrect syllable stress) or phrases ( rhythm and intonation patterns) when reading aloud.