reading comprehension
The 4 Techniques That Will Perfect Your Reading Skills
Think about it! When you are reading a book, a summary, a paper, or an article in English, most certainly you don’t read every word and understand it in your main language, right?
This is because reading in English is no different from reading in your mother tongue. You know it is not necessary to read and understand all the words to grasp the meaning of what you are reading. The skills you require to read English are exactly the same as the ones you need to read in your native language.
There are four main techniques that will enhance your reading skills no matter the language. Use them and practice them extensively and before you know it, you will be reading in English, or any other language, like a native. Here they are:
1. Skimming
You use skimming to quickly grasp the main idea of the text. What you do is basically run your eyes down the text gathering the important information. This is a great practice when you need to rapidly understand what’s going on at a business meeting, since skimming does not require that you understand every single word that is written. Normally, skimming is a practice that is widely used while reading the newspaper, to get the news fast; magazines, to identify articles that may interest you; or brochures, to grasp the main information quickly.
2. Scanning
You scan a text to find a specific piece of information. The same as when skimming, you must run your eyes down the text to find what specifically interests you. People normally scan schedules and meeting plans, among others, to identify specific information they need. Scanning is also common when watching TV, and train or plane schedules, as well as convention handbooks. While scanning, forget about words or phrases that you don’t get; these don’t matter right away.
3. Broad reading
This aspect of reading is practiced for pleasure and general understanding of the text. You immerse yourself in the extensive reading of long texts as a leisure activity or for professional reasons. Broad reading increases your knowledge on a subject. Business people and students apply this practice when reading books related to their field, interesting novels, or specialized magazines.
4. Thorough reading
This is the concentrated aspect of reading, the one that allows you to understand something in detail. Thorough reading is used in short texts to comprehend very specific information. It requires lots of attention to be able to understand it completely. To grasp every detail, you must understand every single word, phrase, and number, like when reading reports, insurance claims or contracts.
As in any other skill, fast and effective reading is developed with practice. The more you read, the faster and more perceptive you get; words start to become familiar, phrases start to make sense, and you start to feel you are finally mastering the English language, with the help of your ESL program and your determination to make it to the top!
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You Can Read in English But Do You Really Comprehend What You Read?
The reason for reading is to relate what you happen to be reading with what you already know. In this sense, if you do not know anything about what you are reading, it is like trying to grab a handful of air… a wasted effort.
Take these digits, for example:
3285784, is difficult to read and retain.
328-5784, is easier to read and retain because of the separation.
363-0246, is easy to grasp due to prior information and organization.
Equally, if you are into investing, reading an investment article is easy for you to comprehend, because in your mind you have a background for reading, understanding and storing this information.
When reading, comprehension needs motivation, a mental background for saving the ideas, concentration, and an effective study technique. Here are several ideas you can implement to help you improve your reading comprehension to get the best out of your ESL classes.
1. Broaden your background. You can easily do this by reading newspapers, magazines, websites and books. Get interested in world events and other different topics related to your career or place where you live.
2. Learn paragraph structure. A good writer knows how to form a clear sentence in order to create a good paragraph with a beginning, middle, and an end. The first sentence will provide an overview that gives background for further details. Identify transitional words, phrases and paragraphs that are used to change the topic.
3. Spot the kind of reasoning. Is the author using induction and deduction, hypothesis, systems thinking or model building, for example? You should develop critical thinking skills to consciously absorb what you read.
4. Anticipate, predict. Skillful readers try to foresee what the author will say or ask. If you are right, it strengthens your comprehension, and if you are wrong, you can easily adjust.
5. Identify how the work is organized. For example, it can have a chronological, serial, logical, spatial, functional or hierarchical order.
6. Get motivated and interested. Ask questions; discuss opinions with your classmates; research materials. You will comprehend much more if you have a real interest in what you are studying.
7. Get support from signs. Pay attention to pictures, graphs and headlines. Read the first and last paragraphs of a chapter.
8. Highlight, summarize and review the main ideas. This is the only way to really grasp a book.
9. Increase your vocabulary. This could be a lengthy task. Use the dictionary regularly to look up every word you don’t know. Make a list of words and look them up later, never leave a new word unattended. Use techniques to help you organize and remember vocabulary like mind maps, where you place different words surrounding a main idea they relate to.
10. Use a reading technique you feel comfortable with. Adjust it to fit your priorities and purpose.
11. Monitor your improvement. The top readers measure how their attention, concentration and effectiveness are doing. If they don’t grasp an idea, they go back immediately and reread it.
Yes, it takes a great deal of effort to improve your reading comprehension. But as you notice your overall improvement in your ESL classes, you’ll know it was definitely worth it!
If you liked this article, tell all your friends about it. They’ll thank you for it. If you have a blog or website, you can link to it or even post it to your own site (don’t forget to mention www.englishlci.com as the original source.
Don’t Forget to Subscribe by RSS or Email:
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