8 steps to help you improve your reading comprehension skills in English

Read articles, read English books is difficult? On average, with an article published on CNN or BBC, how long does it take you to read and understand how many% of the message the author wants to convey?

In fact, not many people give the correct answer to this question because often, it takes a lot of time and the "reading" level goes up and down. There is a lesson that understands almost all content, but there is nothing completely understood.

Even if you aim to read 15 English books every week, this won't help you to be good at foreign languages ​​unless you really understand most of the content in those books.

In English, comprehending what is written is called Reading comprehension and in fact, even native speakers, not everyone is proficient in this skill. The reason is so much, maybe too little vocabulary, unfocused reading, dispersed by other thoughts or less compelling content that makes the reading process not go smoothly.

You may be advised to practice reading a lot, one day you will understand it all but it is really difficult for you to achieve this without a suitable method.

8 steps to help you improve your reading comprehension skills in English Picture 1

The secret to improving reading comprehension skills in English

Before you start unlocking the secret, think about the Scaffolding.

When building a house, you will not complete everything at once. Workers will have to create a temporary architecture to keep the house balanced and the foundation for building higher sections. That temporary architecture is called Scaffolding.

Scaffolding is also a learning method. The idea is to master a skill, you need to practice smaller parts that can help you gain that knowledge and skill.

The same is true for mastering English reading and writing skills. To really understand what you are reading, you need to learn other skills first. You also need to practice fast reading skills (or slow reading), stop the habit of choosing difficult books and start searching for books that match your current level. Start with the easier, smaller ones and read at a slower pace, then gradually increase the difficulty.

From now on, keep this in mind when you need to improve your listening, speaking and writing skills, not simply reading.

Here are 8 steps to help you conquer English reading and understanding skills fastest.

Step 1: Always choose a special time to read

You can read something funny anytime, anywhere, such as on the bus, in bed or at work and you can enjoy that interesting book.

However, if you want to improve your "understanding" skills, you need to focus and have research. This means that reading should take a special time: whole mind to read, avoid being distracted by thoughts or thoughts, quiet reading environment, no sound noise and other impacts.

8 steps to help you improve your reading comprehension skills in English Picture 2

Apply:

1. Spend at least 30 minutes a day reading focused.The more you read in such an environment, the more you can improve your skills.
2. Make the reading process a "rite", something like something you must do every day.
3. Search for a quiet, comfortable place with light.
4. Prepare everything you want to read before you sit down, including books / newspapers, pens, notebooks, dictionaries, drinks to avoid repeated travel.
5. Decide the reading period (30 minutes is a good choice).
6. Leave your phone, tablet, ipad and all other electronic devices in silent mode.

If you do all this, the brain will "understand" that it is time you are ready to concentrate.

Step 2: Select the appropriate content to read

When choosing books / newspapers to read, there are two things you need to remember: (1) you find it interesting and (2) fit your level.

Of course, you can challenge yourself by choosing content that is slightly higher than the current level. However, do not be too hard because you will not be able to comprehend the full meaning of the author.

Some online websites help you choose the right book to read:

1. Listopia (Goodreads) has many good book lists created by book lovers like you.
2. Your Next Read allows you to search for books similar to the one you just read or you can explore other book lists.
3. Jellybooks help you learn new books or read sample copies before deciding to buy them.
4. Whichbook is a very different website.You can search for anything in a book, such as the theme of happiness, sadness, beauty . and this website will offer you titles that correspond to that choice.

Step 3: Ask questions during the reading process and after reading

Wanting to understand a book requires you to do more than simply read each word.

Before reading, take a quick glance at the content (don't read every word) and after reading it, do the same, and summarize what you can remember. You can write or say a few sentences that describe the content of the document. In this way, you can understand how much you understand the author and still have something that is not really clear.

Apply:

Some sample questions you may ask yourself before reading:

1. Are there words in the book / article that are bold or italicized?
2. Are there any titles or captions?
3. Is there any name or place name mentioned?
4. Are there many conversations in the book?
5. Long or short paragraphs?

Some sample questions that you might wonder after reading:

1. What is the book / paragraph / article about?
2. What is the most important thing emphasized by the author?
3. Is there something you don't really understand?
4. Is there something that makes you feel shocked / surprised / surprised?
5. Is there something that makes you disagree with the author's point of view?

8 steps to help you improve your reading comprehension skills in English Picture 3

Step 4: Improving fluency first

"Reading. Is. Fun".

Imagine reading an entire article or book written like the one above and you have to stop after each word (since each word is a dot). It is difficult to understand what it means.

You cannot understand what you read if you read only words instead of reading the whole sentence. That's why, in order to improve reading comprehension, it is important to improve your proficiency first.

Proficiency here refers to how you read "smoothly". When reading silently in your head, you should create a rhythm for each word. The words will naturally connect with each other like someone is talking to you.

Apply:

1. Most of the words in English you see while reading are often "sight words" - that is, common words that appear high frequency and cannot be learned using images, such as " "," of "," and "," "a", "without", "once", "past" or "with" .
2. You can practice reading sight words very quickly, just by taking 1 or 2 minutes a day to flip through this list of words and read them as quickly as possible.

Note that this exercise is quick reading, not reading.Once you get used to a comfortable reading speed, you will have time to focus on "understanding".

Step 5: Once you've learned how to speed up reading, slow down

Once you've learned how to read fluently, you can stop worrying about your reading speed and start thinking about the meaning of each word. It's time to slow down.

A great way to reduce the speed of reading is to read aloud the sentence . This not only helps you practice reading and understanding but also improves your pronunciation, listening and speaking skills. Focus on reading and pronouncing each word carefully.

If you can't (or don't want to read aloud) then stop behind every few paragraphs to make sure you're whole-heartedly reading.

Also, there is another way to control the speed of reading that note and write down the questions.

8 steps to help you improve your reading comprehension skills in English Picture 4

Step 6: Ask a lot of questions

The more questions you ask about what you are reading, the more you will have a chance to explore their meaning. You can try something like "what's going on?", "Who is the main character?", "What did he do?" or "what is she thinking?"

Apply:

1. Write down all the questions on paper and stick to them during the reading process.
2. After reading it, review the questions and find out how many questions you have found the answer to.If there are any unexplained sentences, read the paragraph that contains the question.

Step 7: Read it again

The poet Ezra Pound, when referring to reading, once said, "in the first reading, nobody really understood anything from that book."

Occasionally, reading a book only once is not enough for you to comprehend the author's message, especially with intensive research works or "picky" readers.

Therefore, re-reading is a great way to help you decipher the meaning of each word, search for content that you accidentally missed in the first reading and remember the content further.

Apply:

1. If you want to read and understand an English book, then select the thin books, maybe only a few paragraphs.Short stories, articles are great options.
2. After reading the first time, try to write down what you remember.
3. Read it again and continue doing the second step.At this point, you will find yourself remembering more content than before.

The first time you read, you understand what the book is about. The second time you read, you understand what the author is really saying and the third time you read it, you will understand how that content has an impact on the present life.

Step 8: Read many categories

Not only books, newspapers, you can read emails, blogs, tweets . The more you read the content in English, the deeper you understand the language.

Don't just read a single type of content, but diversify to understand how words change in different contexts and you'll find English much more interesting.

Apply:

You can visit some of the following websites to find new content:

1. StumbleUpon recommends sites based on your interests.
2. Digg brings together interesting stories collected on the Internet.
3. Reddit gathers websites and images gleaned by other users.

Right now, try using the above English reading and training strategy, and of course, you can also use this trick to learn Reading skills in other languages.