there's nothing quite like snuggling up with a good book, a cup of tea or a hot
chocolate and having a good read...or is there? now I know reading may not be the
most popular topic with lots of you because reading can be tiring it can be
boring especially in a second language but I hope in this class I'm going to
show you that reading in English can actually be enjoyable that it's got lots
and lots of benefits and I really think it's something that you need to start
including in your daily life if you want to improve your English so in this video
I have six skills which will help you to read more in English and also to read in
a more efficient way the language that I want to say hello in today
is Portuguese Hola, Ciao, tutto bene? hello to Brazil and hello to
Portugal don't forget guys if we haven't said hello yet in your language we still
will please leave a comment below and tell us which languages you would like
us to say hello in and we will in a future video soon reading all of this
will be easy peasy lemon squeezy just come with me
so number one the first thing you need to do to improve your reading efficiency
is to read using strategies I'm going to teach you three reading strategies that
will help you to read for different purposes to read for exams to read more
efficiently at work and also to read for pleasure and improve your general
reading ability and they are skimming a text scanning and reading for detail
let's start with skimming so skimming is when you're reading the text to
understand the main ideas you're paying attention to key words to perhaps the
introduction or the conclusion rather than all the parts of the main body of
the text to really get the main idea of the text very useful for exam sometimes
and also for if you're just trying to get used to reading if you're not trying
to do too much so it's helping you build your ability to read in English so
that's skimming, scanning is a specific skill which we need sometimes scanning
is when we're looking for specific information so for example a date and
name and answer to the question and this is when we look through the text and
we're looking for that particular word again it helps us to familiarize
ourselves with reading in English but it's a really good exam strategy as well
so it will really help you if you're looking for the answers to questions and
exams and you haven't got a lot of time it's very very useful for generally
reading I'd say it's less less useful because unless you're having to read in
English and quickly get details maybe your job so in the business environment
maybe but if you're more reading for pleasure or reading to build your
ability scanning isn't as useful finally reading for detail I recommend reading
for detail if you're reading shorter texts and you want to really understand them
or if you're reading a book and you have time to really read carefully in English
and really understand it on a much deeper level reading for detail is a
great idea and it's it's probably the way you will learn the best actually
it's when you really properly read I'm gonna teach you later on how you can
actually test yourself to see how well you're reading and this is when you
might be for example checking what certain words mean in an English to
English dictionary not translating and really trying to understand and engage
properly with the text if you're in an exam you're probably not going to do
this as much if you're at work sometimes you'll need to read for detail if you
really need to understand it but if you're reading newspapers and things
like that reading for detail you might want to read certain parts for detail
but a lot of the time you'll probably be skimming the text which for example I do
in the morning I don't necessarily read newspaper articles really carefully I'm
skimming and getting the main ideas I'm paying attention to key words so a
combination of these three skills is what you really need because you need
them for different purposes and to build your general reading ability number two
and this is very related to what I've just been talking about and it is to
read actively at my university we talk about how we want our students to read
deeply and not just read on a surface level and this means that we want you
actually to enjoy reading to engage with the text to ask questions as you're
reading to think do I agree with this what is good about this article what is
good about this book or why did the author write this you know actually be
actively engaging and this makes you really want to read if you're just
reading because you have to so to have write an essay but you're not finding it
very interesting you're not likely to really engage properly with the text or
to get very much from reading or build your ability and this is why I say if
you're perhaps intermediate level or upper intermediate I would start by
reading shorter texts and not really long texts and reading them really well
so actually really understanding them so actually thinking about the text that
you're reading is going to really help you to build your reading ability to
engage with the text and read it properly
number three and I think this will really help you with active reading
number three is to read regularly and to read what you like so to actually read
what you joy so I recommend that you read for 20
minutes a day in English if you're at a higher level you could up that to 40
minutes a day but if you're in a lower level just reading 15 to 20 minutes a
day so things I recommend you reading are newspapers and I'll tell you some of
the ones that I think are a good idea books and these can be children's books
I'm still learning Italian and I read a lot of children's books in Italian
because it helps me to build my ability to see the language
I'm not advanced enough to read more adult books it's too tiring for me so I
read books that are for 10 to 11 year olds and I found that really really
useful so reading things like that perhaps even you could try Harry Potter
Harry Potter is a brilliant series of books so you could try that and if you
have already tell me below in the comments we also have a lot of newspaper
apps and magazines in English for example the independent has more of a
baby newspaper or a sister newspaper called the eye and the eye if you're in
England you can just pick it up it's only 50 pence and it's much shorter
articles much easier to understand but it's also world news political news
celebrity news it's got everything in it it's a great newspaper so if you're in
the UK I recommend that you can also get the independent app and I think you can
also get the I app where you can read a lot of the stories online so yes
whatever you're interested in make sure you read about that because you're much
more likely to read actively if you are interested after watching this video
guys try it for a week say to yourself right I'm going to read every day for 20
minutes in English or I'm going to read every day for 40 minutes in English and
you will start to see how your ability will increase so much number four do not
make the mistake of trying to translate every word I see some students doing
this they're translating every word they don't know into their own language this
is a big mistake native speakers do not do this when I'm reading an article
there will be some words that I don't know and unless I
is really key to knowing the meaning I won't translate sometimes maybe I think
I should know that words while check it but a lot of the time especially if I'm
busy I just make a good guess of what I think the word will mean I look at the
whole sentence and I think I think it probably means that if you translate
every word you're going to find reading a really boring and horrible experience
it's going to be tiring you're not going to get very far so you must stop doing
that and you need to stop translating anyway if you do want to translate
please get an English to English dictionary it's gonna have a much better
description much better explanation about what the word actually means than
a translation so of course translating sometimes English to English is a good
idea and it's great for helping you with your vocabulary but translating every
word into your own language it's really not a good idea number five so this is
connected to active reading and it's also connected to those reading
strategies that we were talking about at the beginning and this is to test
yourself to see how well you are understanding a text so as you're
reading ask yourself these five questions who is involved where when why
or what this will actually help you to think about what's going on in the text
who is it where was it when did it happen or what was it why did it happen
you're actually going to start engaging more actively with the text and it will
make you go back and have another look and check what you haven't understood it
or check what you've missed so use these what questions to keep testing yourself
so asking those questions is really going to help you check if you've
understood and actually read more actively and read for detail
okay the last point number six this is something I've personally found very
very useful when I've tried to read and Spanish an Italian and I've actually
recommended it to my students for when they're trying to read quickly and try
to understand text and also in exams and it is to make notes by the side of the
paragraphs about what the paragraphs were about so make notes about what your
reading when you start to try and summarize what
you've read about it helps you actually try and understand the text more and
actually be clearer about what you've read it will help you with answering
questions remembering how a different article fits together just brief notes
about what each paragraph was about so for example this paragraph was about the
history of brexit this paragraph was about who's involved literally just like
that but it will help you find your way more easily around text particularly if
you're having to answer questions about it the minute I start to underline a
text and the minute I start to use highlighters I instantly feel more
connected to the text I feel more engaged I pay more attention keywords
jump out at me more so use highlighters don't be afraid to write on the text and
things like that okay guys they were my six ways to
improve your reading skills and how to enjoy reading more and include it in
your daily life I really hope these help you and I hope you start to read more
and see the benefits of reading please comment below recommend books for other
students tell me what strategies you use your problems with reading and your
problems with reading for exams I really love hearing from you guys so please do
leave me a comment about that thank you so much for watching everybody don't
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love English fun I will see you soon on love English bye bye