Many learners tell me that they love reading, but find reading in English too slow and boring.
But who says reading in English should be boring? You probably already read more than you
think! Reading is more than just reading a book: It goes from Facebook posts,
blogs, recipes, labels, commands on your cell phone, signs on the road, and so on. Reading is
everywhere. We do it all the time. Even reading the subtitles while watching this video!
So, even if you are not a fan of books, this lesson is for you!
We will teach you 4 practical tips to start taking your reading to the next level right now.
By the end of this lesson, you'll understand how reading can boost your English. You'll see:
By the way, in case you're new here, every week we make lessons just like this one, so
that you can learn English without getting lost, without missing the jokes and without subtitles.
Like Rita, who says that even though she lives in the USA,
she could not find anything that worked to improve her English effectively,
until she discovered our channel! So we will help you achieve your English learning goals, too!
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You Don't Read The Same Way All The Time
First things first, what is reading? At a basic level, reading is identifying
and making sense of words and symbols. However, there's so much more to that.
Reading is an interactive process of recognition that leads to interpretation.
In other words, it’s a thinking process that involves using strategies to process a text
in order to construct knowledge. That a fancy way of saying that reading actually makes you
smarter. It makes your brain work harder and better while energizing it. So of course,
improving your reading in English might even improve your abilities to read and
think critically in your native language! With that said, it's worth mentioning that
there are many types of reading and you don't read the same way all the time. The most common
strategy that we use (even without knowing it) is called skimming. If you skim a text,
you read it quickly to comprehend the gist, the main idea. This is what you do when you pick a
magazine up at your doctor's office and go over the articles without spending too much time on it,
or when you are scrolling your Facebook feed to check if any post is worth clicking to
'read more'. With this type of reading, you learn through context. You don't stop and look up every…
single... word. You learn to infer its meaning by capturing the essence of what you've read.
Let's try it. You have 40 seconds to read (skim) this paragraph. Do not pause the video.
Now try to answer this question without going back to the text.
Interesting, right? I'm sure that there are words that you may not know yet in this text.
However, if you read it with the singular focus of getting the main ideas,
the unknown words won't stop you. Now, another highly useful strategy
is called scanning. When you scan a text, you read it to find specific pieces of information.
You are scanning when you read the info on your plane ticket to confirm your seat number
or to find the characteristics of a product in a catalog. You shift your attention from
the overall meaning to the structure (numbers, adjectives, percentages, etc.)
Take a look at these situations and decide which type of reading (Skimming - overall
information or Scanning - specific information) would be the best one to use.
These strategies can be transferred to any type of text you read, and being aware of them will
help you determine how much effort you should put into your reading. Not only that but also
understanding your level of English first will take a lot of the weight off your shoulders.
[show the CEFR reading competencies]. Our next tips will help you with choosing your next text.
By the way, did you notice how I connected the words here?
The letter E in TAKE is what we call a silent letter. It means that you don't pronounce it,
and that's why we connect the word TAKE with A, sounding like [TEI-kuh]. Also, the letter T in
LOT is between two vowels -> LOT OF. In situations like these, Americans tend to pronounce it with a
soft /d/ sound - /lɒd əv/. And of is often reduced to simply [uh], so I say [lodda] not [lot of].
If you want to learn more about how we natives really speak so that you
can understand your favorite tv series, movies, and podcasts, as well as natives in real life,
then I highly recommend that you give our power learning Mini Course a try!
It is absolutely free and we will show you what it takes to comprehend natives confidently
in the real world. Sign up now just click up here or down in the description below!
Do you like reading? What about reading in English? Maybe your answer is NO. You may say you
like it, but you don't have the time. Or maybe you do like it, but find it tiring reading in another
language. Well, let me help you with that. There are many options for you to start reading
right now. The first step is to start with things you ALREADY like or that you've already
read in your first language. This means DO NOT read children's books because you think that they
are the easiest. Kids books tend to use strange vocabulary that isn’t actually practical to you.
Furthermore, the stories won’t really engage you, so you’ll probably give up.
Now, the exception of course is if you have children and you want to read these books
with them. Then that is a fantastic way for you to bond and practice together!
Now maybe you use different social networks. You may choose to follow certain pages on Facebook
or Instagram that cover topics you like. Since there are so many options out there,
turn reading in English into a habit, even if it's a tweet, the captions of a post,
a paragraph, a news article or blog article, or a whole page of a book.
Remember to set the time and place and make that commitment to yourself. For example,
every day after having dinner, I'll read two tweets from CNN's account. Build the habit--read
every day. Start small, and when you least realize it, this habit will grow on you.
Again, the key is to read what you already enjoy reading in your own language.
So don’t just start reading the news because someone told you it’s good for learning English
if you don’t even enjoy doing that in your native language.
It's important that you find something that is just a little bit more challenging than your
current level and that is gripping enough to get you into the habit. So, here are a couple of tips:
* Start simple If you are a fan of books and want
to read more of them in English, look for graded readers. They are books designed for learners in
which the language was adapted to suit different levels. Besides that, they have pre-, during- and,
post-reading activities that make reading more fun and help you better understand the text.
This is also a great way of exposing yourself to the culture by reading classic English
and American literature like Moby Dick or The Picture of Dorian Gray.
* Play Games in English If you don’t tend to read books,
but you are a fan of videogames, they can be a fantastic source to help you read more.
Lots of different games have written dialogues and texts that you NEED to understand to move on
in the game. They help you develop problem-solving skills, and are often related to survival English.
Don't waste this chance of learning while you have fun, play them in English!
* Read things you're interested in! Social media posts, comics, blog articles,
magazines, recipes, even product labels, you name it! Read things you're interested in,
they don't need to be books. You can also pick a particular topic you like and opt for reading
different types of text within that same topic. This is called narrow reading and it will expose
you to the same language range over and over, which will ultimately help you acquire that
vocabulary. We've seen at the beginning of the video that reading is a powerful skill to develop.
So, find among the things you already read in your first language something that you'll enjoy
reading in English too. * Re-read
Following up on the previous tip, find things you already read in your mother tongue and enjoyed and
re-read them in English. This way, you'll feel less anxious to understand what's going on and
will be able to focus more on the language. For me, I absolutely loved the Harry Potter series,
and I re-read the books to improve my German and Spanish! By the way, in our recent lesson
on The Queen’s Gambit we explored how star Anya Taylor-Joy learned English with Harry Potter.
On the same note, you may choose to read the book-version of a movie or series you watched.
* Read Self-Development books or articles This genre tends to have more simple language
and can be a great way of cultivating the habit of reading. Not to mention that if you choose a book
on a particular area of your life that you need to improve, it will help you in other ways as well.
I created this lesson on 6 Life-Changing Books for English Learners for exactly this reason.
Young Adults
Now, as I mentioned, I don’t believe reading children’s books makes sense for
most English learners, but young adults books are another story! Browse the
teens book section of a public library in your city or neighborhood (or on Amazon).
You might not even spend a penny and will have many choices to pick from. These types of books
tend to use a bit easier language. I think that series are great because they hook you and keep
you entertained for a long time! Some examples are Harry Potter, the Hunger Games, Twilight, and the
School for Good and Evil. Although the language in them may not be automatically transferable to
your daily conversations, it still helps you expand your vocabulary,
understand the structure of the language, and improve your comprehension in general.
* Simple English
Finally, another tip is to develop the habit of looking up general information
and definition of words in English. You can use the Simple English Wikipedia,
the English-learner version of Wikipedia that has its articles written at a basic level, or use
the Learner's version of English dictionaries, such as Oxford, Merriam-Webster, and Longman.
Improving Your Reading CAN Be Fun
You may be thinking: "Well, reading is not really my thing because I'm a very active person and I
can't sit still for a long period of time. What if I said you can kill two birds with one stone?
You can take advantage of the benefits of the enriching vocabulary of a book
AND practice your listening as well. By choosing an audiobook to listen to while walking or doing
other chores or to listen while you read the text, you'll work on the development
of your listening skills while benefiting from the language of the chosen book.
And right now you can get two FREE audiobooks when you sign up for
Audible using the link in the description. Try Audible for a month
absolutely free, and even if you choose not to continue, you get to keep the audiobooks!
I recommend The Graveyard Book, a young adult book with a spectacular narration!
Or you could try one of the other books on my best fiction books for English learners list.
You can choose to use reading as a stepping stone to enhance other skills:
Read out loud - When you do this, it helps your brain better store information,
boosting your memory retention. You are more likely to remember what you've read.
It’s great to combine this with the audiobook so you get accurate
pronunciation. Or look up specific words on Forvo to hear real natives saying them.
Record yourself - While reading out loud, it may be a good idea to record yourself.
I understand that listening to your own voice may not be the most pleasant thing, but when you do
this, you are not only training the muscles you use for speaking, but also becoming more
aware of how you are pronouncing, linking, and connecting the spoken and written form of words.
Highlight words and check them later - most of the time you skim a text to capture the essence of it.
Be it a book, an article, or a short note, you first try to understand its main idea.
It will be much harder and slower to do so if you stop to check every single word you don't know.
So, the pro tip here is to highlight them and after you've finished your first reading (whether
for you that is a page or a chapter), go back to the text and check them using a dictionary.
Take notes of words or expressions - following up on the previous tip,
create your own personal bank of new words and expressions you've learned from the reading,
and challenge yourself to use them. Have them close to you when taking a lesson, for instance,
or choose two or three to try to incorporate in your next interaction in English.
Remember the saying 'if you don't use it, you lose it'.
I like reading before bed. I highlight the words on my ereader and then in the morning with a cup
of coffee I look up the new words and add them to a spaced repetition system, like Memrise.
Join a book club This is one of the best
ways to motivate you to read a book, while also connecting with others and making friends. You
learn so much from interacting with others, not to mention being able to also develop
your speaking skills and put those newly learned words into practice. If you can't join a club,
find a friend to exchange ideas with you. Ideally, you'd read it in English and comment in English,
but an alternative could be talking about it in your first language. It still does
the trick of making sense and processing information learned in a foreign language.
Use a Kindle or other e-readers Besides digital books being less
expensive than paper or hardcover books,
most e-readers have lots of different features that make reading much more interactive.
You can highlight words, write notes, check the dictionary, and much more all while reading.
Turn it into a game A fun way of doing this
is writing a couple of challenges on a piece of paper, putting them in a box,
and sorting one to do when it's your reading time. Check out a couple of ideas:
Try to remember 4-5 words that called your attention on a page
Finish a couple of pages, set a timer for two minutes, and write down all key points
from the passage Write down the
main characteristics of a character Explain out loud what you just read in 1 minute
Choose 3 words you didn't know and try to guess their meaning
from the context (and then check them) The Benefits Of Reading To Your Personal Life
If you are still not convinced why you should dedicate more time to reading,
let's talk about some benefits that go beyond sharpening your language abilities
If you have made it clear to yourself that you won't understand 100% of the text, this helps you
control your ANXIETY and pre-reading STRESS. That by itself makes the activity easier and lighter
Reading helps you with general COMPREHENSION, not only of the language
but also of the subject you are reading. It adds to your general knowledge repertoire
Needless to say that it boosts your vocabulary, right? Some other benefits are that you learn
new words from context, learn different meanings to previously known words, and start to identify
patterns, like words that often come together. Reading helps you with a conversation. The more
you read, the more your verbal skills grow and you become more able to use context to infer the
meaning of new words, and thus tend to feel more secure to use them when speaking. When I first
started reading in other languages, I was amazed to notice that I would use a word in conversation,
and not remember actively having learned it, only to later figure out that I had absorbed
it while reading. The same goes for grammatical structures--you will start to be able to visualize
them in your head, and you won’t have to think about it so much when it comes time to speak.
So, what are you waiting for to start taking your English to the next level
and make it a part of your life? Let's start reading right now!
What have you found helpful to improve your reading in English?
Leave your recommendation in the comments below and check out other people's reading experiences.