What are the most important factors in improving reading skills

Reading is one of the main methods we use to acquire data and information in the contemporary world. To read a text, a person must have a basic understanding of how sounds are represented alphabetically, prior knowledge, and sufficient vocabulary for written texts to be meaningful. There are many methods to improve reading skills. However, the most important factor in improving reading skills is reading itself. There is nothing better than daily reading to improve your reading skills.

What is the most important factor in improving reading skills?

Read, read and read

The most important factor in improving reading skills is practice. The more you read, the better you will be reading. You can master your reading skills by reading daily. No matter what you read, you can read books, magazines, comics, newspapers, notices, posters, web pages, etc. But make sure you understand the meaning of what you read. If you don’t understand words and phrases, you can always check unfamiliar words in a dictionary. As you spend more time reading, the words will become more familiar to you, and your reading will naturally improve. Make sure you read for at least twenty minutes every day.

You can use different ways of reading to develop different reading skills.

Types of reading

There are four types of reading skills known as skimming, scanning, long reading, and intensive reading.

Skimming: Quickly roll  your eyes over a text to get the essence of the text.

Eg: newspaper (to get general news), magazines (to see what articles are of interest), brochures, etc.

Exploration: Quickly review a text to find a particular piece of information.

Example: train schedule, television guide, etc.

Extensive reading: Reading longer texts to gain a general understanding of a text. This also includes reading for pleasure.

Eg: novels, magazine articles, history books, business books, etc.

Intensive reading: Reading shorter texts to obtain specific information. Every word, every fact must be understood by the reader.

Eg: contract, accounting report, reading for academic purposes, etc.

However, these four ways of reading are not mutually exclusive. For example, people flick through magazines and newspapers to find what articles are interesting. Then they would begin an extensive reading.

Reading requires a variety of skills. Below are some of these skills:

  • Understand the script of a language (the written word)
  • Infer the meaning and use of unfamiliar words and phrases
  • Explicit understanding of the declared information.
  • Understanding of information that is not explicitly stated
  • Understand connotations or conceptual meanings.
  • Understanding the relationship within the different parts of sentences.
  • Identify the main focus or the most important facts of a text.
  • Extract the main facts to summarize.

Here are some tips to improve your reading skills

  • Start by reading easy books. If you start with reading materials that are too advanced for your level, you will have a hard time understanding the meaning. When this happens, you will also lose interest in reading. You can also choose topics and topics that interest you. the most. As your reading skills improve, you can work as you go by reading advanced books.
  • Learn new vocabulary. This is a very important factor in improving reading skills. You can write down the unfamiliar words you find in your daily reading and learn them. As your reading skills improve, you will encounter fewer and fewer unfamiliar words. But try to learn at least one new word a day .
  • Read material of different genres. Don’t just read one type of book, try them all. This will help you learn a diverse vocabulary as well as different writing styles.
  • Join a book club. Joining a book club will motivate you to finish a book. Even if you don’t understand some parts of the book, you can discuss it with other members.
  • If you are reading for an academic purpose, always take notes as I read. You can also use methods such as underline and highlight.
  • Join a library. This will help you find different genres of books.
  • Don’t focus on individual words. Try to understand the general meaning of entire phrases, sentences at a time. This will help improve your reading speed.

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