Reading strategies

Reading is a very interesting exercise because it also helps to learn grammar, to improve our writing, our spelling and even our speaking. But reading isn't easy for everyone, some people have understanding problems or speed problems. In this entry I will give you some strategies to improve your reading skills.

• The fist strategy is the most obvious one: read a lot!!! But, what should we read? Newspapers, books, comics, webpages? Well, read everything you want, but read at your level, if you don't do that, you aren't going to make any improvement.

• Another strategy could be to read for leisure and not as an obligation.

• If you're doing a reading exercise, it's good to think about what you know about the topic of the text.

• Try not to read with your finger under the text, if you do that, your reading speed will be lower and your understanding too.

• When we read aloud we're more concentrated in pronouncing the words well and not of the understanding.

• It is good to have a paper next to you in case you need to write some information and read the text twice for better understanding.

• Always read in a calm place, so the noise cannot disturb you.

• Don't look up in a dictionary every word that you don't know.

• If you don't understand something, don't worry! There are also some strategies to use, like skim the text to look for the main topic and scan to get the main ideas, make notes about the text and make a summary with the information you got.