How to Improve Reading Skill

The most important thing you can do to improve your reading skill is to become an active reader. There are five specific strategies will help you become an active reader:

1. Skimming Ahead and Jumping Back

Skimming to a text before you read helps you prepare for your reading task. It’s a lot like checking out the course before a cross-country race. If you know what’s ahead, you know how to pace yourself. This head start will give you an idea of what’s the important in the passage you’re about to read.

When you finish reading, jump back. Review the summaries, headings, and highlighted information. Jumping back helps you remember the information you just read. You can see how each idea fits into the whole and how ideas and information are connected.

2. Highlighting  or Underlining Key Words and Ideas

            To be an active reader, you need to identify key ideas. By highlighting or underlining the key words and ideas, you’ll make important information stand out. You’ll also make it easier to find that information when you want to write a summary or to study for an exam.

Here are the guidelines for highlighting or underlining a text:

1.      Be Selective

2.      Watch for clues that indicate an idea is important

3. Looking Up Unfamiliar Vocabulary Words

Looking up unfamiliar words is another very important active reading strategy. You need to know what the words mean to understand what someone is saying. Whenever possible, have a dictionary with you when you read. If you don’t have a dictionary with you, try to figure out what the word means.

4. Recording Your Questions and Comments

As you read, you’ve bound to have questions and comments. You’re also likely to have reactions to the reading. You might wonder why the author used a certain example, or you might think a particular description is beautiful. It makes yu think more carefully about what you read and that means you will better understand and remember the material.

5. Looking For Clues Throughout The Text

Good readers are a lot like detectives. They don’t read just to get through a passage; they pay careful attention to words and details. Detectives look for clues that will help them better understand the writer’s ideas. These clues come in many forms such as:

§  Specific word choice and details

§  Repeated words or phrases

§  The structure of sentences or paragraphs