5 Tips to Improve your Reading Skills

Tips

Reading can sometimes be challenging.

Here are 5 tips to help your motivation:

Determine your reading purpose.
Choose the right reading environment.
Read something you like.
Break it up.
Focus on what you understand.

The 5 tips to improve your reading skills.

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Reading Strategies

Using reading strategies helps readers find meaning in the text and improve their reading skills.

The main reading strategies are:

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Activating

Meaning	How to use it
Using what you already know about the topic. Any past experiences and knowledge that could help you understand the text by making connections.	Find familiar elements in the text. Make connections between text elements and yourself.

Predicting

Meaning	How to use it
Using clues in the text to figure out what will come next.	Anticipate the logical next step in a text by looking at the context.

Inferring

Meaning	How to use it
Finding out what the text’s implied meaning is: reading between the lines.	Look for clues and figurative elements. Use context to interpret meaning.

Questioning

Meaning	Questions to ask
Asking questions about the text	What does the author mean? What is the author’s purpose? What is the main idea? What are the themes/issues of the text?

Summarizing & Synthesizing

Meaning	How to use it
Saying what a text is about in a few sentences, in your own words.	Look for the main idea(s) and elements. Indicate essential and important points.

Visualizing & Organizing

Meaning	Ways to do it
Making a mental picture and arranging elements in meaningful order.	Use visual organizers like timelines, plot diagrams or mind maps. Create mental images of characters, actions and places mentioned in the text. Take notes.

Searching & Selecting

Meaning	Ways to do it
Looking for and choosing the right information in the text.	Look up some words or expressions. Reread guiding questions and prompts. Have a clear reading purpose.

Connecting

Meaning	Ways to do it
Making connections with the text.	Find familiar elements in the text. Connect them to your personal knowledge and experiences. Connect them to other texts. Connect them to events that happened in the world.

Monitoring & Clarifying

Meaning	Ways to do it
Identifying what is not understood and trying to figure it out.	Stop and think. Reread a part. Analyze context and keywords.

Tools and Techniques

Skimming

Meaning	How to do it
Getting a general idea of the text by giving it a quick look.	Look at titles, visuals and tables of content. Read paragraph openings and endings.

Skimming advantages

It’s fast.
It quickly provides the main idea of a text.

Skimming disadvantages

It gives minimal information.
It gives no details.
Important information can be overlooked.

Scanning the Text

Meaning	How to do it
Looking for specific information without reading the whole text.	Look for keywords or phrases. Look for bold, italics, highlights or coloured text.

Scanning advantages

Specific information can be found quickly.
Can point the reader to the right place in a text.

Scanning disadvantages

Only focuses on details.
General text meaning will be missing.

Reading Out Loud

Meaning	How to do it
Reading audibly.	Read the text with your voice so that it can be heard.

Reading out loud advantages

Can help understand certain words.
Practise pronunciation.

Reading out loud disadvantages

Can be disturbing to people around you.
Slows down reading speed.

Taking Notes

Taking notes advantages:	Taking notes disadvantages:
Helps organize information. Makes it easier to remember.	Slows down the reading process.

Meaning	How to do it
Writing down interesting and important elements.	Note down important elements.

Taking notes advantages

Helps organize information.
Makes it easier to remember.

Taking notes disadvantages

Slows down the reading process.

Response Process

Meaning	How to do it
A series of steps used to help understand a text.	Step 1: Explore the Text Step 2: Connecting with the Text Step 3: Going Beyond the Text

Plot Diagram

Meaning	How to do it
A visual organizer for narrative text elements	Organize story elements.

Visit the Plot Diagram concept sheet to find out more.

Reading Guide

Meaning	What is usually found in reading guides
Document used to organize information read in a text.	Character descriptions Story structure Story events (listings & descriptions) Story themes & symbols Glossary for vocabulary Guiding questions & prompts

Improving Reading Skills