Do you ever feel that reading an English paragraph or an English article takes so much time? The speed of reading maybe 200-350 words per minute, but you still don’t understand the content of the whole article or miss some central ideas of the material.
It may absolutely occur if you don’t know how to read quickly and effectively. Here are some tips that help you increase your reading comprehension.
1. Skim Through The Article
Firstly you should skim through the article. Determine what is the main heading, parts, and related documents? The purpose of doing this is to acquire the main content that you concern; simultaneously, you will decide what direction your process of reading follows.
2. Control Speed Of Reading
While you are reading, you should try to control your speed of reading. Definitely, you will feel tired if you have to focus on all parts, all the contents of the article. You can read more slowly in the section if you feel it is an important section of the article. And don’t forget the increasing speed of reading at the section which is familiar to you and easily understandable.
3. Reading Groups Of Words
Instead of focusing on all words one by one in the paragraph, you try reading groups of words at the same time in which the words of the group are closely connected. Doing this can reduce the time of reading so much. You can use some computer programs such as Speed Reader or Rapid Reader that are created to help readers increase their speed of reading with flash words, flash letters.
4. Focus On Main Ideas In The Article
You should concern with the effect of reading, so the first purpose you made will be successful. On the other hand, you should focus on the main words in sentences or main ideas in the article. You will waste time if you spend too much on conjunction, preposition or article (a, an, the, but, and, or, nor, but)
5. Mark while you are reading by whatever you can use. A pencil, pen, your fingers that all can control your eyes looking from left to right or from up to down. Do like this; you will not miss what you don’t read yet and avoid reading again. That is a useful tool that helps you control your process of reading. And of course, you will read faster and more precisely.
6. Retell What You Have Read
Talk about what you read. Some readers find that when talking about what they read to their friends, relatives, they tend to sum up their knowledge better, simultaneously remember longer.
7. Choose the way you read, which is suitable for you. Don’t force yourself because the ability to read of each person is different, as well as how difficult or easy documents cause the different speed of reading. Maybe you can’t focus on a document for 1 hour or half an hour, so why do you have to try to do that? Choose a period of time in the day when you feel most mindful and ready to read whatever.
8. A suitable space is very important. It will help if you read at a place where you are not neglected, disturbed, or a place that can inspire you.
9. Practice! Only practice! Practice a lot! This is a successful secret when you want to master whatever skill in English. You should try hard to read, read all the topics that you concern about whenever you can. And do not forget to remember important information. While you are reading, if something in the article is not clear to you, you should move on to avoid blocking your process of reading. And of course, you will return to read again and consider deeply then.
To sum up, reading comprehension is very interesting and provides much knowledge for us, but sometimes it doesn’t take so much time if we know how to increase, decrease the speed of reading. There are many methods to read faster and more effectively but the most important thing is you should choose the most suitable method for you. All what you need is merely a book, a clock and a pencil.
