Significantly Improve Your Reading Speed and Accuracy by Following These Three Highly Effective Strategies Reading is much more than starting at the first word and then moving from word to word until
you reach the end.
Reading is a skill which is absolutely necessary for success in business or academic life. Because reading is essential, we have created
this blog to give you three fundamental reading strategies for complete reading success. The Three Essential Strategies for Reading
1. Scanning What is scanning? Scanning is used when we need to look for a specific piece of information in a particular text. When you scan, you need to
quickly look through the reading text to find whichever information you particularly need. It is only that information that you need to read carefully. Once you have found that information, reading stops. The reading section, for example, could be a text in a test, a schedule, an email or a newspaper article. It would be best if you scanned when it is only specific information that you require.
Therefore, scanning is a strategy for fast reading when you don't need to pay attention to every detail in a text. How to scan?
Before you start scanning, think for a short time about the type of information you need. For example,
is it a time? Is it a location? Is it a description of something? Have a picture of what type of information you need before you start skimming, it will make your task to find that information much faster and easier. Once you think you have found what you are looking for,
check that it matches the type of information you decided before you started.
2. Skimming or Reading for Gist
What is Skimming (or Reading for Gist)? Skimming is like scanning. However, scanning is when you need to look for one or only a few pieces of specific information. Skimming is when you also read quickly, but this time you are trying to discover the main ideas.
Skimming is a practical strategy if you have a log text to read. How to skim and find the essential information from a text.
The first thing you need to do is read the first and last paragraphs first. After you have done that, you should then read each of the other paragraphs' first sentence, starting with paragraph two. A good writer will write an overview of a text's main points in these parts of an article. Therefore, if you read these parts of a text first, you will understand what the writer is trying to say.
A useful exercise is to think about what heading you could use to describe each paragraph or a few words that you believe summarize each section. Since you are only looking at the general meaning of a text, don't feel tempted to translate each new word you discover unless it seriously interferes with your comprehension.
It would help if you mostly tried to guess the meaning of new vocabulary at this stage.
3. Reading for Detail
What is Reading for Detail? This is probably the default method of reading for most people
. This is an often slow reading process which means carefully reading each word from the beginning to the end. How to Read for Detail You can increase this process's speed by reading only those sections that you need to read carefully. You can identify those sections by following the strategies outlined above. Furthermore,
don't focus on every word which you don't understand. If it is a word that is not vital to understanding a piece of information, guess it and move on. Guessing the meaning of a new word is easier if you know the context it is placed. Again, following the strategies above will help.
When reading for detail, your aim should be to understand eighty per cent of the information. If, after reading, you need some information that you missed, don't reread the whole text – word for word,
scan to find it.
Summary In conclusion, reading may seem like a simple task. Most students of English read each word in a text from beginning to end and translate every word they don't know. That might be fine when you have lots of time, but that way of reading can often be impractical in the real world
. When you follow the above tried and tested strategies, you will become a much more successful learner. Read again the three methods and highlight the main points. When you next read something in English, decide why you need to read it and
use the relevant strategy to improve your reading skills. For more tips and strategies for improving your grammar accuracy, get in touch with us today.
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Robert Saunders is the Director of studies of BBLC and has 20 years' experience teaching some of the biggest multinational companies around the globe.
