How to Improve your Reading Ability

We read every day in this modern era, maybe not in the form of a book but in other ways. Emphasis is being placed more and more on reading. You find it everywhere: books, instructions, advertisements, signs, labels, stickers, technology etc. Basically reading is something that is part of this world.

Believe it or not, if you are wanting to improve your reading skills, it's totally within your grasp. Just follow these simple tips and you'll see an improvement over time and with consistency. 

1. Read more

There are people out there, I'm sure you know one or two of them, who are very gifted readers and have a very impressive reading ability. Normally these people will have their head in a book giving the impression that they are sort of non-stop readers.

Well, there's no coincidence that these seemingly gifted readers are always reading because it's all the reading that they do that gives them a brilliant reading ability. Now I'm not saying that all gifted readers read a lot - some are just naturally gifted (like everyone is at something), but on the whole the majority of readers with great reading ability is as a result of reading a lot.

So make it a goal to start reading more, you don't have to start swallowing books each day but reading two or more pages of something wouldn't hurt. Pick a book and say to yourself "I'm going to read at least 'x' amount of pages each day until this book is finished. Make sure that you do do this every day - exposure is the best thing you can do. After that book is finished, or other reading material, move onto the next. 
A great motivational technique that you may find useful is 'don't break the chain'.

Also when you're out and about, take time to read signs, markings, advertisements and the like. This is so that you can have as much exposure as possible to reading. 

2. Learn vocabulary

This is another simple yet affective tip to do - learn the meaning of more words. When reading you're bound to at some time or another come across a word that you aren't too familiar with. So by looking it up will cause you to have a greater understanding of what you are reading and at the same time will get you used to pronunciation (that's if you make sure that you pronounce it when looking it up,) helping with when you come across similar constructed words in the future.

3. Read challenging material

Making sure that you keep challenging yourself with new, innovative, and hard material is brilliant for improving your reading. If you are always reading material that you feel comfortable with - that's both good and bad. It's good because you know what your reading ability is able to handle, it's bad because you're not pushing yourself to think about what you're reading - not in the same sense as when you read challenging material. For example: a piece of challenging material may take the form of a non-fictional quantum-mechanics book. Whilst you may not know about quantum-mechanics, you are bound to come across unfamiliar words, layout, and/or style. It's things like this that will get you used to reading harder texts and is something that you should consider if wanting to see a good improvement of your reading ability.

4. Read out loud and in your head

Another thing you can do that will make you think more about what you are reading is to read both in your head and out loud. Do about half a page out-loud and then switch to in-head. This will get you used to switching between out-loud and in-head and will cause you to think slightly differently between these two actions about the pronunciation of words. It's also helpful if you will have to read out loud to groups of people, whether that's as a student in class or a person giving a public speech. 

5. Read where you can concentrate

It's no good reading something that you aren't able to focus upon because of outside influences, for example; a distracting and noisy environment. It's no good reading a piece of material if you aren't going to be able to properly focus on it, and if you're not going to properly focus on it then you are not going to get the benefits of reading or see an improvement in your reading ability.

Some people are able to remain focused in even the most distracting locations - something that comes with practice, and so for them at least, it would be fine to read in noisy and distracting places because they can still keep a good level of concentration. For the majority of us this isn't the case and so reading somewhere where you are less compelled to look away from what you are reading would be a better choice. 

Conclusion

Improving your reading skills will take time for your mind to adapt, as the skill of reading is a difficult one, but when you start to read regularly and apply these tips, you're bound to see an improvement as time goes by. It's just getting yourself to take the time to have a go - that's the most difficult part. Good luck.