How to improve your English by Reading

Lets see what are the challenges.

Challenge 1:

Common Words are ignored.

We do not read the common grammar words like to, a, an, the etc. If you don't believe me, just visit this link. The result is when we talk or write in English we tend to skip these words. That is the major reason for most of us not using articles like a/an/the in our speech and writing.

Solution 1:

Read slowly when you are learning English. Try to understand how the words are arranged to form a meaningful sentence. You should look for words which are used mos often and try to see if you can use them yourself.

Challenge 2:

Difficult Words are ignored.

When we encounter a difficult while reading we just skip that. Most of the times we can judge the meaning of a sentence by considering the context of the word used even if we do not know the word. This way we seldom learn anything new from what we read.

Solution 2:

Use a dictionary. I think the best way to learn new workds is to find their meaning as and when you encounter them. This way, you have a sentence right in front of you which tells you how to use the word when you need.

A quick tip for people who are online for most part of the day. Just open "www.google.com" and type "define: your-word" to find the meaning of word. Just replace your-word with the word that you want the meaning for. Neat!! Ehh!!

Challenge 3:

Spellings are ignored.

We don't really care for spellings when we read text. Our eyes can make sense of completely jumbled words as long as the beginning and end letters are same. So how do we improve oursepllings? I mean spellings :).

Solution 3:

Be careful while reading. Read quality books/magazines and newspaper. This will reduce the chances that you are reading something that has not gone through proper proof-reading. You will amazed to find words which are very similar in spellings but have very different meaning.

Challenge 4:

Lack of Interest and Will Power.

I know that its very difficult to maintain your interest when you are reading some text written in a foreign language. The key here is patience and persistence.

Solution 4:

Try and generate interest in what you are reading. Read about stuff you like. If you are love painting, read about painters and their work. If you love poetry then read about your favourite poet. Just make sure that you don't feel that you are forced to read something.

Challenge 5:

Learn and Forget.

Some of you must be thinking that you have done all this in past and still see no improvement. It might be true, but remember what we started with, "techniques". You need to plan and find a way that works for you.

Solution 5:

The toughest challenges sometimes have the easiest solutions. The best way to remmeber things you learn is to repeat and revise the. Keep a small pocket notepad with you. Write down things you learn and go back to them when you have time. You will definitely see a great difference.

Suggested Reading:

How to read English texts if you want to improve your English

Improve your English through Reading