Top 10 Ways To Improve Your Reading Skills

Reading is such a great hobby or passion that most of us do. It is so much of a good habit that everyone must follow in their life. But to make a point, not all of us read properly. Certain things had to be followed while you read to obtain the most knowledge out of that book or whatever you read.

So here I’ve come up with the top 10 ways to improve your reading skill to elevate your knowledge about reading.

Know your purpose

Before you even begin to read anything about the subject, have an understanding of what your purpose is. While the overarching purpose maybe “to get a good grade,” you need to look for something deeper. Start with the chapter title, then move on to subchapter headings and try to get a sense of what the author wants you to know from the topic you’re about to dive into.

Set aside time to read each day

One of the most effective ways to build your skills is to practice. Developing your reading skills will ultimately take practice, and you can set aside 10 to 15 minutes each day to read. You can read news articles, fiction, magazine issues, or any kind of text, as long as you are taking the time to practice your reading skills.

Take notes while you read

Another highly effective method for improving your reading skills is to take notes while you read. For instance, you might take notes while reading a fiction novel to gain a deeper understanding of the author’s choice of language, or you might write down new vocabulary while reading a science journal. Effective note-taking can prompt you to ask questions about and make connections to what you read.

Similarly, creating visual representations like charts, tables or diagrams can clarify themes and ideas and can help you form inferences from your reading.

Apply what you read by summarizing

Summarizing what you read can also improve your reading skills. Summarizing forces you to remember specific details and central topics about what you read in your own words and through your unique perspective. You might try verbally summarizing what you read by sharing information with a friend or write a summary to help you retain and comprehend what you read.

Glimpse the big picture

You wouldn’t drive to a destination for a major event without any sense of direction. It’s always best to know the endgame for what you’re about to do. Start at the end, and you’ll never lose sight of where you’re going. This is just as effective of a mindset in reading as it is for road trips. If you know what you’re reading towards, then it will become easier to synthesize what you know with what you learn along the way.

Know what is important

The more you read, the easier it will become to pick out the main idea of what you’re reading — not just for the passage as a whole but also for individual paragraphs. The closer you can get to determine relevant information, the faster you’ll be able to read because your mind will be zipping along to the important keywords of the text and filling in the lesser text — articles, conjunctions, etc. — without feeling the need to enunciate every syllable.

Try visualizing

Most writing, whether commercial or academic is concrete and visceral. It paints a picture in your mind. Textbook language? Not so much. Sometimes you have to cut through the jargon and get a mental image to understand important concepts. While most textbooks are good about including visual imagery to go along with explanations of difficult concepts, you can’t always have the textbook in front of you, so it’s a good idea to try and make images in your head with the information given.

Connect to all the things that you’ve read

Making connections while you’re reading is one of the best ways to retain new information and solidify what is already in your brain. When making connections to a text, there are three kinds: text-to-self (or how the text reminds you of your own life); text-to-world (or how what you’re reading relates to something you read or heard on the news); and text-to-text

Set reading goals

You can set reading goals for yourself to help you develop a wider vocabulary, gain a deeper understanding of different texts and improve your ability to make connections between things you read and your perspectives and ideas.

For example, you might set a goal to learn different vocabulary related to a central topic like business management, technology, or another subject that interests you. Then, you can find meanings to unfamiliar words that help build your vocabulary as you read.

Preview what you read

Previewing and scanning over texts can be another step toward improving your reading skills. You can apply this strategy by previewing titles, captions, headlines, and other text features to get an idea of what you are reading about. This can help you form central ideas about the text before you begin reading it.

We’ve come to the end of this article explaining the top 10 ways to improve your reading skills. So next time you read, make sure you keep all these tips in your mind, to make the most out of what you read.