Six tips to improve your reading score 🤩
1️⃣
Start reading in groups of 3 - 5 words or chunking. While we were all taught to read each individual word in school, it is rather inefficient and slow, especially in a test environment when you are in a time crisis.
Instead, you should aim to word chunk, which is taking in several words at a time and digesting them for information and details. To train yourself, try to read three to five words at a time and check if you understand the meaning of the sentence or phrase once you are done.
Keep practicing on this with three words first and gradually work up to five words using your peripheral vision. You will get faster and understand better as you continuously train yourself by reading multiple passages this way.
2️⃣
Do not reread the words.
When we are confused or unsure of anything that we read, conventional wisdom is to go back and reread the sentence or passage.
However, this means your eyes will constantly jump back and forth while reading, leading to precious seconds being lost that can seriously add up.
To prevent this, you can simply run your finger across a sentence as you read without going back in order to train yourself to quickly absorb and retain information while pushing forward.
3️⃣
Skim during your first reading then scan when answering questions.
A great way to tackle reading the passages once you are more familiar with word chunking is to skim the main points of your text.
It is important to quickly go through the passage and note the main points, especially the title and the questions. You should also be taking note of the nouns in the text to give you a general picture as well as how the paragraph is organised.
Is this a text about instructional methods or is this more of a cause and effect story?
4️⃣
Start improving your vocabulary to speed up comprehension.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks of slow reading is not understanding what the word means.
Thankfully, this is one of the easiest problems to solve and you can begin by simply improving your overall vocabulary.
You can actively start reading more as well listening to news and broadcasts like the BBC and CNN.
Be sure to proactively do this by highlighting or recording the words you don’t know and use a dictionary or thesaurus to help you along the way.
5️⃣
Get familiar and read a variety of text similar to the tests.A great way to do this while getting prepared for the Reading test is to improve your vocabulary while reading the text format which includes books, magazines, newspapers and journals.
You can start by going through different types of topics through the various mediums and get a feel of which texts are easier or harder for you to read.
Once you understand the type of text you struggle with, then you can focus more on those and get familiar with the way it's written and how sentences and ideas flow in the passages.
6️⃣
Take practice tests and start timing yourself.
While the first five steps will help progress your reading speed, there is nothing much than practicing the tests themselves.
Take every opportunity to read, from novels and blogs, to newspapers and academic journals. The more variety, the better. Reading extensively will help you learn new vocabulary and improve your reading speed.
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@IELTS_Dr
