Reading is an essential part of the learning process as well as listening, speaking, and writing. It also helps you learn and revise new vocabulary and grammar. Let us check some advice on how to get the best out of reading any book.

Your interest and level

First of all, before starting reading a book, you should make sure it is really what you like reading. It should give you pleasure, so if you like to read fiction books, do not choose novels. Also, make sure, the level of the book suits you, do not read original books if you have “Basic” or “Pre-intermediate” levels, it is appropriate on “Upper-intermediate” and “Advanced” levels. Original books have a huge number of expressions which will be really hard to understand and even harder, if you still do not know all the necessary grammar and vocabulary material.

Words and grammar

Once choosing a book, try to have your own word list. It is highly recommended to write down all new words in order to practice them later. If you are using an application to learn words, add them from the book and practice later. This way you can not only get pleasure and information from the book, practice reading skills but also learn a lot of new interesting words and expressions. But you may ask, what about grammar? The recommendation is the following: if you just passed or are studying some grammar topic, you can try to find all those grammatical forms in one chapter and then explain their usage. 

Rereading

Do not be shy or ashamed if you do not understand something, you can read it over as many times as you wish. If you are confused with pronunciation, spelling, or meaning, just check it out and then reread it.

Listening

The main purpose of reading a book is not listening, but you can listen to an audio of some paragraphs you find difficult. If you are a learner with a basic level, it is recommended to read some part (for example, a paragraph) and then listen to it. This way you will hear the right pronunciation of it and avoid some phonetic mistakes. 

Do not read more than an hour 

Try not to read more than one hour if your level is Basic or Intermediate even if the book is very interesting and you feel okay to continue reading. Remember that reading in English is not the same as reading in your native language. It is much harder to read in a foreign language, so one hour is enough on those levels, because, otherwise, you may become less focused and miss a lot of useful information.

In closing, remember that while reading a book or an article you do not only improve your reading skills. While reading you have an opportunity to learn new words and revise some grammar. So do not miss this opportunity! Enjoy reading and listening to different books in Koddy App and improve your English skills!