Reading is a skill of literate people, but most people take it for granted. It requires a deep and complex understanding of a text and its meaning. While learning foreign languages, most ESL students face the problem with difficulties of reading comprehension consist in basic interpretation of a text, missing deeper meaning of context and emotional core of the text.
Reading comprehension is a skill that need? a practice. Each text improves the ability to read and analyze the information. Here are 10 essential tips for college-level reading comprehension you may obey in order to improve your skills.
Preview the text
The skill of previewing the passage before reading is very essential for mastering these skills. It allows you to get ready for reading a text, anticipate its topic. There is always an introduction to the text which can help you understand the key points being discussed in the text.
Break your text into sections
Students usually complain about the amount of the information they need to cover and somehow to remember it. To make the process of reading a long and overwhelming text better it is a good solution to break it into parts with headings. In this case, the information read in the paragraph would be structured and easily remembered.
Turn the headings into questions
If you already have the headings of the text paragraphs, it much simplifies your work. All you need is to turn the headings into the question. For example, if the heading of the paragraph on https://essayontime.com.au sounds like ‘types of oral translation’ than turn it into the question like ‘What are the types of oral translation?’. Thus, you will memorize not just the headings of the text, but also the information you have covered in this passage.
Underline key points
Fall into a habit of highlighting key points while reading. It will help you to underline important facts and data and not to get lost in the unnecessary information. Even after finishing reading, there is a good opportunity to look through the information you have underlined and refresh some text key points in your memory.
Make up your vocabulary
According to the fact that we just learn to improve our reading comprehension, there is a nice opportunity to write down the words you do not know and create your own vocabulary.
Try read aloud
Reading aloud helps us not to get lost in the reading process and pay attention to essential parts of the passage. By covering the text aloud you visualize the information which helps you better and faster memorize even insignificant moments.
Reread
Reading is a skill that requires practice, and sometimes it is very difficult to memorize big amount of information you find out from the text. It is often helpful to get back to the previous passages of the text, look through them and noting key points of the paragraph.
Always reread the sections you get confused
ESL students often face the problem of losing the focus or getting confused on peculiar moments of a text. It happens in cases of unfamiliar vocabulary or difficult topic of the text, but if it happens, do not feel ashamed to stop and get back to the moment you have comprehended. Summarize the information you have found out from the text, reread the paragraph where you meet some difficulties and summarize the covered information.
Retell
When it comes to improving your reading comprehension, retelling a paragraph is always a good idea. There is no way better to memorize the information than to retell it aloud. If you do not enjoy speaking aloud to yourself, you can always try to write down the outline. By following the outline, you will remember and note everything you have covered.
Take notes
The last tip is very similar to the writing down the outline, but taking notes allows you to write down way more information and extend the facts you find out. Take notes while reading, by writing important names, dates, key points and so on and make the process of memorizing a text more efficient. The guest article is written by Joseph Sartori.
