Reading is fun. Reading is cool. It’s a great way to improve your vocabulary. You can easily do some reading at home. Here are a few tips to make it more enjoyable…
Tip #1
Try to read at the right level. If you need to be looking in your dictionary every five words, you’re not going to have fun and it’s going to be exhausting. But if there are, say, a maximum of five new words per page, you will learn this vocabulary easily. You may not even need to use a dictionary because you can guess the meaning from the rest of the text (from the context).
Tip #2
Make a note of new vocabulary. If there are four or five new words on a page, write them in your vocabulary book. But you don’t have to write them while you read. Instead, try to guess their meaning as you read; mark them with a pen; then come back when you have finished reading to check in a dictionary and add them to your vocabulary book.
Tip #3
Try to read regularly. For example, read for a short time once a day. Fifteen minutes every day is better than two hours every Sunday. Fix a time to read and keep to it.
Tip #4
Be organized. Have everything ready:
• something to read
• a marker to highlight difficult words
• a dictionary
• your vocabulary book
• a pen to write down the new words
Tip #5
Read what interests YOU. Choose a magazine, a newspaper or a book about a subject that you like. If you like baseball, keep track of the Hanshin Tigers from the Japan Times.
