How can I improve my general reading skills?
If you find IELTS reading texts very difficult to understand, you probably need to improve your general reading skills. If so, please follow the steps below.
NOTE: it's important to remember that the IELTS Reading test tests your ability to understand the meaning of texts. It is not a word matching exercise. Word matching is not a Band 7 level strategy. There is a section about how to read for meaning later in this article. You should focus on reading for meaning in all of the steps below.
- Step 1: Reading Improvement Action Plan
To improve your general reading skills, you should start by getting familiar with the Reading Improvement Action Plan, which is part of our Reading Course. This article explains where to find it: How to find the Reading Improvement Plan
- Step 2: Graded reading
The video above talks about graded reading materials. These are texts that have been simplified so that people of different levels of English can understand them. Watch the video to find out how they can help you.
Here are some graded reading sites:
- http://dreamreader.net/ - This is the website mentioned in the Reading Improvement Action Plan above. NOTE: the dreamreader site is currently down. It is an independent site that is beyond our control, but hopefully, it will function again soon. However, here are some other good sites that you can use.
- https://english-e-reader.net/ - You can sign up for free with your email address.
- https://www.esolcourses.com/content/topicsmenu/reading.html
- https://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/skills/reading
- https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/skills/reading
- Step 3: Reading for pleasure
When your reading skills have improved and you are better able to understand graded reading materials, a good way to continue improving is to find English materials on topics that interest you and start reading them regularly. For instance, if you like travelling, you could read travel blogs like the ones mentioned here. Or, if you're interested in business, these blogs might suit you.
- Step 4: Reading for IELTS
At some point, you'll need to progress to IELTS-level materials. Here's an article that explains more about this: Where can I find texts that are of a similar difficulty level to the Reading test?
How to read for meaning
If you need to improve your general reading skills, it is very important that you learn to read for meaning. This means that you try to think about the following while you are reading:
- why the author includes this or that information
- if the writer agrees with the information/facts
- if you agree with the information/facts
- why the information is in the order that it is
- what the main idea is
- what information you think is going to come next in the article
- why the author uses certain phrases or expressions
Reading to improve your vocabulary is very different. You might need to both improve your vocabulary and improve your general reading skills. That's fine. You should. You just can't do both at the same time.
Try:
- one day: read to improve your general reading skills
- next day: read to improve your vocabulary
- next day: read to improve your general reading skills
- next day: read to improve your vocabulary
- etc.
You will only improve the weakness you work on, so don't be surprised if you don't improve your general reading skills if all you do is read to learn new words.
