- Open your eyes(多觀察)- Try to boost your awareness of the reading you do all around you. Pay attention to English on billboards, advertisements, leaflets, food packages, etc.
- Identify your reading problems by writing a summary (寫撮要解難題)- Find a short newspaper article which interests you and read it once quickly to get the main ideas. Then cover it up and try to write a brief summary of the main points. Finally, compare the summary with the article to see how many main points you have got. If you find the result unsatisfactory, try to identify your problem. Do you have problems with sentence structures, vocabulary, etc ? If you can identify your reading problem, focus on it.
- Time your reading(閱讀須計時)- Look for the main ideas of an article for a limited time. Don’t bother about the details. This is a method to enhance your speed of reading. Keep a log of the amount of time it takes. If the time decreases, then you should be getting more information more quickly.
- Make cloze exercises(設計閱讀理解習題)- Make a cloze exercise, either for yourself or a friend. Photocopy the text and use correction fluid to white out some words. You can focus on any aspect of language you wish, for example, nouns, verbs, prepositions, or whatever you find difficult. Fill in the blanks. Check your answer with the original texts. Think about the words you used and the words in the original text. This method can enhance your awareness of using different terms in different contexts.
- Read the Chinese version in advance (先閱中文版本)- Read texts in Chinese first before you read the English texts. After getting the main ideas from Chinese materials, reading the English ones becomes easier. You will realise how some Chinese expressions are expressed in English.
- Follow the instructions for various reading materials (透過閱指南增強閱讀能力)- Try to follow the instructions of manuals or guidebooks for any electrical appliance, e.g. computer, mini hi-fi, recording machines. Does the machine perform the function you wish? If not, try to decide what went wrong in your reading. Alternatively, you can read a cook book and test your comprehension by preparing the food correctly.
- Guess meaning from context (從文章脈絡猜出字意) - While reading, people are usually discouraged by unfamiliar words or phrases. An inefficient reader looks up every unknown word/phrase in a dictionary but an efficient one doesn’t. Why ? Because the efficient reader guesses meaning from the context of the text. When you come across new words from an article, don’t check the dictionary immediately! Try to guess the meaning of the words first. A more interesting way of doing this is to try to get one or two friends to read the same article. If there are any common unknown words/phrases, compete with your friends to guess the correct meaning. Look the words/phrases up in the dictionary for the correct definition. The one who gets the closest meaning wins.
- Match reading speed to the materials (閱讀速度要依據文章種類) - You can divide items into several categories such as manual, advertisement, blog article, letter, newspaper article, academic essay, story or novel. Know what you are reading. Read the title, the subtitles, and the section headings to get the gist. Academic reading require closer, slower reading whereas leisure reading moves faster. Be sure you also get the information in graphic aids and illustration.
- Read for pleasure (享受閱讀)- Research has shown that reading consistently for pleasure boosts comprehension and vocabulary. Try popular books, comics, books about the films you have seen. It is NOT necessary to understand every word, just keep reading.
- Read with a grammar focus (以閱讀加強用文法能力) - Look at a reading passage and see how the grammatical structures are used. Try to classify them under different headings like relative clauses, present tense, passive voice etc. Being able to identify different grammatical structures of a passage boosts your reading speed. If you have trouble classifying the grammatical structures, you may have to consult a grammar book or teacher.
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For your refreshment and review on some of my suggested ideas, enjoy the video:
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