Reading
Reading is the cheapest, quietest and most effective English practice there is — and the one most learners abandon after two pages.
Why most people give up
They choose something too difficult, meet six unknown words in the first paragraph, look up all six, lose the thread, and conclude that their English is not good enough for reading.
The remedy is simple and slightly counter-intuitive: read something easier than you think you should. If you meet more than about five unknown words on a page, the text is too hard for reading practice, however interesting it is.
Three reading speeds, for three purposes
Skimming — for the gist
Move your eye quickly down the page to find out what it is about. Read the first sentence of each paragraph and little else. Use this on a newspaper page to decide what is worth reading properly.
Scanning — for one piece of information
You already know what you are looking for: a time, a price, a name. Do not read; hunt. Use this on timetables, notices, forms and advertisements.
Careful reading — for full understanding
Slow, every word, going back when necessary. Use it for instructions, contracts, official letters — and for the one or two paragraphs of a longer text that actually matter.
The rule about unknown words
Do not stop. Read to the end of the paragraph first. Very often the next sentence explains the word, or makes it unnecessary.
If a word appears three times and you still do not know it, then look it up — it is clearly important. Otherwise leave it. Understanding ninety per cent of a page you enjoyed is worth far more than understanding one hundred per cent of a paragraph that defeated you.
What to read
Newspapers
Start with short news items rather than editorials. News writing is deliberately plain, and the same words recur, which is exactly what a learner needs.
Graded readers
Books written at a controlled level of difficulty. There is no shame in reading a simplified book; there is real harm in abandoning a difficult one.
Anything about your own work
You already know the subject, so the context does half the work. Reading in a field you know is the fastest way to build useful vocabulary.
Children's and young people's fiction
Simple language, strong stories, and written to keep the reader turning pages — which is the quality that matters most for practice.
Notices, forms and instructions
Unglamorous, and the most immediately useful reading you can do. Read the small print of things you have already signed.
Anything you would read in your own language
Interest defeats difficulty. A learner reading about something they love will finish; a learner reading an approved text will not.
Twenty minutes, six days a week
Twenty minutes of reading you enjoy, six days a week, will do more for your English in a year than any course you can buy.
Keep the book where you will see it. Read at the same time each day. Do not take notes, do not look words up, and do not test yourself. Just read.