How to improve your English reading skills

If you’re looking for an effective way to learn a language, you can’t go wrong with reading.

Reading is one of the best ways to learn a language. But practicing your English reading skills isn’t as simple as picking up a book and relaxing on the sofa — you need to engage with text to get the most benefits.

In this article, you’ll learn 15 tips to help you properly engage with whatever you read.

1. Identify your reading level

Before you can do anything, you need to know your current level. This is the starting point for improving your reading skills. It’ll tell you what texts to choose and what activities to do. If you already know your level — maybe you recently took a test — then great, you can move on to the next tip.

If you don’t know your level, you need to self-assess your reading skills. Don’t worry, this doesn’t need to be 100% accurate. You can make a rough estimate using the CEFR proficiency levels and its self-assessment grid. Be honest about your level here and it’ll help you get the most out of your English reading practice.

2. Establish clear objectives

Effective goal setting is crucial for language learning as it directly impacts motivation. Setting realistic goals is key to maintaining motivation levels. One popular framework for goal setting is SMART goals, which stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. For example, you can set goals such as reading a specific number of pages each day, learning a set amount of new vocabulary per week, or exploring a new genre of content each month. 

Ensure that the goals you set are attainable yet challenging enough to provide a sense of accomplishment when achieved. Striking the right balance is essential to keep motivation high. 

3. Choose Appropriate Learning Materials

Select materials that align with your goals, proficiency level, and interests. Whether it's fiction, business news, or other genres, choosing subjects that resonate with you can help maintain motivation. It's also important to consider the difficulty level of the materials—opt for texts that are at or slightly above your current reading level to make the learning process engaging yet not overly frustrating. Utilize resources like Busuu, which offers a variety of reading exercises and materials to help enhance your language skills in an accessible manner.

4. Diversify Your Reading Materials

While it's easy to stick to familiar content, challenging yourself with a variety of texts such as books, newspapers, magazines, and online articles can enrich your vocabulary and comprehension skills. Exploring different genres like fiction, non-fiction, science fiction, etc., can broaden your reading experience and introduce you to diverse language styles and structures. 

5. Engage with different genres 

It’s good to read a bunch of different genres too. Explore fiction, non-fiction, science fiction, fantasy, biographies, histories, investigative journalism, etc. By mixing things up like this, you keep your practice sessions fresh and interesting. Each genre also introduces you to different lexicons, themes, styles, and structures.

6. Practice consistently

Build a consistent reading habit you can stick to. 15 minutes per day might not sound like a lot but that’s about 90 hours a year. That’s a lot of reading practice. If you tried to cram all that practice into just the weekends, you’d need to read for two hours every weekend for a year to hit 90 hours. That’s much harder to stick to than 15 minutes per day. Little and often is a great way to build a consistent, and manageable habit. Remember, 15 minutes per day is the minimum. If you’re enjoying a book so much that you get into a reading flow, don’t stop. It’s impossible to read too much.

7. Read extensively and intensively

Different kinds of reading have different effects on language acquisition. Extensive reading is when you read a lot of easy and interesting texts with a focus on overall meaning. When you read in this way, you learn a language naturally — similar to how you learned your first language.
Intensive reading is when you read shorter and more challenging texts with a focus on language features. You analyze the text and the language. This is the most common kind of reading language learners do — you probably did this in language classes at school.
There are benefits to both of these approaches so why not mix them together? That way you’ll get a well-rounded reading practice.

8. Practice active reading

This might sound obvious, but when you’re reading, pay attention. Focus on the text. Don’t be passive. Here are some ways you can be engaged with the content you read.

• Take notes. Write down new vocabulary, key points, and any questions or reflections you have about the text. Reviewing your notes reinforces what you learn and it makes sure you’re paying attention to the text. 

• Ask questions. This is a really simple way of staying engaged with the text. Ask questions about the text, characters, and storyline.

• Make predictions. When you’re reading, take a guess at what you think will happen next. You can do this on a chapter-by-chapter basis. Or you can try and guess the ending. What’s important is that you’re not being passive. Take an active part in the experience by making predictions.

9. Write summaries

After finishing a text, write a brief summary of what you've read. This exercise allows you to review what you read — and you get to practice writing skills. Here’s a quick tip: If you want to focus on understanding the gist, make the summary short (even one sentence). If you want to focus on understanding the details, make the summary longer.

Channel your inner critic and add your opinion to the summary too. You can use this to recommend texts to other people in your language-learning community.

10. Practice skimming and scanning

Skimming and scanning are important reading skills — especially if you want to take a test with time limits. Skimming means quickly reading through the text to understand the main idea while scanning involves searching for specific information within the text. When skimming or scanning you don’t need to read every word. Focus on the information you want to understand (the gist or the details) and search for it in the text.

11. Visualize

Create mental images of the scenes, characters, and events described in the text. This brings the text to life, making it easier to understand and remember the content (and makes it more fun).

12. Read and listen at the same time

Reading and listening at the same time is a great activity for language learners. Combine audiobooks with the books you read. If you read online resources and not books, give text-to-speech functions a try. This activity helps your reading skills, of course, but it’s also great for listening and pronunciation skills.

13. Join a reading group

Reading isn’t just about reading. Reading is also about discussing what you’ve read. This might not directly influence your reading skills (but will help your speaking and writing skills). A great way to do this is by joining a reading group. You get to interact with other people, engage with what you’ve read on a deeper level, and get different points of view about the content.

14. Look for context clues

What do you do when you come across a new word or structure? Probably, you reach for your translator app. But before you do that, try and figure out the meaning on your own (you can always check the dictionary later).

Context clues help understand the meaning of unfamiliar words and phrases. They’re hints in the sentence or paragraph that help your understanding. So pay attention to the words and sentences that come before or after the new word. They might give you the clue to unlocking its meaning.

15. Review and reflect

When you finish a text, the learning still continues. Don’t forget about the text right away, reflect on it. Think about what you've learned and how it relates to your life. If the text was challenging, think about why. This can identify areas you need to practice in the future. You can also reread and review parts that you enjoyed. Or parts that you couldn’t understand well.

Let's learn English together!