Comprehension is an important aspect of reading. When you read, strive to understand and extract meaning for better overall awareness of what you are reading. By learning and implementing reading strategies and changing how you read, you can improve your reading comprehension abilities and make reading easier and more enjoyable.
7 easy steps to read and comprehend easily
Improve your vocabulary
Knowing what the words you are reading mean can improve your ability to comprehend the meaning of the text. To improve your vocabulary.
Come up with questions about the text you are reading.
Asking questions about what you are reading can help improve your reading comprehension by allowing you to become invested in the text. It can also broaden your overall understanding of what you are reading by enabling you to explore themes, motifs and other components of text that you otherwise wouldn’t inquire about.
Use context clues
Using context clues is a great way to understand what you are reading even if you don’t know all the vocabulary being used. Context clues can be found in the words and sentences surrounding the word that you aren’t familiar with. To use context clues, you can focus on the key phrases or ideas in a sentence and deduce the main idea of a sentence or paragraph based on this information. You can also look for nearby words that are synonyms or antonyms of the word you don’t know.
Look for the main idea
Identifying the main idea of a paragraph or article can help you determine the importance of the article. Understanding why what you’re reading is important can give you a better comprehension of what the author is trying to convey. When reading, pause every few paragraphs and see if you can decipher what the main idea is. Then, try to put the main idea in your own words for even further understanding.
Write a summary of what you read
A great way to increase your knowledge of what you have read is to write a summary. Summarizing requires you to decide what is important in the text and then put it in your own words. Summarizing allows you to determine if you truly understand what you have read and better remember what you have read in the long term.
Break up the reading into smaller sections
If you are reading longer or more challenging text, consider breaking it up into smaller sections. For example, you could read two paragraphs at a time and then pause to quickly summarize what you just read in your mind. Breaking up what you are reading can help you feel less overwhelmed and give you a better chance of truly comprehending the information in the text.
Pace yourself
Pacing yourself is also an effective way to work on your reading comprehension skills by allowing you to set realistic goals for your reading practice and habits. This is especially true for books or other literature that you find challenging. Set a goal for yourself that you know you can meet each day. For example, rather than saying that you want to read an entire book in two days, say that you will read three chapters a night. This allows you to reach your goals and also provides adequate time for you to process what you are reading between each session.