By When a person is not accustomed to reading, it is difficult for him/her and he/she is slow and memory is not well trained for reading, so that he/she does not remember what he/she reads, especially the long sentences, and often has to read something several times before understanding what it says.
Reading is something that improves with practice but many students just read, preferring television, computers or the Internet rather than a book. This lack of practice in reading can cause problems when they have to study. However, reading skills can be improved. Here are some tips to help you achieve this;
1 – Ask yourself why you read something
Before you start reading, it is important that you know why you are going to read. For example, if your teacher has assigned you a certain reading, you can ask what you hope to learn from it. Depending on the reason, you can focus especially in parts of the text that will help you achieve your purpose.
2 – Check out a quick text
Read various titles, headers of sections, the main paragraphs, usually the first and last of each section, and look at the graphs, tables and images to make a general idea of the content of the text. This will help you remember better when you read it whole and help you to know in advance where the most important contents are.
3 – Underline or take notes
Underline the text you read to highlight the main points and help you remember better. You can also add margin notes if nothing is emphasized. These notes will serve, for example, to remember the main idea of a paragraph. To underline, it is important to know the meaning of the text and take into account the purpose of reading. Once you are clear about what the text says and what you understood, you will recognize the key phrases or words which summarize the main idea or serve to remember and underline them.
4 – Use Mental Images
The pictures are better than words to recall. You can convert the meaning of the text in an image that will help you to remember it afterwards. You can use the underlined words, for example, to convert them into images or make mental images of titles of the sections. For example, if you wanted to remember all the sections of this article you are reading now, you can create a mental picture for each section and then join all those images into a coherent whole, as if they had a story to remember them all together. It’s a matter of using your imagination.
