7 ways to IMPROVE ENGLISH READING skills and comprehension | Learning English Technique Lesson

498,059 views ・ 2018-02-03

English with Lucy


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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hello everyone and welcome back to english with lucy so i've made a video
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about improving your listening and i made one about writing very recently as
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well and i have made one on conversation but today the time has come to make a
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video about improving your reading and your reading comprehension because
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that's what you guys have been asking for so this video is going to be
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jam-packed ie really really full of tips that will help you improve so whether
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you want to improve because you need to do a reading exam or if you just want to
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read for pleasure and understand more these tips are going to help you let's
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get started with the video now let's start with an easy one and one that you
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definitely will have heard before but it's so important I feel like I need to
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reiterate it and this is read the question now at school I remember being
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bored of my teachers telling me to read the question always read the question
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remember to read the question but having worked as a teacher and having marked so
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many exams oh my god so many points are lost through people miss reading the
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question how many times have you seen a question that says answer with one
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example of bah-bah-bah well if you give two examples most of the time you will
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not get the point because you've given too many examples or if they asked you
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to describe something and you provide a list it's not a description so you might
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lose that point so please just bear it in mind you need to read the question
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that was a pretty easy one let's get on to the next one now tip number two is
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all about practice but the best way to practice and this is by reading the news
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we're better to find up-to-the-minute current vocabulary that you can use in
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conversations that you're going to see in exams because often exams will
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use examples of current events or recent events so as a teacher I am always on
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the lookout for the best news resources for my students
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The Telegraph app have very kindly sponsored today's video but it wasn't a
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hard job for me because I already use the app on a daily basis it is the news
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app that I recommend to my students the reason I recommend this to my students
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is because it's trusted news content you can use it both online and offline so
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when you're connected to Wi-Fi you can download all the news stories and then
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when you're out and about you can catch up on everything it's excellent because
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you can click on the topic that is relevant and interesting to you because
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that's really important download it whilst you're at home or
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connected to Wi-Fi and then when you're on your commute or you're out and about
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or you're somewhere where there's bad internet or at school for example you
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can catch up with all the latest news stories in the section that interests
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you most so that's one thing that I love about it the way that you can view
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everything offline as well as online know it's all very well reading the news
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every day but how can you use the news to get as much vocabulary into your
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brain as possible well I would encourage you to keep a vocab diary my
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recommendation is keep it all on your phone use the Telegraph
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app try and read the articles that are relevant and interesting to you and then
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on the note function on your phone keep a vocab diary so you could date it every
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day you can note down the words that you don't understand in the app and then
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when you get home you can fill in that diary find out what the words mean and
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there you have a list to study from now you guys have probably heard all the
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fake news and the untrustworthy news articles going around The Telegraph is
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completely trusted it's well written it's well researched it's current it's
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up-to-the-minute and you can view it both online and offline so it's
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completely accessible I've left the link in the description box for anybody who
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wants to download it I really do encourage you to do that vocab diary
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because it has transformed so many of my students vocabularies right tip number
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three relates back a little bit to tip number two but it's really important if
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you want to achieve the right amount of because practice does make perfect and
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that is scheduled in reading time and you will be amazed at how much this can
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increase the amount you read every morning on your commute or or during a
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break work or school or you could be reading for pleasure so you could be
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setting aside an extra half an hour in the evening but make sure you make
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reading part of your routine because otherwise other things take priority and
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you will miss out because improving your reading and improving your other
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language skills really is like running a marathon
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you can't cram it you can't do something once and then inspect to see a massive
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improvement it needs to be little and often that's why little tasks like
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scheduling in and writing a vocab diary are so so effective let me know in the
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comments below when you most like to read or if you're going to schedule in
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reading time and when that's going to be now another way you could look at
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scheduling in reading time is setting yourself a reading goal so depending on
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your level schedule in a certain amount of articles every single day or however
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many chapters or pages of a book every single day you know I'm not reading to
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improve my English I'm reading for entertainment and to keep up to date
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with current affairs I like to set myself the goal of reading at least 5
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articles in the morning whilst I have my coffee I skim read them and it's just
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the right amount of time for me obviously if I have more time I'll read
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more I do like to start off the day with my set amount I can go over but I can't
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go under so look at scheduling in a goal for each day now the next hip is a
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little bit strange and it might not work for everybody but it really really works
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for me it worked for me when I was doing my exams at university because I found
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studying so boring but I needed to ingest a huge amount of articles essays
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textbooks literature in general and something I found incredibly helpful and
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something that made reading much more pleasurable and much more enjoyable was
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reading using the voice of a celebrity in my head
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and my celebrity of choice was always Stephen Fry who I've mentioned in
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previous videos he speaks with received pronunciation
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he's very very intelligent he's a comedian he has a lovely voice and I
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used to read through all of the essays literature for my university degree in
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in his voice and I just got into a habit and I found that it made everything less
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dreadful and I've seen that other people do it too because I get messages on
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Instagram and comments on YouTube saying whenever I read anything in English I do
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it in your voice loosely and at first I thought how strange and then I thought
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oh that's what I do just even Fri so yeah pick a voice of somebody that you
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really really like and and try using their voice in your head next time you
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read something if you're reading to practice your English let me know which
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person you choose in the comments because I think it'll be quite funny to
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see who everyone chooses now the next tip is for people who just really aren't
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satisfied with their reading comprehension if you feel like you are
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underperforming in exams or you're not getting the most out of reading for
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pleasure this tips for you I want you to step back from your reading and evaluate
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what's going wrong why why are you dissatisfied in order to find a cure you
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need to find the problem you need to ask yourself why are you lacking vocabulary
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is it that every other sentence you can't understand because you don't
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understand the words are you lacking technical vocabulary so you'll fine
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reading a general story but if you read about politics or science you're
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completely stumped stumped means confused is it that you really struggle
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with tenses is it that you can't work out which past tense is being used or if
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they're talking about the present or the future is it rather than the language
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used is it that you find reading too tiring or too boring is it that you run
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out of time in an exam you need to think about what is going wrong and then find
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yourself a solution or ask some I'd help you find a solution I can give
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you all the tips to apply to your reading but if you don't work out what's
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wrong in the first place you're going to have a tough time improving so I invite
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you to think about your reading what is going wrong write it in the comment
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section and let's all help each other to improve our reading skills I can
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identify what's wrong with my reading when I read in Spanish for example I get
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bored i skim read I miss the point and I don't try hard enough to understand the
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whole passage what do I need to do I need to work on summarizing every
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paragraph or every page to make sure that I get a clear grasp of the context
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and just what's going on in the piece so what's your problem and if you can what
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do you need to do to fight it comment down below my next tip is going
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to sound weird as well but it's something that really worked for me and
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this is use a pen and this helps you in a couple of different ways one of the
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obvious ones which you will know about is you can underline words but it is
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really really important to underline key words or even cross out words that you
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think are not relevant as well I wouldn't completely cross them out but
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maybe put a line through if you think no no this stuff doesn't matter just the
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key words but another use for your trusty pen is use it to help you speed
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read so you use it as a pointer this is going to really help anybody that
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struggles with reading a text in a short amount of time in a lot of exams you're
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under time pressure so you want to read as much as possible in the shortest
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amount of time so I find that by using a pen and following under the words like
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this I know I look ridiculous right now but I want you guys to speed read really
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helps me read much more quickly you can try it out see if it works for you take
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an article read it first without the pen read it again with the pen time yourself
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see which one is quicker it might take some getting used to but learning to
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speed read and using a pointer it can transform the way you perform in reading
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exams right guys that's it with the tips for today I really really
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encourage you to click on the link in the description box and download the
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Telegraph app I've already said how great it is it was what I was using
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before and it was an absolute pleasure to be invited to work with them because
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I love recommending things I truly believe in I'm confident that if you set
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yourself a goal of reading to 3 or 5 articles a day for example you really
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really will improve your reading comprehension over time don't forget to
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connect with me on all of my social media I've got my facebook I've got my
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Instagram and I've got my Twitter and I will see you soon for another lesson
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yeah
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you
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