English Reading Practice to Be More Fluent | Proven Steps for Success

So I recently finished a new book in my second language,

and I have to tell you, I understood probably about 80%,

which felt amazing to me. Now,

when I tried to talk about it in a conversation that was a different challenge.

And if you're curious whether I remember all the new vocabulary

I learned in this book, well, I can tell you that some of it stuck.

I remember quite a few of the words that I learned while using the right

strategies while reading,

but other times I was kind of just reading for fun.

If you've ever read a book in English and felt proud of how much you understood,

but then struggled to talk about it,

I know exactly what you mean and I don't want you to worry.

It's not that reading in English isn't helpful,

it's just that reading alone isn't enough If your goal is to use

reading to improve your spoken fluency,

and the reason is that reading is a passive activity that doesn't lead

to active speaking unless you've got the right strategies. And here's the thing,

if this has ever happened to you,

if you've read a book in English and then wondered why you can't talk about it

or use the new vocabulary, I want you to know it's not your fault.

Most people were never taught how to read in a way that

strengthens fluency.

Teachers might tell you to read more to improve your English,

but they don't always explain how to make reading an active part of

your learning. So in the end,

you're left reading passively kind of soaking up the words,

but not really engaging with them. The good news is once you know what to do,

it's a super simple fix, and that's exactly what we're going to do today.

You're going to learn how to use reading to effectively build your English

vocabulary, sharpen your grammar,

and actually speak with more fluency and confidence. Now,

before we get into those strategies,

there's something important we need to talk about. Not all reading is the same.

When you're reading in English, you're probably doing one of two things.

Number one, you might be reading just for enjoyment.

That means that you're focused on the story or topic and kind of absorbing

the language naturally, but not stopping at every new word.

You're just there to have fun. Or number two, you may be reading to learn.

This is when you pause,

take notes and pay close attention to new words,

sentence structures or expressions.

Both are totally valuable and okay,

sometimes you just wanna enjoy a book without stopping every few

sentences to analyze grammar, and that's totally fine.

It is so cool to read a book in another language and just have fun with it.

Now, other times you may want to be more intentional,

taking time to engage with new vocabulary,

recognizing patterns and thinking about how you could use what you're reading in

an English conversation. And the best part is these don't have to be separate.

Sometimes learning happens even when you're reading just for fun and

other times.

A book you love can be a wonderful tool for learning if you know

how to use it the right way.

So the goal here isn't to choose one over the other.

It's to recognize when you want to read for enjoyment and when you want to read

for learning or how to blend those two in a way that makes sense.

Now that we have that foundation,

let's get into strategies that help you actually remember and use

what you read ultimately supporting your English fluency.

There's something important here.

I want you to know that you don't have to follow all the strategies I'm going to

share with you every time you read in English. If you are reading for enjoyment,

let it be fun. And if you want to focus on learning,

pick one or two strategies from this lesson. Also, when you're reading to learn,

I recommend reading for about 20 minutes.

You can give yourself a hard shutoff time.

This will help you avoid getting overly tired or burnt out, and again,

you don't have to apply all of these strategies at once. Plus,

if a book ever feels too overwhelming,

it's okay to walk away and come back to it later.

The goal is not to turn reading into some kind of stressful study session.

It's to engage with English in a way that helps you grow.

Equally important is choosing the right material.

The best reading material for fluency is a book that is not too easy

and not too hard. If it's too easy,

you're just rushing through the words that you already know,

and if it's too hard, ultimately you'll feel frustrated and overwhelmed,

probably stopping way too often to look things up in a dictionary,

the sweet spot is to understand about 75% of what you're reading

so that you're challenged by the remaining 25%.

You don't want it to be so hard that it ultimately disrupts

the flow of your reading. If you're not sure what book to start with,

I've got some recommendations for you.

I'll tell you all about them in just a moment. But for now,

once you have a book article or story ready to go,

it's time to move from passive reading into active learning to

support your English fluency.

So let's talk about how to do that step by step. First,

when you read a new word, don't rush to look it up in the dictionary.

Instead, I want you to challenge yourself.

I want you to use context clues first.

This means that you look at the whole sentence and look at the words

around the new word. Do those words give you any hints about the meaning?

Does it help you determine whether the word has a negative or positive meaning?

Is it an action of some kind or a description?

I want you to guess first and then check in a dictionary.

The reason is this helps your brain connect strongly to that

word and the meaning rather than just memorizing a definition. Plus,

if you train yourself to figure out words from context,

you're going to get better at understanding English in real conversations

without translating word for word in your head. Now,

I know that highlighting new words might feel productive.

I'm guilty of this as well, but the truth is,

if you never go back to review them, you're not going to learn them. So instead,

I want you to create a system for taking notes that actually helps you

remember what you're reading.

So a system that you could use might be to circle any new words,

underline useful phrases that you want to use,

and maybe draw a star next to grammar structures that you want to study.

You're giving yourself a code and then instead of just

stopping there, I want you to go into a notebook, a journal that you keep,

and write down those words, phrases and sentences.

This is moving from a passive activity into an active activity,

and it will help you remember the words that you're learning and the

structures that you're interested in.

It'll also help you remember how these new words are used as a result.

When you go back to review your notes, you're not just looking at random words,

you're looking at real examples of how English works.

My third recommendation is before starting a new chapter in a book,

I want you to take a moment to predict what you think might happen.

So you might read the chapter title or the heading and maybe look at the

first few sentences and then stop there and ask yourself,

what do I think this is going to be about? What do I think is going to happen?

This simple habit activates your vocabulary and your memory

before you even start reading.

It's an opportunity to reuse some vocabulary that you've read in a previous

chapter, and then once you're ready to continue,

you can ask yourself a few questions. Was your prediction correct?

What new words or ideas came up?

And could you explain what's happening in your own words?

Doing this keeps you engaged and makes reading more interactive as opposed to a

passive activity. Now,

so far we've looked at several strategies you can use when you are reading to

learn, particularly when you're focused on new vocabulary.

But now let's talk about grammar.

I'm curious if you ever feel like you know grammar but

struggle to use it naturally.

One reason for that is that grammar isn't just about rules, it's about patterns.

While reading, I want you to focus on patterns that can help you improve.

For example, how do English speakers use time expressions such as yesterday,

last week, by next month?

How do sentences flow together using language like however,

because and even though and how are descriptions structured,

think about the way that we use adjectives before nouns or

specific phrases used to make comparisons.

If you keep a small notebook to document these patterns,

you'll start recognizing them naturally, not just in reading,

but in conversations as well,

and you'll do it without needing to memorize grammar rules. Now,

as we've discussed,

reading is fantastic and we've just highlighted several strategies that will

help you learn vocabulary more effectively and grammar as well.

But if your goal is to read in order to improve your English fluency,

we need to change that input into output.

So let's talk about how to use what you read in real English

conversations. First, I recommend reading aloud.

This is one of the easiest ways to improve fluency because it helps with your

pronunciation. It also improves your rhythm and pauses,

and it makes you more comfortable speaking English out loud.

So if you want to use this approach, here's how to do it. First,

start small, start with just a short passage, a few paragraphs,

and record yourself. After you do that, go back and listen to it.

Does it sound natural to you? Is there anything that you might want to change?

You can always go back and do it again,

and this practice is so effective in helping you

sharpen pronunciation and your fluency. The more you practice reading out loud,

the more confident you'll feel when it's time to speak. Now,

if you want to take reading out loud a step further,

you could try shadow reading. Here's how it works.

You could listen to an audio book while reading along and then

repeat after the speaker trying to match their pronunciation and rhythm.

When it comes to shadowing, there are three different levels.

If you're a total beginner at this,

I want you to just listen and read along silently,

just get comfortable with the speaker's voice. As you develop this skill,

you can then move on to the intermediate phase,

which means that as you're listening and reading the book at the same time,

you can whisper along with the speaker,

and then the most advanced level is to repeat exactly what you hear

at full volume, staying about half a second behind the speaker,

so it means that you're really speaking quite fast.

Following this method will help to train your brain to process English

faster and sound more natural. Now, when you're reading to learn,

I know that it's tempting to complete your reading activity,

maybe write down a few vocabulary words and then close your book and walk away.

But instead of doing that, here's what I want you to do.

Take a couple of extra minutes to summarize what you've read and do it

in your own words.

You can certainly review the vocabulary list that you've started and try to

reuse those new vocabulary words in your summary.

You could also try explaining the book to a friend. When you're doing this,

don't worry about making mistakes.

I just want you to focus on getting your ideas out. Again,

this is about learning and practicing.

This is the phase when mistakes are totally okay. We learn from them,

and then we go back. We do it again and we refine along the way.

Following this process forces you to actively use the language which

helps new words and new grammatical structures stick in your mind.

And if you want real conversations in English,

talk about what you're reading with others.

This is the best way to not just learn,

but also remember all the new vocabulary and grammar that you've been reading,

and here are a few ways that you can do that. Number one,

you could find a conversation partner,

and once you have your conversation partner,

you could talk about what you're reading or give a short summary.

You could also go to a language learning form online and share an interesting

quote or ask a question using some of the vocabulary that you've been reading.

If you love acting,

you could role play a scene and act out a dialogue in the book.

And finally, you could join an English book club.

Reading is so much more effective and fun when you can discuss it with others.

Now, speaking of English book clubs,

if you love reading and want to actually talk about what you're learning in

English, my Confident Women Community has a book club where we do exactly that.

We select books, read them together,

discuss new vocabulary and practice speaking about the book in a supportive

space. If that sounds like something you'd absolutely love,

I want you to check out the Confident Women Community and I'll share a link in

the notes below the video. Alright,

here's what I want you to take away from this lesson today.

Reading isn't just about understanding words,

it's about engaging with them, using them,

and if you love reading and want to use reading to improve your English

fluency, you absolutely can.

You just need to be sure to choose the right materials, read actively,

not passively, and use strategies that help you.

Remember new vocabulary and grammar structures. And most importantly,

you need to find ways to talk about what you're reading in English. Now,

I mentioned earlier that if you're not sure where to get started,

I've got a list of recommended books.

So whether you're just beginning to read in English or maybe

you're an advanced English reader looking for your next book,

I've got a full list for you and you can get that list by visiting this lesson

over at my Speak Confident English website.

I'll leave a link to this lesson directly in the notes below.

And now I'd love to hear from you.

I want to know which strategy you're going to try first.

Are you gonna be a context detective or start a reading journal?

Are you gonna begin reading aloud?

I would love to hear your first step in the comments below. And of course,

if you've found this lesson helpful to you, you can tell me in one simple way,

give this lesson a thumbs up here on YouTube, and while you're at it,

make sure you subscribe so you never miss one of my Confident English lessons.

Thank you so much for joining me, and I look forward to seeing you next time.