Self confident Reader

How to become a self-confident reader.

In my life, I have studied several languages, in addition to English: German, French, Spanish, Italian and Latin. I have learned much about these languages, but my great weakness in using them for communication is that I have a very limited vocabulary. I only know a small number of words, and how to use them, in each language.

I have learned that building one's vocabulary is one of the keys to success when learning a new language. In the case of the English language, there are too many words for anyone to learn them all, even in a lifetime. Nevertheless, for you, as a new English language communicator, expanding your vocabulary will be one key to your success. The path to building your vocabulary is reading. Here, we will go beyond merely reading words and reach for reading 'comprehension' (understanding) which is critical, active and designed to improve your command of English.

Active, critical reading requires that you apply your skills. This is hard work but the reward is worth it. At this stage in your English learning process, you should take the time and invest the effort to learn all of the new words that you encounter (come across).

In the communication module, we discussed the learning/teaching/proving process.
We learned about the different perspectives one must adopt in order to understand these processes: teacher, learner, or someone who has to prove something to someone.

And we learned that there are steps in the process that must be followed in order to achieve the desired result: teaching, learning or proving something to someone.

Reading is a process as well, with identifiable (distinct) steps:

The 10 steps in the reading process:

1. Who are you?
2. Why are you reading this?
3. Who wrote what are you reading? Consider the source.
4. How is it written? Observe the structure of what you are reading.
5. When was it written? Understand/define the context of the document.
6. For whom was it written? Understand the intended audience for the document.
7. Read the document, sentence by sentence.
8. Think about the meaning of each phrase and the complete idea that the sentence is expressing.
9. Re-read sentences, paragraphs, and pages as you need to.
10. Take notes that address (relate to) 'why' you are reading this.

Let's review these steps in detail and then let's practice the steps together.