Reading

Did you know that one of the best ways to improve your writing is by reading? A lot of students always ask me 'Teacher! How can I improve me writing?'. When I tell them that they need to read more they look disappointed. There is no magic cure to learning how to read and write. You just have to do it! While this might be a bit painful - I know it is difficult! - I want you to try and read for at least 10 minutes every day. When you find reading 10 minutes easy, then you can move to 20 minutes, then 30 and so on. If you make learning more simple - by starting with small pieces of information - you will start to see your progress more quickly. This is because you will see your achievements and then feel more confident to try more!

Ok so here are some tips:
1) Try to read through the text without stopping to look up words. First read it through and see if you can get the general idea. Underline any new words as you go but DON'T LOOK THEM UP!
2) Go back to your underlined words and make a vocabulary list with the headings noun, adjective, verb, adverb. Try to figure out what category of word it is based on its relationship to other words around it. Put the wod in the list.
3) Look up the word in an English-English dictionary. Check to see if you had the rigth word category. If not, move it. See if you understand the meaning of the word in English
4) If you really don't know what the word is, look it up in your language but try to rewrite the definition in English.

When you understand the meaning of the text, try to practise writing in your own words what the text was about. This will help you a lot!

Here are some websites for reading you can try!

http://www.eslgold.com/reading.html

http://www.infosquares.com/readingcomprehension/