How To Improve Your Poker Reading Skills
Did you read anything in English this past week?
How much of it did you understand?
“Reading comprehension” refers to how much you understand of what you read. Even if you read an English book every week, it doesn’t help your learning much if you don’t know what the words on the pages are saying.
The Reading Course can help you! That’s why I’ve created a Reading Course to help you practice reading in English, improve your comprehension, and learn and practice new vocabulary. The lessons in the course are based on articles about various topics in history, science, and culture. Poker strategy tips and tutorials for beginners and advanced players. Improve your skills and learn from experts about Texas Holdem strategy other Poker variants at PokerNews.com. All paragraphs are really necessary for profitable players and each of them can only improve the game. For new players the best way to learn poker game is reading of poker books, because the.
So you may be wondering how to improve English reading beyond just… reading more books.
That’s exactly what we’ll discuss in this article.
- First of all, you can improve a lot in two months, so relax. The more relaxed and confident you are, the more you enjoy your listening and reading, the better you will do. Make sure you listen a lot, at least an hour a day, whenever you have the chance while doing other tasks. Do so in a relaxed manner.
- Improve your poker skills with these hand reading quizzes (page 1).
- Summary: How to Improve Your Writing Skills. Brush up on the basic principles of writing, grammar and spelling. Write like it’s your job and practice regularly. Read more so you develop an eye for what effective writing looks like. Find a partner. Ask them to read your writing and provide feedback. Join a workshop, meetup, or take a writing night class.
We will help you learn English reading with smart strategies. You’ll discover exactly how to read English books in a way that will actually improve your skills.
How to Improve Reading and Understanding English
It’s easier to learn English reading than you think! Here, we will discuss how you can improve using staircases and scaffolding.
When a house is built, it doesn’t all get done at the same time. Workers have to build some temporary structures to help keep the house standing up and to help them work on the higher parts. These structures are called scaffolding.
Scaffolding is also a method of learning. The idea is that, to learn a skill well, you need to learn smaller parts that will help you “build” your knowledge and skills.
This is true for reading comprehension too! To really understand what you read, you might need to work on other skills first. You might need to practice reading quickly (or slowly). You might need to stop choosing very difficult books, and start choosing the right books for your skill level. Start easier, start smaller and slower, and then gradually increase the difficulty.
Remember this when you’re working to improve your reading comprehension—and any other English language skill!
The steps below will show you exactly how to improve reading skills the right way. Use these tips and you’ll be understanding a lot more of what you read.
1. Always Make Special Time to Read
Reading for fun can be done anywhere. You could take a fun book out on a bus, in bed or at the office, and you can enjoy it.
However, if you’re reading to improve your comprehension, you need to focus and study.
This means you need to make a special time for this reading. Making time for your reading will let you focus well without risk of being interrupted. This time should be quiet, and you should avoid being distracted.
You should try to spend at least 30 minutes every day on focused reading. That’s how to improve your reading skills seriously and successfully. The more you read, the more you’ll improve.
Try this:
Turn your reading process into a ritual, something you repeat every time you sit down to focus on reading English.
Follow these steps, or any other steps that you’d like to make a part of your reading process:
- Find a quiet, comfortable spot with bright lighting to sit.
- Get everything you might need ready before you sit down. For example, you might want to have a pen, your notebook, a dictionary and something to drink.
- Decide how long you will read. (30 minutes is a good minimum amount of time.)
- Put all your electronics on silent mode (or turn them off) and put them away.
Turning off the sound on your electronics might not seem important, but it’s something you really must do!
If you have a specific process for preparing to read, then your brain will know when you’re about to read and you’ll be more focused before you even start.
2. Read the Right Books
If you dislike science fiction, you might not want to read a book about a man stuck on Mars. When you’re choosing books (and other texts) to read, keep two things in mind:
1. What you’re interested in
2. Your reading level
Whenever you can, you should read things that you enjoy. You should also choose books that are at an English level just above the one you’re most comfortable with. You want to challenge yourself just enough to learn new things, but not enough to get frustrated with your reading.
Try this:
Not sure where to start? There are lots of places online where you can find recommendations for books to learn English reading:
- Listopia on Goodreads is full of lists created by people just like you.
- Your Next Read lets you search for books that are similar to the ones you’ve read and liked before, or you can browse some of their lists.
- Jellybooks helps you discover new books and sample 10%, which means you can try the book and see if it’s a good fit for you.
- Whichbook is a very different kind of website—you choose the kinds of things you’re looking for in a book (happy/sad, beautiful/disgusting) and the website gives you suggestions based on that.
Any of these can help you find the perfect book for improving your reading comprehension.
3. Ask Yourself Questions While Reading and After Reading
Learning how to read English books is about more than just reading the words!
There are a few things you can do before, during and after reading to help you better understand the text.
Before you read, browse the text. That means you should look over the text quickly without actually reading every word.
Take some time after you read too, to browse again and summarize what you remember. Try to quickly say or write a few sentences that describe what the text was about.
Thinking about what you read will show you how much of it you really understood, and help you figure out if you still have questions.
Try this:
Before you read, here are a few questions you can ask yourself as you browse, to help you prepare for reading:
- Are there any words in bold or italics?
- Are there titles or subtitles?
- What are some of the names mentioned?
- Is there a lot of dialogue?
- Are the paragraphs short or long?
After you read, the questions below can be used to help you think about what you did and did not understand:
- What was the text about?
- What are the most important things that happened in the text?
- Did anything confuse you?
- Did anything surprise you?
- Are there any parts you didn’t understand?
You might have some more questions depending on what kind of text you were reading, but these are good basic ones to start with.
4. Improve Fluency First
Reading. Is. Fun.
Do you notice how you stopped every time you saw the period?
Now imagine reading an entire article or even book like this, stopping after every word. It would be difficult to understand, wouldn’t it?
It’s hard to form an understanding of what you’re reading when you read word-by-word instead of in full sentences. That’s why, to improve your understanding, it’s important to improve your fluency first.
Fluency is how smoothly you can read. When you read in your head, you should have a certain rhythm to the words. The words should flow together naturally, like when somebody is talking. That’s how to read English books like a native speaker would.
Improving fluency can be as simple as choosing slightly easier texts to read, or it might take some time and practice. If you take some time to improve how fluently you read, though, it will help you in the future. You’ll improve your reading and even your speaking. It will also make reading feel more fun and natural.
Try this:
Many of the words you find when you’re reading are actually “sight words.” These are words that you should know by sight and should not have to think about how to read them.
You can practice sight words very quickly. Just find a good list of sight words, like this one, and take about a minute or two every day to read the words as fast as you can.
If you don’t know any of the words it’s a good idea to look them up beforehand, but remember that this exercise is about reading faster, not understanding more. Once you can read at a comfortable speed, you can focus on understanding.
It might seem strange, but another great way to practice reading fluency is with videos. Specifically, look for English videos with subtitles. That way, you will read the words while hearing how a native speaker naturally says them.
FluentU takes real-world videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into language learning experiences.
There are many different types of videos, as you can see here:
FluentU makes it easy to watch and understand native English videos with interactive captions. Tap or click on any word to see what it means, learn how to use it, hear it pronounced and more.
For example, if you tap on the word “brought,” then you see this:
You can learn any video’s vocabulary with FluentU’s fun quizzes. Swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you’re learning.
The videos are organized by genre and level, so it’s super easy to find the ones that work for you. FluentU also keeps track of your learning, then suggests videos and examples perfect for you.
Start using FluentU on the website or download the FluentU app from the iTunes store or Google Play store.
5. Once You’ve Learned to Speed Up, Slow Down!
After you learn English reading more fluently, you can stop worrying about your speed and start thinking about the text and its meaning.
That’s right, now that you can read fast, it’s time to read slowly. Take time to really get into the text you’re reading, instead of speeding through it.
Try this:
One great way to slow yourself down is to read out loud. Not only will you be practicing your reading and understanding, but also your pronunciation, listening and speaking. Focus on speaking every word carefully and pronouncing it well.
If you can’t (or don’t want to) read out loud, you can try pausing every few paragraphs to make sure you’re paying attention.
Another way to pace yourself well is by making notes and writing down questions as you read.
6. Ask Lots of Questions
Speaking of questions—ask them. Ask a lot of them! The more you question what you read, the deeper you get into the meaning.
Asking questions is also a good way to make sure you understand what you’re reading. Asking questions like “what’s happening now?” or “who’s speaking here?” can help keep you focused. Asking questions like “why did he do that?” or “what is she thinking?” can help you think deeper into the story.
Try this:
Keep some Post-it notes and a pen nearby. Write down any questions that come to mind as you’re reading on the Post-it notes. Stick them in the text.
When you finish reading, go back and see how many of the questions you can answer now. If there are any questions you still don’t know the answer to, re-read that part of the text and try to find the answer.
7. Read It Again
The poet Ezra Pound says that with books, “no reader ever read anything the first time he saw it.”
Sometimes reading a text just once isn’t enough to understand it. This is true if you’re reading something difficult, or even if you’re not—reading something more than once can help you understand it much better.
Re-reading is great for those times when you read the words but can’t get them to make sense. It’s also great for finding things you might have missed the first time. If there are any new words in the text, you’ll see them again every time your read again, helping you remember them.
In short, reading things again is great!
Try this:
Choose something short to read, no more than a few paragraphs. This can be a story or a news article, anything you want—as long as it takes you only about five minutes to read.
Read the article at your own pace, then write down everything you can remember from the article. Write every little detail, even write down parts of sentences if you remember them.
Now do it again.
Read the article again. Write down everything you can remember again.
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Do you see how much more you remember the second time around?
Every time you read something, you understand more of it. When you want to get the most out of your reading, try reading three or more times. The first time, focus on understanding the words.
The second time, focus on the meaning. The third time, you can start asking deeper questions like “what is the author really trying to say?” or “how does this news affect the rest of the world?”
8. Read Many Kinds of Texts
Today we don’t just read books and newspapers. We read blogs, emails, Tweets and texts. The more you read anything in English, the better you’ll get at the language.
Don’t just read books and news. Read anything and everything! Find a magazine that you enjoy, follow some interesting people or websites on Facebook, or visit a blog you like reading.
Magazine Line is a good place to go to find digital or print magazines on just about any subject. They give you lower prices on magazine subscriptions, and you may be able to save even more if you’re a student (check the “Student and Educator Rates” section for details).
Try this:
If you’re having trouble discovering new things to read, try any of these aggregators—websites that take news and interesting articles and put them together for you to look through:
- Mix helps you find new websites based on your interests.
- Digg collects interesting stories from around the Internet onto one page.
- Reddit seems a bit less friendly, but it’s a collection of websites and images that Reddit users submit for others to enjoy.
Whatever you read, just remember: The more you practice, the better you’ll get.
The best part about these tips is that they can work for reading comprehension in any language!
If you follow these steps to learn English reading, you might suddenly discover that you’re reading better and understanding more even in your own native language.
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How Can You Improve Your Reading Skills
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