Reading English
Reading is one of the most important areas of language study, and so in this episode, I’m going to discuss my recommended books to read and good methods to study them with.
Recommended Books
- Basically, any book you find enjoyable
- 90%+ comprehension is good – If you understand less than 90%, it will be quite tedious and demotivating.
- Graded readers – Books made for learners with appropriate vocabulary and grammar structures (try searching “Graded reader” on Amazon)
- Avoid children’s books – They often use words for children that adults don’t use.
- Young adult / teenage books may be suitable for higher-level learners
- Olly Richard’s English Short Stories is a great book for language learners
- Harry Potter is a popular choice for learners, if that interests you!
Reading Methods
- Read twice: first to enjoy the story, then again to look at vocabulary closer
- Don’t worry about every word you come across, only repeated words
- Focus on the wins (“Wow, I read that whole sentence / paragraph“)
- Try retelling a story you read to your teacher or language partner
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You are surprised because of the Saudi workshop. Yes, I am also knew you from a workshop by Abdul Rahman Hijazi, the most famous online course in Saudi Arabia for IELTS, and he uses your clips to develop the listening skill of students. I knew you from him and searched for you, and now I listen to all your episodes, you are not easy believe me ?
Many people have come to tell me this now. Thanks for coming to listen to me! I’m glad you were able to find me through the workshop. I hope you find this podcast helpful 🙂
Hi Michael. First I want to thank you for this new podcast. I learn some new things as usual. I thought that reading children books would be helpful in order to learn basic vocabulary, even then I didn’t read a lot of them. I prefer graded books. But yeah, it’s true, there’s a lot of word I never use in chidren’s books.
I also want to thank you for the transcript of your podcast. Yeah, it’s a lot of work I know and I’m grateful for that.
Thanks to be who you are: kind, a very good teacher…, thanks for always answering our questions, our comments and to always have a kind word in your answer
Hi Lilly, thanks for listening and commenting! Some people may argue against me on the children’s books topic, but if we see a children’s book in our own language and imagine how useful it would be, we’ll probably see there may be a few good words but in my opinion it’s not an efficient use of time.
I’m glad the transcripts help too! Thanks for *your* kind words 🙂
Hi! Mikle first I am so exciting to hear a new podcast at the weekend, of course it helps me so much, not just that always I try to copy you sound because I like you sound in English. You have special method to learn English. Thanks Mikle.
Thanks, Jafar. I’m really pleased you liked the episode! Good luck with your studies!