Tips for improving your comprehension skills

Hey, welcome back to another lesson built to polish your basic grammar skills and master your ability to speak the English language.

Let’s learn together and be the best.

In today’s video, we will learn about comprehension skills and some tips to improve them.

Do you experience difficulty in reading or are there things that are very difficult to read?

Yes, it is quite possible. We may not understand what is written in the book, or not know what is happening. You may experience these difficulties while reading newspapers, textbooks, internet sources, magazines, etc.

For a better experience of reading, we need better comprehension skills.

What are comprehension skills?

These are skills that help us in reading and understanding texts clearly and easily. These mainly relate to passages, books, newspapers, etc.

Reading is one of the best hobbies that a person has. But, it is also one of the toughest tasks as being interested in a particular thing for a long time is very difficult.

Reading not only improves our knowledge but also makes us more emotionally strong and healthy.

Some people have a habit of just opening a book and starting reading, but that’s not how it works. There is a more understandable way of improving your skills.

First, we will talk about the “KWL” technique and then get on some more tips to improve our comprehension skills.

KWL skills. Well, nothing strikes our mind.

So, the first question is- What is the full form of KWL?

Here,

K stands for KNOW

W stands for WANT TO KNOW

L stands for LEARNED

We will discuss each letter one by one.

Let’s start with the first one.

K – Know – First of all, while reading about anything, we need to remember all the information we already know

about it.

The next letter is

W – Want to Know- We need to set a purpose on what we need to find or learn from the text or information given.

And the last one is

L-Learned-What are the new things we got to know after reading the text.
Let’s take an example

Topic: Dolphins

Now we need to create a table with 2 rows and 3 columns. Now, we will first write what we know about dolphins in the first column. In the second column, we should write what are the things that we want to know and in the last one, we mention what are the things that we got to know through our reading.

And our “KWL” table is ready.

It is a very effective method for improving our comprehension skills. We can make larger kwl notes for larger texts and shorter ones for shorter texts.

Now let’s see some more improvement methods that are effective as well.

1. Select a positive and calm environment
   The first step towards improving our comprehension skills has to be reading in a very calm and silent environment or surroundings. We should never read at places where there is a lot of noise or distractions. A healthy and positive environment increases our interest in reading. A quiet room in our house or a library are some of the best places to work on our comprehension skills. Playing soft music can also help in improving our concentration if we can’t find a completely quiet place.
2. Think carefully about your topic of interest
   It is very important to know that whatever we are reading interests us. Then only it will benefit our comprehension skills. Reading something just because we have to do it will only waste our time. Whenever reading a book, we should always keep in mind the reason why we chose that book as it fulfills what interests us, and we are able to understand what the writer means to say. We should always choose books of our reading level and slowly day-by-day widen our interests and reading level.
3. Try to examine before penetrating
   This is a tough one. It is possible that just by reading the name of the book it won’t interest us. That’s when examining before penetrating comes. Before starting the book, look into the author’s name and his/her writing style. The preface which is the second page of the book also gives a preview of what the author wants to say in the book. There is content too that has the topics of the book. Try to read four to five pages of the book and if it interests you, continue reading or we can simply move to the next one. This method is also known as examining the surface before digging deep.
4. Keen mental level
   We all have different mental strengths and capabilities which affect our comprehension skills. If something doesn’t feel right, we should stop then and there and calm ourselves. Selection before reading is a very important tip for better comprehension skills. Our reading level should be something that is comforting as well as challenging at a healthy level. To develop a good comprehension base, we should select books that are understandable to us and then slowly move to a higher level.
5. Try to read early in bed.
   It should always depend on the reader’s interest at which time they want to read. Daytime is considered more fruitful and healthy for improving our comprehension skills. Reading early in bed keeps the information fresh in our mind and we remember it for a longer period. Natural light is good for the eyes and keeps us healthy too. After a good sleep, our mind is fresh and we learn many new things. It is also helpful as during the daytime we can take help from someone if we are unable to understand something.
6. Try to read loudly
   This tip is entertaining as well as very effective.
   In school, we are often encouraged to read aloud. It is because it improves our memory and makes us more focused as we put all our energy into being loud. There are no distractions as our whole focus is on the work we are doing. It also makes us familiar with many new words. When we speak aloud we come to understand the meaning of unknown words as we are speaking with feelings and emotion and the words sound more familiar. It increases fluency also.
7. Focus on expressions and pronunciations
   Expressions and pronunciations are very important for improving our comprehension skills. Wrong pronunciations completely change the meaning of the sentence and we are unable to understand what the writer wants to say. It is a very common situation that we can be good in grammar but are weak in pronunciations. We can learn correct pronunciations and expressions from google by searching the word and hearing its pronunciation.
8. Visualize and imagine situations
   Visualizing means to imagine something in our mind that is related to the words written. It is a great way to improve speed and our comprehension skills. Our visualization may include images, graphs, videos, etc. It helps us in understanding the topics more clearly and a deeper understanding of the reading. Creating images along with reading makes us more involved in the expressions. It also helps us in focusing for a longer duration of time.
9. Share your experience with others
   Sometimes, sharing what we know about the topic with others can help us clear the doubts as well as clear our knowledge more deeply. Summarize that is to discuss in short what we have read and ask questions to each other to know who understood well. A healthy competition will always benefit both of us. If we discuss with someone who hasn’t read the topic yet, then, we can explain them in our own words and see where our comprehension is missing. We get to know that we have understood what we have read.
10. Golden casket
    This one is very important and that’s why talks last for our complete focus and also so that we can remember it for a long time.
    What do we mean by casket? A casket is a box that is used to store jewels and other valuable things. The reading process is a casket to open up and bless us with lots of knowledge. Reading keeps us calm and our minds fresh. We should read more and more to improve our reading skills. Reading good things makes our life meaningful and healthy.

Comprehension skills play a very important role in our life. They improve our communication skills and improve our mental health too.

We hope to make these concepts clear and easy for you all to understand. For any doubts, you can revisit the lesson anytime.