2 posts tagged “reading speed”

Some thoughts on how to get a better TOEIC score. To improve in TOEIC, especially the reading section, but in fact all of TOEIC, you need to improve your reading skills. Here are some suggestions on how to do that.

Extensive reading. (to increase your reading speed)

A) Read a lot of easy content where the number of new words is not greater than 10 % of the total number of  unique words. (Note that this information is provided when you click on the title of new items in the Linguist Library).

1)      Read a new item quickly once. Then try to summarize out loud to yourself what the item was about.

2)      Listen to the item and read along at the same time. Make sure that you can read faster than the audio file you are listening to. If you cannot, read the item again and continue practicing to try to increase your reading speed. Note that most articles, including news reports are read at about 140 words per minute, whereas conversations are around 160 words per minute and Dr. Laura is closer to 200 words per minute. You will need to get your speed up to 200 words per minute or faster to really do well on TOEIC.

3)      Select a new item and do the same again. You can use imported content if (as in the case of VOA) there is a sound file provided. If there is no sound, do as in B) below.

Note that you should read these easy items at first without listening, and then read along while listening. The objective is to increase your reading speed.

B) Read newspaper articles, magazine articles, or other handy material, including web sites, on subjects of interest to you.

1)      Make sure you are interested in the content.

2)      Do not look up any words. Just read, scan and try to figure out the meaning.

3)      Do this daily and try to enjoy it. Do not look up any words in a dictionary!!

4)      Try to summarize the meaning to yourself.

The goal is to develop the ability to scan, and to guess at meaning.

Intensive reading. (to increase your vocabulary and ability to use phrases)

A)    Choose content items with more than 10% new words and up to 20% new words as a percentage of unique words. (See the Linguist Library information on each new content item.) 

1)      Read through once, saving new words.

2)      Listen and read. Save additional words and phrases that cause trouble.

3)      Listen to the text 3-5 times.

4)      Read the text 2-3 times.

5)      Review the saved words and phrases.

6)      Continue listening and reading to the item 3-5 more times.

Practice a mixture of extensive reading and intensive reading. Your reading will improve and so will your TOEIC score. But remember to stick to articles that you find interesting, as much as possible.

I would be interested in people's ideas about how to increase reading speed.

I will offer some of my ideas and look forward to yours.

I think that it is in the interest of any language learner to strive to reach at least the low end of a native speaker's reading speed. In the case of English, this is around 200 words per minute. How can this be achieved?

1) First of all, read more. The more you read, the more familiar you will become with the language. The better you will be at converting writing into meaning, without translating. Reading skills are constantly self-reinforcing. The faster you read the more you can read, and the more you want to read. So get started on it now. It is kind of like learning to type with ten fingers, you just get faster and faster until you reach your level. So start right away!

2) Treat yourself and allow yourself to read content that is interesting and easy. If you know all the words, and you are interested in the content, you will naturally read faster, thinking about the meaning, without worrying about looking up new words.

3) You still need to increase your vocabulary so that you can read a greater variety of content. To do this you need to read content with more new words, so that you can learn these words in context. This seems like a contradiction to point 2).

The solution is to vary the difficulty level of your reading. Mostly try to read content that has 5 - 10% new words ( as a percentage of unique words). These are the numbers you see in the Linguist LIbrary.  When you feel like working on learning new vocabulary, choose content with a higher percentage of new words. But if you want to practice increasing your reading speed, stay with easy content.

4) Read all the Beginner or Easy Starter content in our Library once and "update known words" when you finish each item, even if you have not saved any words or phrases. As you continue to more difficult content make sure you continue to "update known words". This will make sure that your "known words" total is updated in The Linguist system.

5) Listen and read at the same time. You can listen and read at your computer. Or you can print the content and read on paper while listening. Make sure you can keep up, or even try to read faster than the voice you are listening to. Remember that most content is around 125 - 150 words per minute, conversations are around 160-170 words per minute and Dr. Laura is 180-200.

 6) Increase the font size in The Linguist or any other content. Go to View in your browser's tool bar, then choose Text Size. With larger text , not only are the letters and words larger, making it is easier to read, but each line is shorter so it is easier to look at 3-4 words at the same time, or to focus on one or two key words in each line.

I look forward to your feedback.