How to read silently?

Question

I am not a native English speaker. I could understand what they spoke on TV programs (such as Discovery and National Geographic) , but I dont know how to read books silently. I tried to practice first by reading out loud (I tried to follow the reading tapes). However, when I read out loud, I couldn't understand the difficult sentences; and the most important thing is I couldn't transfer my reading out loud to reading silently. Could you show me how to read silently ? Also do you think should I just keep reading and reading (ignoring the understanding) until one day it will click when the amount of reading is large enough) or should I try to understand every sentence ? Thank for your help

Answer 1

Try listening to books on tape (without following along by reading aloud yourself) and moving your finger across the words on the pages along with the electronic narration. If you are uncertain about a word or sentence, you can always pause the reading and go back to the language that gave your ears trouble when hearing it read aloud on tape the first time around.

When it comes to understanding what you are reading: if it does not click the first time, then you can always re-read certain or whole parts of chapters in a book to better comprehend their content contextually. You can also have somebody else read along with you and have a conversation about the written content with them, and possibly join a book club as well if you are interested.

Above all: reading should be more of an enjoyable pastime and less of an assignment, so make sure that is your top priority when engaging in all things literary!

Answer 2

Hello!

The best thing to do first is develop better understanding of the material you are reading. Of course your comprehension will improve by itself if you read a great deal over a long period of time.

You will learn best, I believe, focusing on understanding most, if not all, of what you read while you are reading it. You can stop frequently to think about what you read and see whether you understood and remember it. The process will go more quickly and pleasantly if you work with someone who has tools to help you. That way, I estimate you can make very good progress in 2 or 3 months.

As for reading silently, I think that will happen automatically as the pronunciation and meaning of the words improves.

I hope this helps!

Answer 3

Hello! I think you can do a combination of general reading and focused reading to help improve your comprehension. You might do some general reading aloud to help your pronunciation and to help you hear the words and pair them with the sounds. Then, you might take a paragraph or a few sentences and study them closely. Look up all of the words that you do not know and try your hardest to understand what the sentences mean. By doing this, you will learn small groups of new words that will help you understand future reading. Also, by keeping this small, you will not feel like every reading task is slow and boring. Don't worry about reading silently yet. Instead, focus on understanding the sentence. If you would like more help with this, feel free to send me a message! I work with many English language learning students, and I've learned Spanish myself, so I understand how difficult learning to read in another language can be.