Reading is an important skill, and in our mother tongue, we read in different ways. For example, we might skim a news article quickly in order to understand the main events. Or, we might scan the pages of a bus timetable looking for a particular time or place. If I gave you a children’s book to read, you would turn the pages quickly. On the other hand, if I gave you a contract to sign, you would read each word carefully.
However, when it comes to reading in a foreign language, research tells us that we lose most of our reading skills. We stop using skills like skimming and scanning to help us understand difficult texts. Instead, we simply start at the beginning and read every word, one after the other. Inevitably, we quickly become frustrated by difficult words.
As long as you are aware of this, however, you can use some simple strategies to avoid this trap and become a better reader.
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You are reading this book because you like the idea of learning English with short stories. But why? What are the benefits of learning English with stories, instead of with a textbook? Understanding this will help you improve your reading.
When you read books for fun, it is known as extensive reading. This is very different from how you might read English in a textbook. Your textbook contains short dialogues, which you read in detail. The aim is to understand every word. This is known as intensive reading.
Here is another way to look at it. Textbooks give you grammar rules and lists of vocabulary to learn; they try to teach you. Stories show you “real English”; they do not try to teach you. In fact, both kinds of reading are valuable and you need them both in order to learn a language effectively.
English Short Stories for Intermediate Learners, however, is designed to help you with extensive reading. As you read and enjoy the stories, you will gradually improve your understanding of how English works. If you often study with textbooks, this book will be a breath of fresh air!
Now, in order to get the benefits of extensive reading, you have to make sure you are reading regularly. Reading one or two pages may teach you a few new words, but it will not make a big difference to the level of your English. With this in mind, here is what you should have in mind when you read the stories in this book, so you learn the most from them:
1. There are two things that are vital to successful reading: enjoyment, and a sense of achievement. They are important because they make you want to come back the next day and read more.
2. The more you read, the more you learn.
3. The best way to enjoy reading stories, and to feel a sense of achievement, is by reading the story from beginning to end.
4. Consequently, understanding every word in a story is not the most important thing. The most important thing is reaching the end of the story.
This brings us to the most important point of this section: You must accept that you will not understand everything you read in a story.
It is completely normal that there are things you do not understand when you read. If you do not understand a word or a sentence, it does not mean you are "stupid" or "not good enough". It simply means you are in the process of learning English… just like everybody else.
So, what should you do when you find a difficult word? Here are a few ideas:
1. Look at the word and see if it is familiar in any way. Depending on your mother tongue, there might be a similar word in your language. Take a guess - you might surprise yourself!
2. Read the whole sentence many times. As you read that sentence repeatedly, think about everything that has happened in the story. Try to guess the meaning of the whole sentence – not just the difficult word. This takes practice, but is often easier than you think!
3. Make a note of the word in a notebook and check the meaning later.
4. Sometimes, you might find a verb that you do not recognise. Or perhaps you do not understand why the verb is being used, and that may frustrate you. But, is it absolutely necessary for you to know this right now? Can you still understand the story? Usually, if you have managed to recognise the main verb, that is enough. Instead of getting frustrated, simply notice how the verb is being used, and then carry on reading!
5. If all the other steps fail, or you simply "have to know" the meaning of a particular word, you can look it up in a dictionary. However, try not to do this unless you have to.
These steps are designed to do something very important: to train you to handle reading independently and without help. The more you can develop this skill, the better you will be at reading. And, of course, the more you can read, the more you will learn!
Remember that the purpose of reading is not to understand every word in the story. The purpose of reading is simply to enjoy the story! Therefore, if you do not understand a word and you cannot guess what the word means from the context, simply try to keep reading. Learning to be happy without understanding everything you read in English is a powerful skill to have because you become an independent and intelligent learner.