How to Improve Reading Comprehension Skills? (Level Preliminary)

It's an art to read a text; it is much more than straight reading. At the preliminary level, many students focus only on finishing their reading homework instead of truly understanding the text. Reading comprehension tips, or improve reading comprehension skills, is training your brain to process information in depth and not just scan it. This article provides practical, student-friendly techniques that will help transform your reading habits and significantly improve your general English learning at the preliminary level.

Reading Comprehension Skills Overview

Reading comprehension helps you connect seeing a word with understanding its more profound meaning. This is a multi-step mental operation: decoding the letters, working out what grammar means and how it relates to each other, and relating those ideas back to your background knowledge. Fast reading is something that many people feel they need to do to understand English. Speed alone is not useful without understanding.

Reading fluency in your students is at the preliminary level. Fluency does not equal speed but reading with a rhythm and expression that our listeners can understand. By practising certain reading comprehension strategies for kids, you can go from thinking of reading as a burden to realising it is a key that allows children to access new realms of knowledge.

How to Improve Reading Comprehension Skills

If you want to actually get better at comprehension, then having a clear reading strategy before starting. These are the seven essential strategies to never leave a page confused again.

1. Slow → Understand → Then Speed

Rushing is the biggest mistake we make. However, if you attempt to rush through before grasping the fundamentals, your understanding will decline rapidly.

• Read slowly: Slow down your reading to better understand the literal meaning of sentences.

• Meaning First: Speed will naturally follow once your brain becomes comfortable with the sentence structures.

• Avoid the race: Completing a page does not guarantee victory if you cannot provide an explanation. What took place on it?

Enroll Now for English Online Classes

2. The Read Twice Rule

Understanding everything at once is not realistic. They read things more than once to catch some of the details.

• First Read: Focus on the "Big Idea". What is the story generally about?

• Second Read: Focus on the 'Little Things'. Ask questions about the dates, names or reasons behind executing an action. This repetition is key if you want to read better.

3. Find the Main Idea

Not every sentence in a passage is a "gold nugget". Some sentences support the main idea, while others simply add extra details. 

• Identify the Core: Ask yourself, "What is the author's main point?"

• Ignore the Fluff: This helps improve your focus because you stop stressing about fluff when identifying the "main idea".

4. Don’t Ignore Difficult Words

It is like filling in blanks on a puzzle, but some of the pieces are missing – skipping hard words.

• Underline and Guess: Whenever you come across a tough word, underline it. Before looking it up, guess its meaning from the other words in the context.

• Vocabulary Growth: Essentially, the most important thing is to make sure that your comprehension skills get stronger.

5. Ask Questions While Reading

As you read through the text, ask questions; these will keep your brain awake.

• Be a Detective: Ask, "Why is this happening?" or "What will happen to the character next?"

• Active Engagement: This helps you stay focused and ensures you are actually processing the information.

6. Read Aloud 

Get vocal if you are finding it hard to concentrate.

• Auditory Learning: It keeps you focused and helps improve students' reading fluency.

• Better Pronunciation: It gets your ears used to the sound of the English language, which helps you gain confidence.

7. Break the passage into parts.

Avoid swallowing a whole passage at once!

• Chunking: Read a paragraph, stopping afterwards. Tell that paragraph in plain English to yourself before you can read the next one.

• Reduce Overload: Smaller components make the task feel a lot less daunting and more doable.

Read More - English Fluency Activities That Improve Faster Responses (Preliminary Level)

Practise Questions to Improve Reading Comprehension Skills

Test your newly acquired skills on the following passage with an exercise.

The Passage: The Brave Little Kite

"A little red kite sat on the grass, looking up at the vast, blue sky. He was terrified of the wind. I might fall and break my frame,' he whispered to the old oak tree. The tree rustled its leaves and replied, 'The wind is not your enemy; it is your wings.' Taking a deep breath, the kite felt a sudden gust. He didn't fight it. He hopped into the air, and soon, the grass below looked like tiny green whiskers. He was finally flying."

1. Read and Understand Section

• First Read: What is the kite feeling at the start of the story? ___________________

• Second Read: What specific object gave the kite advice? ___________________

2. Vocabulary Box

Match these "Power Words" from the passage with their correct meanings:

3. Main Idea Question

What is the "main idea" of this passage? (Select one)

• A) How to build a red kite.

• B) Overcoming fear to achieve something great.

• C) Why oak trees have rustling leaves.

4. Summary Part

• Break the story into two parts:

• Part 1 (The Problem): ______________________________________

• Part 2 (The Solution): ______________________________________

Read More - Introducing Yourself Confidently in English (Preliminary Level)

Benefits to Improve Reading Comprehension Skills

Taking the time to learn how to read with a lot of understanding gives you so much benefit at all levels of life.

• Academic Excellence: You will notice history, science and even maths get easier once you read quickly and understand the written words.

• Faster Learning: Not wasting too much time studying the main idea makes you learn it faster.

• Higher Confidence: no more jitters when the teacher calls on you to read in class.

• Better Writing: Good Readers Are Better Writers You automatically learn how to understand English and write like that just by seeing the words of experts.

• Independent Thinking: It allows you to seek evidence in a text which, later on, helps create your own opinions rather than simply following someone else's.

How Does CuriousJr Help to Improve Reading Comprehension Skills?

CuriousJr online English learning class is specifically designed for the English learning preliminary level, acting as a personal coach for your reading journey.

• Interactive Storytelling: You play story-based games with tasks instead of plain, boring textbooks, but the decision-making process regulates your brain to 'active questioning' mode through interactivity.

• Progressive Difficulty: The app guarantees you cannot have super simple or too complex vocabulary, so your advancement is well-balanced.

• Instant Feedback: Students receive instant feedback after completing reading activities on the app. Does this feature help you see which of the kids' comprehension strategies you need to practise?

• Focus on Fluency: Working with different audio-visual tools, Curious Jr enables reading fluency and makes it effortless for kids to transition from slow to speedy.