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Improve Your Reading Skills with Techniques and Book Clubs

Reading is a skill that is extremely important in all aspects of life. It's important not only in the workplace, but also in everyday life, as it helps you understand and get around the world. For example, if you don't understand how to assemble a computer or you are considering getting LASIK surgery but don't know what it involves, reading about it can enlighten you. It can also help you figure out the steps or aid you in your decision making process. Similarly, reading can help you get from place to place, and communicate with others.

There is always room for improvement when it comes to reading. Even if your reading skills are sharp, you can always be faster or refine your comprehension abilities. Read on to learn more about how to improve your reading skills.

Techniques to Improve your Reading Skills
Becoming a better reader is a process that requires you to not only read frequently but also to learn techniques to improve your pace, word recognition and reading comprehension. 

Evaluate your Reading Skills
Before you can improve your reading skills, you have to assess how strong they are. To do so, ask yourself a series of questions to see how well you can read. Some of the important things to consider include:

• Do you slow your pace when you see words you don't know?
• Do you look-up unknown words or gloss over them and lose some understanding as a result? 
• Are you skipping any words as you read? 
• Are you reading sentences more than once? 
• Do you change your pace depending on what you are reading?
• Are you "saying" the words as you read them?

Other tips for improving your reading include:

• Look Up Words You Don't Know: While this may slow you down at first, reading quickly is pointless if you don't understand what you are taking in. After looking up words for a short time, you'll find that you are adding new words to your vocabulary at a quick pace. Over time, you'll end up looking up words less frequently, as you'll have looked up and already learned them.
  
  
• Make a List of New Words: As you encounter new words, it's not always enough to just look them up. Try keeping a list of them and taking a look at it every now and then. This will help you learn them faster.
  
  
• Choose the Right Spot: Make sure you have the correct conditions when reading. Select a quiet place that has the right lighting, minimal distractions and good chair to sit. Hold the book about 15 inches away from your face.
   
  
• Make Sure You Can See Clearly: If you are having any trouble seeing the words in a book, have your eyes tested by a professional. Try to not repeat the sentences unless needed. Do not “say” the words or just read a single word, try to read in groups.
   
  
• Balance Your Pace with Your Subject: While reading comics, fiction or other fun material, you're likely to breeze through because it's based on a subject of interest to you. Alternatively, reading manuals or studying texts is a more involved process that requires more focus and, consequently, demands a slower pace. Finding the right pace is key to comprehension.
  
  
• Pay Attention to Illustrations and Foot Notes: Authors and editors alike purposely include illustrations and footnotes to make their points clear or to enrich the text. Taking time to consider these additions is key to improving your comprehension skills.
   
  
• Practice Frequently: As with any skill you are trying to improve upon, practice is essential. Reading regularly and frequently helps you train your eye and learn more new words. Over time, your eye will take milliseconds to recognize words, helping you improve your pace.

While these suggestions are just a few of the many possible techniques you can use to improve your reading skills, they will give you a start.

Join a Book Club to Improve your Reading Skills
A fun way to improve your reading skills and use your new reading techniques is to join a book club. A book club, sometimes called a reading group, is group of people that get together once a month to discuss a particular book.

There are actually several types of book clubs. While traditional book clubs are ones you go to in person (traditional book club), you can also be part of online book clubs or the book clubs started by publishing houses. Often, publishing houses' book clubs give you discounts on their books.

One advantage of a traditional book club is that it is more personal and intimate because the members face to face in the same place. These clubs are generally small in size so that everyone has an opportunity to participate. A few of the disadvantages are that they are hard to maintain and organize regularly. It is sometimes hard to find members, meeting times or locations that each member agrees upon

Online book clubs come in a wide variety, ranging from those dedicated to a specific interest or genre to others composed of a certain demographic of people (i.e. Asian-American women or homosexual men, etc). Most are available to you at any time of the day so they can fit into your schedule easily. However, with the scheduling convenience comes less personalized interaction that looses the intimacy of the traditional book club.    

Check with your local library or newspaper to find book clubs near you. If you have access to a computer, then you have the option of checking online for local or online clubs. You can even find out how to start your own book club if you are not satisfied with any of the available choices. You'll soon be reading and discussing your books with others, and demonstrating that a few reading techniques can go a long way!