Strategies for Better Reading

Wrap-up

Like good athletes, smart readers improve their reading skills by honing their techniques. The reading strategies introduced in this lesson can help you become a more effective reader – and get more enjoyment from what you’re reading.

In this lesson you:

• Read between the lines using your powers of inference
• Predicted what would happen next in a story
• Identified the main ideas in what you read

On your own:

• Test your ability to make predictions when reading. Next time you read an article, make a prediction about a character or the story based on the first paragraph. Write it down. Then, read on to see if you were right.
• Movie reviewers are often skillful at summarizing. Read a few reviews from the newspaper to get ideas. Then, summarize a movie you've seen to a friend in one or two sentences.
• Make a habit of talking about what you read. Try to catch yourself summarizing and making inferences, especially about characters in fiction.