IELTS Reading: how 'deeply' do you read?

There are various different ways to read a text. If you're just gathering information, you might scan several articles or books quickly; perhaps you might choose to quickly skim the beginning and end of an article if you only need to get a general idea of what it's about. When surfing the Internet, we skim, scan, click on hyperlinks, and jump around reading bits of text from here and there.

However, if your aim is to learn a new language, you'll need to slow down and do some 'deep' reading.

Here are some deep reading tips:

• Choose one article per day. If you don't have much time, it should be a very short text, or you could choose to read only part of the article.
• Remove all other distractions. If you've chosen an online article, it might be better to print it, or at least copy it onto a Word document.
• Read the article through once at normal speed, and then see if you can write a summary of it in five sentences or less.
• Read the article a second time, and note down both the 'facts' and the 'opinions' that it contains. Is the writer of the article expressing an opinion or trying to persuade you to think in a certain way?
• Next, look at the vocabulary used in the article. Write any useful phrases in your notebook. Remember: knowing the meaning of a word is easy - the difficult thing is knowing how to use words correctly to express ideas. So focus on the way words are used together in collocations and phrases.
• If you have time to go deeper, you could look at sentence construction: the length of each sentence, the connectives (linking words) that are used, and the order of elements in each sentence.
• You could do the same for paragraphs: how does the writer maintain coherence between sentences, how are arguments developed or details added?
• You could then analyse grammar more closely: nouns, verbs, tenses, articles etc.

It's fine to do quick, 'superficial' reading too, but you should consider adding at least 15 minutes of focused, deliberate 'deep' reading to your daily study schedule.

Comments

[Raju]

Thanks sir @Simon

very well arranged ideas for reading.

[Raju]

Can anyone please give me some links and files for collocations and phrases???

[Sunita]

http://ieltsmaterial.com/english-collocation-in-use-advanced/

http://ozdic.com/

To find a suitable adjective using ngrams, use *_ADJ followed by the noun:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=*_ADJ+benefits&year_start=1960&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t2%3B%2C%2A_ADJ%20benefits%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Beconomic_ADJ%20benefits%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bfringe_ADJ%20benefits%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bother_ADJ%20benefits%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bsocial_ADJ%20benefits%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bpotential_ADJ%20benefits%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bnet_ADJ%20benefits%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bsuch_ADJ%20benefits%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bmany_ADJ%20benefits%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bterm_ADJ%20benefits%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bmedical_ADJ%20benefits%3B%2Cc0

[Sunita]

https://archive.org/details/CambridgeEnglishCollocationsInUse

[DaNang]

@Raju

http://ieltsmaterial.com/english-collocation-in-use-advanced/

If looking for an adjective to go with noun, type in *_ADJ followed by noun on ngrams:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=*_ADJ+benefit%2C*_ADJ+benefits&year_start=1960&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t2%3B%2C%2A_ADJ%20benefit%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bmutual_ADJ%20benefit%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bown_ADJ%20benefit%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bgreat_ADJ%20benefit%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bmaximum_ADJ%20benefit%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Beconomic_ADJ%20benefit%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bpublic_ADJ%20benefit%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bdefined_ADJ%20benefit%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bfull_ADJ%20benefit%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bnet_ADJ%20benefit%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bsocial_ADJ%20benefit%3B%2Cc0%3B.t2%3B%2C%2A_ADJ%20benefits%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Beconomic_ADJ%20benefits%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bfringe_ADJ%20benefits%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bother_ADJ%20benefits%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bsocial_ADJ%20benefits%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bpotential_ADJ%20benefits%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bnet_ADJ%20benefits%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bsuch_ADJ%20benefits%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bmany_ADJ%20benefits%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bterm_ADJ%20benefits%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bmedical_ADJ%20benefits%3B%2Cc0

http://www.ozdic.com/collocation-dictionary/

[Allen]

Thank you for your advice!

[XIAN WU]

Thanks a lot~

[Cansu]

I think this advice is incredibly important. I read like 20 pages long articles in english almost every day because my lectures are all in english, yet I have realised that I still make easy grammar mistakes and also don't know the second or third meaning of a word or how to use it properly in other contexts other than the conventional one etc. This made me aware that perhaps i should follow your advice and try to do that sort of deep reading once a week :)) Thank you very much by the way, i have benefited from your website mainly for the ielts test, but its also great to freshen up some basic, necessary skills. Thanks a lot :))
Best wishes,
Cansu.

[Yakoe]

Thank you so much Simon.
I always use this strategy to analysis your essays in Writing Task. It does help me to do better on organising words.

[CAT]

This is the best advice for improving reading and writing skills for ielts. None of my previous ielts tutors taught me about this technique. Thank you so much Simon! Im learning so many new things from your website.