Read Read Read!

You can improve your writing by reading things at your level.

When you read, you see the same words, groups of words, and sentence patterns again and again. Your brain remembers these things. You learn proper spelling, grammar, and sentences with proper punctuation. You learn without even realizing that you are learning! Isn’t that how you learned your native language?

You don’t learn when you read books or other materials that are above your level or too difficult for you. You just become confused and discouraged.

If you have to stop after every sentence and look up a word in the dictionary, you are not going to learn or remember anything. Your brain can only handle 7 new things at one time. If you have to look up too many words in the dictionary, you will not remember them all, or worse, you will confuse all the words and meanings.

How do you find materials at your level? That’s the hard part.

Each episode of the English Teacher Melanie podcast includes a story written with core vocabulary. These are short stories written using the most common words in English.

You can also try the five-finger reading test. Open a book to any page. Read the page. Put one finger on every word you do not know. If you use all 5 fingers, the book is too difficult for you. You will spend too much time trying to understand each word and sentence. If you use less than 5 fingers, the book is right for you.