How Extensive Reading Can Boost Your IELTS Reading Score. By Mehrdad Sabir
How Extensive Reading Can Boost Your IELTS Reading Score
By Mehrdad Sabir
If you are preparing for the IELTS reading exam, you might be wondering how to improve your reading skills and vocabulary. One of the most effective ways to do so is by doing extensive reading. Extensive reading is a type of reading that involves reading a large amount of texts for pleasure and general comprehension, rather than for specific details or analysis. Extensive reading can expose you to a variety of topics, genres, and styles of English, and help you develop your reading fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary.
The Benefits of Extensive Reading for IELTS Reading
According to several empirical studies and meta-analyses, extensive reading has positive impacts on language learning in second- and foreign-language settings. Specifically, extensive reading can improve your IELTS reading score in the following ways:
-Extensive reading can increase your reading comprehension. Reading comprehension is the ability to understand the main idea, infer the meaning of unfamiliar words from context, and draw conclusions from the text. Extensive reading can help you improve your reading comprehension by exposing you to different types of texts and questions, and by enhancing your background knowledge and schema. A study by Suk (2017) found that students who received extensive reading instruction significantly outperformed those who received intensive reading instruction on reading comprehension tests.
-Extensive reading can increase your reading rate. Reading rate is the speed at which you can read a text with adequate comprehension. Reading rate is important for the IELTS reading exam because you have to read three long texts and answer 40 questions in 60 minutes. Extensive reading can help you increase your reading rate by improving your word recognition, eye movement, and skimming and scanning skills. A study by Suk (2017) also found that students who received extensive reading instruction significantly outperformed those who received intensive reading instruction on reading rate tests¹.
-Extensive reading can increase your vocabulary acquisition. Vocabulary acquisition is the process of learning new words and their meanings, usage, and collocations. Vocabulary acquisition is essential for the IELTS reading exam because you have to deal with a wide range of academic texts that contain many unfamiliar words. Extensive reading can help you increase your vocabulary acquisition by exposing you to a large amount of words in context, and by allowing you to infer their meanings from clues in the text. A meta-analysis by Liu and Zhang (2018) found that extensive reading has a significant effect on English vocabulary learning.
How to Do Extensive Reading for IELTS Reading
To get the most out of extensive reading for IELTS reading, here are some tips and suggestions:
-Choose texts that are interesting and appropriate for your level. You should read texts that are relevant to your interests, goals, and preferences, as well as texts that are not too easy or too difficult for you. A good way to find suitable texts is to use graded readers, which are books that are adapted for different levels of English learners. You can also use online resources such as news websites, blogs, magazines, or podcasts that cover topics similar to those in the IELTS exam.
- Read regularly and extensively. You should read as much as possible and as often as possible. Ideally, you should read at least 30 minutes every day, or more if you have time. You should also read a variety of texts from different sources and genres, such as fiction, non-fiction, science, history, culture, etc.
- Read for pleasure and general understanding.
You should read for enjoyment and curiosity, rather than for specific details or analysis. You should not worry too much about understanding every word or sentence in the text. Instead, you should focus on getting the main idea and the gist of the text. You should also avoid using a dictionary or translating every word you don't know. Rather, you should try to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words from context or ignore them if they are not important for comprehension.
- Do some follow-up activities after reading. You should do some activities that can help you consolidate what you have read and learned from the text. For example, you can write a summary or a review of the text, answer some comprehension questions or vocabulary exercises related to the text, discuss the text with someone else who has read it or with your teacher, or compare the text with another text on the same topic.
