James

How you doing?

I'm reading the newspaper

and having a hard time understanding it.

I'm really not comprehending it.

"Comprehending" means to understand, or we could say "comprehension."

Comprehension is a good skill to learn

Many people can read but they don't truly understand what they're reading

So, we're gonna work on this to give you some hints

on how you can work with English, reading

and understand what you're reading. OK? Now

I suggest, the first time you read something:

Read it quickly!

And don't use a dictionary. That's right!

A dictionary is not good.

Because you miss out on something very important

That thing is called ...

Many times in your own language, when you read something

you don't understand all of the words.

You don't always go for a dictionary.

You read another words around it

and you find out what that word means.

That's important for comperhension.

OK?

So,

first step,

read ... quickly

and underline

So! For the first step I want you to :

Read quickly,

and underline the words you don't know

By doing this we're starting your brain on the passage of working on the new information

and geting the context of the information.

Now, that's not gonna help you understand,

but there are two other steps. So, let's go over them!

After you read quickly, you're gonna have questions:

What are these other words?

Here is what we're going to do to help you with that.

The second time we're going to read it again.

But this time what I want you to do is

use your dictionary and we're going to take

each paragraph that you read

and make one sentence that summarizes it, OK?

So, we're going to do read it again. This time

use the dictionary

and summarize each paragraph.

How does this help you? Well,

in the first case we read, we didn't understand the words.

Your brain starts to ask what did they mean.

We take the time to read it again and answer the questions for you brain

that enables you to summarize each paragraph

giving a basic meaning of it. OK?

There's too much information in each paragraph to summarize with one sentence

but it puts you in the right track to really understand what you're reading.

Which leads me to the third step.

OK, ready? Let's go!

On the third step...

We want to... Yes! I know! Read it again!

Yep! But this is the important part, 'cause now you're actually going to understand.

Trust me! It's really cool! Watch...

At this time we're going to read the whole article and summarize everything we've read, OK?

OK! Once you've done that and summarized everything,

we're actually on the path to writing essays.

Things you might used in TOIEC or TOEFL,

but that's another chapter. For now,

let's go over the reasons why you will do this.

By summarizing everything, you actually have to understand what you're doing.

We've read it three times. Each time going deeper into what we've been reading.

But that is not the cool part, the really cool part is this.

By reading it over and over, you are actually learning idioms, phrases and words

that you won't forget.

And here is the cool part

You'll read faster. Right? Because you are learning these things and keeping them.

Every time you read something new, you'll remember it!

So, you cut down your reading time. Cool, told you!

I know it's slow at the beginning, but I promise you if you follow this method,

for a little while, say a month,

you'll notice a greatest improvement in your reading,

and even more important, you will find that you really understand.

Comprehension, kinda cool. Anyway, it's James, got to go, but before I do, important message.

If you have any more questions on comprehension,

a place you can meet me at, and some other teachers

is www dot Eng, as in English, Vid, as in video, dot com.

We will be happy to answer your questions and get some of your advice and feedback.

I''m out. Comprehension. Have a good day.