Stopping at every unknown word kills comprehension. Look things up less, pick the right level, drop word-by-word reading and mix intensive with extensive.
📚 Learning English · 6/12·⏱ About 5min read·Information updated 2026-10-01
📋 Key facts4
Key
Looking up every word actually lowers comprehension
Level
More than ten unknown words a page means the text is too hard
Speed
Reading word by word is the biggest brake
Advice
Reading a lot of easy text beats grinding through hard text
Look things up less, first
Stopping to look up every unknown word means forgetting what came before while you search, which breaks the thread. Most words become clear from context after a few more encounters. Reading a paragraph to the end and then checking only the words you genuinely needed is far more efficient. A good approach is to guess the meaning of an unknown word and just mark it lightly. After finishing, look up only the marked words that appeared several times or were essential — checking whether your guess was right is itself what fixes the word in memory.
Choosing the right difficulty
More than ten unknown words on a page means the text is above your current level. Reading it becomes decoding, and little remains for the time spent. Two or three unknown words a page is the level where reading itself teaches you the most. To judge difficulty, open somewhere in the middle and test-read a page rather than only the first one. Graded readers, rewritten for learners with controlled vocabulary, are organised by level and make choosing easy when starting extensive reading.
The word-by-word habit
The biggest brake on speed is tracking words one at a time. Practising to take in meaningful groups lets you cover far more in the same time. Subvocalising, even silently, also ties reading speed to speaking speed. To develop a feel for reading in phrases, try marking the break points in sentences at first. Once groupings — the subject phrase, the verb phrase, phrases starting with a preposition — start to jump out, understanding in word order speeds up.
Take in phrases rather than single words
Stop your eyes drifting back to lines already read
Lead your eyes with a finger or cursor
Time yourself so you stay aware of your pace
Purpose changes how you read
Not every text deserves the same treatment. Scan when you only need one fact, read first and last sentences when the gist is enough, and slow down only when precise understanding matters. Deciding the purpose before you start changes the speed by itself. For test reading questions, reading the question first and then going in to find the information saves time. On the other hand, texts you cannot afford to misread, such as contracts or work instructions, call for accuracy over speed.
Volume settles it in the end
Reading ability grows from accumulated pages more than from technique. Steadily reading easy texts on subjects you care about lasts longer and works better than forcing through material that bores you. Staying with one subject teaches you its recurring phrases, so each next text gets easier. Logging how much you read helps you keep going. Pages or number of articles is enough, and as the record grows you can see for yourself that texts which were once hard have become easy.
You need both intensive and extensive reading
Intensive reading means analysing a short text closely, down to sentence structure; extensive reading means reading lots of easy text and riding the flow. Intensive reading alone never builds speed, and extensive reading alone leaves vague constructions vague forever. Over a week, spending most of your time on extensive reading and picking a short text once or twice for intensive work is a sensible balance.
Intensive: short texts, structure analysis, noting unfamiliar expressions
Extensive: easy texts, no dictionary, large volume
Balance: extensive at the centre, intensive as support
Reread an intensively studied text a few days later as extensive reading
Measuring reading speed
Speed is simplest to measure in words per minute. Read a text of similar difficulty for a set time and divide the words read by the minutes taken. Speed without understanding is pointless, so also check whether you can summarise what you read in a sentence or two. Measuring the same way once a month lets you see change objectively.
Choose texts of similar difficulty
Start a timer and read at your normal pace
Words read ÷ minutes = words per minute
Summarise briefly to check comprehension
Choosing what to read
To keep reading, it has to be enjoyable above all. Start with texts where you have background knowledge — articles in your field, the original of a novel whose story you know, the English manual of a product you use — and you will finish them even with unknown words. Sticking to one field for a few weeks builds its core vocabulary quickly, so the same effort feels like greater progress.