"I scream, I..." Hi. James from EngVid. That was for Eddie Murphy, and that line comes
from the movie "Delirious", which is hilarious. In fact, the reason why he used "delirious"
is because if you laugh so much, it's almost like you go crazy. Delirious.
Anyway, so are you ready? I'm going to teach you a lesson today. Actually, it's in response.
"Response" means I'm doing this back to something that was said about reading skills. I did
an earlier video -- go check it. It's on reading comprehension. That video was basically to
help you to understand. It wasn't about doing it for tests or anything special. It was for
you at home, by yourself, trying to understand. And it's valid, which means true, and it's
a good video. This is to help you. It's an -- not excess. It's an addition to, okay?
Which will help you in a different way. So for those of you people who are wondering,
"How can I do this on a test without a dictionary? This is a crazy method." You missed the point.
That was to help you just get better at reading. This one, I'm going to try and help you do
two things. Number one, go faster. Number two, improving your reading skills. And number
three, magically -- because it's magically delicious -- I want to actually have you enjoy
the experience of reading. That's right, boys and girls. I'm going to do what they couldn't
do in school. Yeah, right. Anyway, let's go to the board. First, reading skills that work.
These skills will work. The only thing that -- the only reason they won't work is if you
don't use them. So I'm going to tell you to use them now. Now, part of this is for if
you're in school. If you're at home studying by yourself in our farm country where you
can't get to school, don't worry. You can still apply this. I just used the word "test"
and for "school" for people who are going to be taking IELTS or TOEIC or TOEFL. That
may be you in the future as well. So don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, which
is an English expression for saying, "Don't get rid of everything because you're not happy
about something." Okay? So just keep in mind that if you can't use it now directly, you
First, for tests and class, what I want to teach you is active reading skills. I was
actually by the Cornell -- they have a website, and I was checking out how they were teaching
university students, and I found this to be a very effective way, and I believe will work
for you. A lot of times, people take information in passively. That means they sit there, and
they hope that something magic happens. If I keep looking at the page, the page will
start to actually speak, and I'll understand. That's not going to happen. In order for you
to get better at reading, we need to be active or activate our brains and minds.
First thing we're going to do with that is when you start reading something, it doesn't
matter if it's a page or if it's a book, a magazine, comic book, Playboy -- yes, I said
it -- what you want to do is ask questions. Asking questions informs your brain what to
look for, what's important. Right? If the title is on something about history of man,
then it's about history. It also could be about science. It might be about psychology,
but it's probably not about cars. Right? So ask yourself W5 questions, and in this case,
it might be, "Why is this important? How has this affected the world? Why did my teacher
give this to me?" Or, "What do I have to learn from this? What am I expected to learn from
this?" These questions, as I said, will give you the ability to inform your brain. You
must look for this information, and it will actively look for it. Okay? It will also save
you time because it will say, you know, "This information doesn't help me with what I want,
so I can put it away." Or, "I'm not going to read any of this information at all. I'll
Next, break down the introduction. The introduction -- I actually have a video on that, so if
you're not too sure, please watch the introduction video. The introduction usually has three
parts to it. It has a topic or subject, what the actual book or essay is about. It has
main ideas, what the author or the writer will actually talk about. And it also usually
has a thesis. I'm going to say this basically. A thesis is an opinion or an action statement
-- what you should do or what the writer thinks is true. You know, what they agree with or
don't disagree with. Okay? So you want to look at this. Break these down and just write
a sentence for each. The subject is this. The main ideas are this, this, and this. And
the author's opinion or action statement is this. Okay? Once again, this helps you skim
what you need, because once you have the topic -- you know, what you're talking about -- you
have the main ideas, and you know their opinion, you don't have to read what we call "fluff"
or "filler". A lot of times, when somebody wants to sell a book -- for instance, The
Eye in the Sky -- God only knows who would read this. Twenty pages are excellent. Then
the author says, "I need to make 252." So they just add pages of nothing. "The moon
was red and glowing in the glorious sky above." It doesn't add to the story, but it does add
to the cost of the book. Okay? So what we want to do is we want to know -- because I
don't have time. I'm doing a test or I'm in a class. I don't have time to read the filler.
I want to get to it. Boom. Okay? So this will help you. Once again, help your brain. This
tells you what to look for by the questions for what I'm supposed to learn, and this tells
me what I can skim. There's a myth in reading that you have to read everything in every
word. You don't. You have to get what's important. Another word is "pertinent". "Pertinent" means
"important". Okay? This will help you with getting what's important and ignoring what's
Next, finally, summarize each chapter in two parts. I'm missing something here because
it's so important. Instead of putting it in a box, I want to actually talk to you, and
I want you to listen, and I want you to get it. This is the pièce de résistance. This
is what makes everything work, the gas in the car, you know, the sing in my voice, and
that sparkle in my eye. When we summarize, it's not enough to write out the words. You've
done that kind of already. I need you to do it in two parts. Have you ever talked to a
girlfriend or boyfriend, and they say certain words, and you realize there's what they're
saying and there's what they mean? When we're writing, there's what it says, and that's
the information you need because you need to give it to someone else. And there's what
it does. What is the function of that chapter? What is the function of that paragraph? Is
it giving you evidence for something, saying this is why it's true, or is it giving you
information? Or is it introducing a new idea? That's one of the parts. What does this paragraph,
what does this chapter do? Is it presenting an idea, or is it giving me evidence? I need
to know that. Okay? So I need to summarize not only what it says, but what it does. That's
so important because when you know what it does, you can know it fits in the whole structure
and know what you need to know faster. Okay?
Now, this is finally summarized. I lied to you. I had to learn this, I studied it, and
now I'm teaching you. I know it's right because in teaching you, in my brain, I'm going, "I
know this, and I don't know that." This is the big key. If you really want to do well
-- now, of course, this isn't for a test because in a test, you can't turn to the person beside
you and say, "Dude, do you know what the teacher's asking? Do you know what this means?" They'll
kick you out. But in the classroom, a good way of testing how much you've learned, engage
someone else, teach. If you're teaching them something, and you're all of a sudden going,
"Oh. Oh, man. It was -- oh." And I don't remember, it's because you have to read it again. Remember
I told you about the other video about comprehension? Check it out, please. Okay? But if you can
explain everything and get the person to understand, it means you've understood what you've read.
This is a great skill to do in a classroom. For a test, all the other ones -- the first
ones I've written on the board -- are extremely important. Okay? So follow them. You'll get
Now, all this is great, you're saying, "But, James, I need to improve. This is cool. I'll
do it on a test, but I need to go fast now. What can I do?" I'm going to tell you right
now. To generally improve your reading, here are the points I'm going to give you. Do these
points every day. 15 minutes is all that is required. You're going to do fantastically.
And then this will be even better. You ready? Let's go.
You almost caught me. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Mr. E. Okay? Dude loves being in the picture,
and he wants you to improve, so he showed up just for you. Okay, first of all, get a
book that's easy to read. Okay? See what I'm saying? Get this book. Mr. E is not happy
that I'm making fun of this book, but I'm just saying get something easy. Don't get
something complicated or something you don't want to read. You cannot improve by doing
this. Get something you like. Okay?
Next, get a timer. A timer is a clock that will go ding-ding-ding-ding-ding when a certain
amount of time is finished. And specifically, we need one for 15 minutes. An egg timer or
a clock watch -- I don't have mine on -- they usually have timers on them for running, so
you can time it. What I want you to do is then, when you're doing this, read. So when
you're reading, you're going to use what I call the "finger method". You're going to
take your two fingers, put them on the outside of a sentence, like so, and read down. Try
not to go same speeds. Try and see the whole sentence. If that's too difficult, try this
one. It's easy. Just go like this. Get a timer. Follow your finger. Do not follow your eyes.
Follow your finger. Make the finger move and follow it as fast as you can. Okay?
Now, next, close the book. That wasn't so hard, right? 15 minutes, move your finger,
close the book. To really improve, reading fast without understanding is not very smart.
So what I want you to do is I want you to understand -- and here's what we do -- paraphrase.
Paraphrase means to take something and make it simpler. Find another way of saying it
so it's easier to understand. It's similar to when I said to you over here, "Teach someone
else." But you're going to actually teach yourself. What you cannot paraphrase or say
out loud is information you don't have. So what we want to do is make sure we understand
it and I can say it, because if I say it and I go, "Yeah, that's right. I got it right!"
then I understand it. So not only did I read quickly, but I understood the information.
Now, this is sort of like taking a shower or a bath or deodorant. Repeat every day.
This is not something you do once a week. Every day, 15 minutes. You'll start noticing
improvement. Try and go for one-sentence improvement to a paragraph each day. After a while, you'll
find that you're not doing just one page, but two pages. You're doing five. When I said
use the finger method, I forgot to mention count your pages. So when you cut that book
or you finish the book, you've got five pages today, get five pages in one sentence tomorrow.
The most important part is follow these steps and do it every day. Okay?
Now, look. I've got to go. You do this and leave a message in the YouTube. We've got
a YouTube subscription or on Facebook, and sign up for us. Sorry. YouTube, we have Facebook
and engVid. Where's engVid? Oh, got to find some room. We've got www.eng as in English,
vid as in video.com, where we have this lesson and others that will certainly tickle your
tummy, see Mr. E again, and improve your skills like reading. Thank you very much. See you soon.