- Spend some time (say five minutes a day) reading out loud. This will help you hear both the sound of English words and the rhythm of English sentences.
- Spend some time, whenever you can, reading aloud to an English-speaking friend who can help you with the pronunciation of words and with the meaning of any unfamiliar words.
- Have an English-speaking friend read a short section of a textbook aloud while you follow in your own copy of the same text. By doing this, you will increase your knowledge of how unfamiliar English words are pronounced and spelled.
- Have someone read out loud a short prose passage (such as a well-developed paragraph) slowly enough for you to write down what is being read. When you are finished, you can compare what you have written with what was read to you.
- Carefully copy a short passage of English prose. This will help you see how words are spelled, how sentences are punctuated, and how idiomatic phrases are used. Idiomatic phrases are common expressions with special meanings that cannot be understood from the individual meanings of the words in these phrases. Of all the things you can learn from reading (and from employing the above strategies), none is more important than having this opportunity to familiarize yourself with English idioms.
- Make a list of English idioms whose meanings you are not sure of and then ask a friend or a teacher to explain their meanings to you.
- Make a list of unfamiliar words and look up their meanings in a dictionary, or ask a friend or teacher to explain their meanings to you. Keep these lists (along with the definitions of the words) and go over them from time to time in order to help them become part of your vocabulary.