What is the most important reading skill?

12th Dec 2022

What is the most important reading skill?

Important reading skill

There are many reading skills that are important to acquire, and we will learn everything about them today, let’s get started Before we start, do you know how many books does the average person read? You might think of hundreds or thousands, however, the right answer is twelve books a year, some may read one book while others may not read any. Shocking, right? Even though there are many benefits of reading, people still don’t read. Therefore, today we will take about reading skills and how to acquire it.  

Importance of reading skills

Reading skills are important to help kids develop their minds, acquire knowledge, and enhance their attention spans. Reading teaches them new words, makes them remember information easier, and develops empathy. You could help your kid start and love reading, for example, start by reading them kid’s stories, if you want to come up with a story on your own and read it to them, then it’s a good idea to learn “How to write a story for kids?”. Another great idea is to teach them about the prophets’ stories, and the stories of the Quran and with time they will want to learn How to read Arabic Quran? to learn more about Islam. Here are some of the benefits of reading:

1.     Gaining Reading skills enhances your Mind.

The first thing that you will notice when you start reading is the knowledge you gain and the creative ideas that pop up in your mind. Reading will keep your brain active and creative. There are studies showing that reading can prevent Alzheimer’s disease and keep the mind healthy and young.  

2.     Enhance Creative Thinking skills

Reading increases your creative thinking skills. When you read, you will start to imagine the events of the story, feel like you are there, and immerse yourself in the actions. You won’t feel bored when reading.  

3.     Improve Concentration

Reading helps you focus and train your mind to concentrate, so if you have concentration problems then you should start reading right now. When reading you have only one thing to focus on, and that’s something we don’t do a lot nowadays because of the many things that require us to multitask. Being focused helps you finish more work faster and successfully, this includes studying to, you will be able to concentrate for a long time hence studying in fewer hours.  

4.     Gain Knowledge.

That is one benefit that everyone knows. Reading daily increases our knowledge; you will learn new words, and gain knowledge about the world, history, or whatever you want to learn about. The author Roald Dahl said, "If you are going to get anywhere in life, you have to read a lot of books." One day someone asked Elon Musk how did he learn to build rockets and his answer was: "I read books." If the students like learning new languages, then advise them to read books like “learn Arabic book”, be a role model to them, and show them that you love reading.

what is reading skills?

After we learned about the importance of reading comprehension, now it’s time to know what skills you should acquire.

1.     Decoding.

The first and most important skill is decoding, it’s the skill used by kids to sound out words they once heard but don’t know how it’s written. Decoding goes under a bigger skill called phonemic awareness. It means the ability of the kid to hear each sound of the word individually. It also depends on knowing the sound of each letter, for example, when kids try to read the word “blue” they need to understand the sound of each letter. How to pronounce the letter b/l/u/e and how to read them all together to make the word. How to gain this skill? Kids, gain it by nature when they see books, hear songs, and so on. However, some of them face trouble with gaining it. Therefore, they need to be taught to them, and let them practice. Read a lot to your kids and play word games with him/her.  

2.     Fluency.

To be able to read easily, kids must be familiar with the words and be able to recognize them even if they haven’t seen them before, by knowing how each letter is pronounced. Fluency helps them understand and read faster. Trying to decode each word and sound it out will take a lot of time and effort, therefore you need to teach your kids a lot of words and how to pronounce words they haven’t seen before just by looking at it. This is the second skill to gain reading comprehension.  To be fluent the need to read fast with no errors. To reach this stage kids must be taught how to sound out words, practice, and read a lot of books.  

3.     Vocabulary.

How will kids gain fluency if they don’t have good Vocabulary, the key to reading skills is to be able to understand each word you read and that happens when you have a strong Vocabulary. You can teach kids a couple of new words every day, test their knowledge of the old words you taught them, and let them read a lot and ask you about what they failed to understand.  

4.     Reading comprehension

Reading comprehension means being able to understand the book you’re reading, the text, or the learning materials. Perhaps not having this skill makes many people hate reading and others wonder, how to read a book. The skill of comprehension depends on word reading, which means the ability to understand the word and read it, and decoding, which means being able to understand the meaning of the word and sentence you read. This skill helps you learn, gain new knowledge, and enjoy what you’re reading. Do you know, how many books does the average person read? I bit you don’t, in the US There is research shows that the average person reads around twelve books a year, some may read one book while others may not read any.  

What are the basic skills of reading?

The rest of the reading skills include:

5.     Background knowledge.

When we read a story or a book, we tend to relate it to our lives or something we know or experience. Therefore, you have to teach your kid about the word and help them acquire knowledge so they can understand the hidden ideas in the text. How do you help kids build this skill? By reading a lot, watching movies and tv shows, you can even teach them about art.  

6.     Enhance memory and attention.

When kid pays attention to what he/she reads they will be able to memorize the important knowledge and understand what they read which will enhance their reading skills. Not paying attention makes kids lose track and don’t understand the text, this might happen because of a lack of understanding. For example, if the text is hard to understand the kid will feel bored and concentrate on something else. Therefore, you need to teach your kid, if they don’t understand something they must ask or search for it, or even re-read the text.   

Types of reading skills.

The types of reading skills include:

  •       Decoding  
  •       Phonics.
  •       Vocabulary.
  •       Fluency.
  •       Reading Comprehension.
  •       Enhancing Memory & Attention
  •       Background Knowledge.

3 types of reading.

Here are the three types of reading.

1.      Skimming.

Skimming refers to going through the pages to search for something you’re looking for without reading the whole page. For example, when you are searching for specific information in an article, you won’t read it all, in fact, you will skim the article searching for a specific title.

2.      Scanning.

It a little bit similar to the previous one. When scanning a book, you read the text ignoring the irrelevant information to find the thing you’re searching for.

3.     Intensive Reading.

In intensive reading, you read the text with care for every detail and information. You want to understand each word.

What is comprehension skills?

Reading comprehension means being able to understand the book you’re reading, the text, or the learning materials. Perhaps not having this skill makes many people hate reading and others wonder, “how to read a book? The skill of comprehension depends on word reading, which means the ability to understand the word and read it, and decoding, which means being able to understand the meaning of the word and sentence you read. This skill helps you learn, gain new knowledge, and enjoy what you’re reading. Do you know, how many books does the average person read? I bit you don’t, in the US There is research shows that the average person read around twelve books a year, some may read one book while others may not read any.