Page 4 - Compass Publishing

Introduction

Why is it good to read faster?

Most learners of English read quite slowly?봮ften less than 100 words per minute. They
can easily read much faster if they read passages at the right level and if they have some
practice in reading faster. This series of books will help you do this.

Why is it good to read faster? When you can read faster, you will find it easier to
understand. You do not spend your time sounding out words, so you can give more time
to understanding. When you read faster, you can read more. And reading is more fun
when you can do it easily at a good speed.

There are many kinds of reading: reading for study, reading for fun, reading to learn
about the world (such as reading newspapers), and reading to follow instructions. When you
become faster at one kind of reading, you will also be faster at other kinds of reading too.

You may also be able to listen a bit faster because you are used to understanding English
at a faster speed.

About these books

Using these books is different from other ways of studying English. Usually, you meet new
words and new pieces of grammar and try to learn them bit by bit. However, these books
try to have almost no new things to learn. The purpose is to make you use what you
already know and use it as well as you possibly can. This is called ?쐀ecoming fluent.??When
you are fluent in a language, you can use what you know well. The goal of this book is to
make you a fluent reader.

Most learners read slowly because they meet many unknown words in their reading. The
passages in these books have been prepared so that there will be very few unknown words
in them. First, the passages are written using familiar, useful vocabulary. Also, the passages
are about familiar things. In addition, the passages are grouped into themes so that the
four passages on the same theme will become easier as you read your way through them.
The earlier passages will make the later ones more familiar. Last, difficult vocabulary is
reviewed before you read the passages. These things are done so that you can read the
passages quickly without meeting many unknown words.

Reading these passages should help you learn to read faster. All the passages in the book
are exactly 350 words long, and they are written largely within a vocabulary of 1400 words
and all in the same style.

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