Three Months of Reading Every Day

Hello, everyone! In this blog, I write about my life as a third-year high school student preparing for university entrance exams. Today, I want to share something that has really helped me: reading one English passage every day.

In September, reading was my weakest area in English. In practice exams, I always ran out of time, and I could never finish the last long passage. When I read a passage at home, it often took me fifteen minutes. I knew many words, but I read every sentence slowly, translating it into Japanese in my head. My teacher told me that the best way to improve my reading speed was to read a lot, so I decided to try.

My rule was simple: one passage a day, no matter how busy I was. I chose passages of about 350 words and timed myself with a kitchen timer. After reading, I checked the meanings of the words I didn't know and read the passage once more. On days when I was tired, I just read it without worrying about the time. The important thing was not to skip a day.

For the first few weeks, I saw almost no improvement. Honestly, I wanted to give up. But around the end of October, I noticed that I could understand sentences without translating them. By December, I was able to finish a passage in about five minutes. My score on the reading section of practice exams has also improved, and I now have time left to check my answers.

Of course, I am not the fastest reader in my class. My friend can finish a passage like that in three minutes! But I have learned that you do not need to improve quickly. Small steps every day really add up. If you are struggling with reading, why not start with just one passage today?