You might be frustrated because your reading ability in English does not match that of your first language. Fortunately there are ways you can develop your reading skills so that you can read better and faster. You should learn how to read with a purpose. You should learn how to find correct answers to questions. Essence Reading will help you to improve these kinds of reading skills.

Each level of this series comes with one book and one audio component. Each book is organized into 19-20 chapters consisting of various practice and activity types such as: Before you read, New Vocabulary, Idioms, Passages, Reading Questions, Vocabulary Test, and Grammar Focus.

One of major advantages of this series is that it integrates many skills: reading, vocabulary building, and listening. In addition, it promotes critical thinking as well as creative problem solving. Readings on various topics such as world cultures, famous people, science, nature, etc can also be found. The content is current and engaging and the readings are graded to the appropriate length and depth depending on the English proficiency level of the student. For example, reading passages at the first level range from 500 to 550 words, at the second 550 to 600, at the third 600-700, and at the fourth 700 to 900.

To properly understand each passage, start with the Before You Read section to search for the summary of that passage. After reading, your task is to find the topic sentence, the sentence which summarizes the main point of the passage. The topic sentence is usually the first sentence of the paragraph, although it may also occur as the last sentence.

The question types used in Essence Reading include 1) Main Idea 2) Inference 3) Details 4) Multiple Answers 5) Finding the Meaning & Purpose, and 6) Filling in the blank.

The Vocabulary Test section consists of 1) Idioms & Expressions 2) Filling in the blanks 3) Filling in the paragraph that summarizes the passage and 4) Filling in the blanks using the new vocabulary. The purpose of Grammar Focus is to give you a chance to practice grammar which is not included in the Questions section, using one or two paragraphs of the passage. The activities in Essence Reading will ensure greater reading fluency and exams success. Good luck!

Rachel Lee