A simple technique, but one that’s often overlooked, is to increase vocabulary by reading. If you make an effort to pick up one new piece of reading material each day, you’ll find that the words you come across in this reading stay in your vocabulary, and the more you read the more words you’ll come across. Studies have shown that children who don’t spend time reading have a much smaller vocabulary than those who do, and the gap between the readers and the non-readers only increases over time.¹ This lack of reading skill and vocabulary is a problem in elementary school, but gets worse as the effects begin to impact a person’s ability to get into a good university, to qualify for well-paying jobs, and to advance in their career. A good vocabulary is the basis for future success; if you have children, we urge you to encourage them to develop a habit of reading. When this habit is learned in childhood, it will stay with them as adults.

Pay attention to both the quality and the quantity of things you read. Look for a variety of reading sources, whether newspapers, magazines, on-line articles, or print novels. The introduction of portable reading devices like the Kindle means that it’s easy to carry around an entire library in your bag, available whenever you have a free moment. Of course, you can also go to the library, where there are thousands of titles to choose from, or visit a used book store to find things that might be out of print.

When you’re traveling, look for lending libraries at airports, hotels, and hostels. Often you’ll be able to take a book from one location and drop it off at another, ready for the next traveler. If you’ve accumulated a lot of books that you’ve read several times and probably won’t read again, consider donating them to a women’s shelter (if they’re paperbacks) or a community library (if they’re hardbound) to share the wealth of words with people who don’t have the same resources. You might even get a tax deduction for this.

So turn off the television and pick up a book – you’ll read your way to an excellent English vocabulary.

¹ A. Biemiller. Language and reading success. Brookline: Cambridge, Massachussets (1999)