Whether you’re a natural reading lover like myself or merely read when you have to, there’s no denying that it’s an invaluable skill. If you want to travel, open your career opportunities, follow your favorite English-speaking celebrities on Twitter or understand the manual for that new American appliance you just bought, knowing how to read in English is a must.
Fortunately, learning to read in English doesn’t have to be time-consuming or difficult. You just need the right tools at your disposal. There are tons of great, affordable reading resources for English Reading Material available to you, and I’ve selected six top ones to get you started.
Cambridge English offers many great online activities for English learners, especially for reading practice.
Their reading material is quite diverse, covering all sorts of topics such as travel, science fiction, linguistics and shopping. The activities are categorized by difficulty level and topic.
Additionally, each resource is labeled with the amount of time needed to complete the reading and the activity that accompanies it.
The bonus material at the end of each reading can vary quite a bit. It includes things like quizzing yourself by answering questions, practicing reading for the main idea and activities to help you read for detail.
You’ll also see a nice variety of reading material from the real world. There are articles, emails and more.
USA Learns is a top-notch website that’s completely free to use. It’s full of resources for beginner and intermediate learners.
The reading topics are varied, covering everything from business to the latest news and social trends. Since USA Learns was originally designed for adult immigrants in the U.S., this site also covers subjects about American culture, which is interesting whether you intend to relocate to the States or not.
All the reading materials are accompanied by activities and additional resources such as grammar lessons and comprehension questions. You can also work on your listening skills, since many of the texts come with an audio recording.
EnglishClub is a free website for both learners and teachers and has reading resources on many interesting topics.
Their reading skills section includes a reading test to check your current reading level and measure your improvement in the future.
One of the best things about EnglishClub is that you can read about your own interests and hobbies. There are texts covering music, movies, the environment, technology and more. They even have a reading section for kids and a page dedicated to short fiction.
Each text is accompanied by various additional resources such as audio or video, exercises, vocabulary lists, comprehension quizzes and discussion questions.
You may already be familiar with the famous English-language magazine National Geographic. Their blog, In Focus, is a resource entirely dedicated to posts about English learning and teaching.
Learners can practice their reading with articles covering exciting topics like travel and culture, photography, motivation for learning and more. Each article is categorized by how many minutes it takes to read.
The articles often include reflection questions at the end, too. You’ll find that they’re largely written for a language teaching audience, but they’re not very complex and they should give you an interesting new perspective on the English learning process.
Additionally, there are sometimes contests for readers who respond to the blog posts with thoughtful comments and ideas.
They have books for both children and adult learners, and their graded readers are divided into seven levels. The majority of their books are English classics that’ve been retold at various levels.
They have tons of great resources and activities to accompany their books, such as glossaries with new vocabulary, audio files to listen to while you’re reading and follow-up tests.
Before choosing a book, be sure to take one of these free level placement tests created specifically for Oxford’s grading system.
Breaking News English allows ESL learners access to a range of different news articles in English covering a variety of topics. The difficulty level of the lessons spans from elementary to advanced, meaning that you can choose articles that will match your current skills.
Each article also comes with a number of activities for listening, reading, grammar and more, meaning you’ll be able to make sure you’ve properly understood what you’ve read, and remember new vocabulary and grammar going forward.
This resource can be a great way to gradually work your way up to reading native level English news, and with so many lessons to work through, you’ll have plenty to learn from.
You don’t have to stop here! You might find reading practice in the most unexpected places. For example, any video that has accurate subtitles can be a great learning tool. And since you need to follow along with the words spoken in the video, you’ll have to learn how to read quickly and accurately. You can find many videos on the FluentU program to help practice your reading skills naturally.
FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.
You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Check out the website or download the iOS app or Android app.
With so many wonderful resources for English reading material at your fingertips, there’s no excuse not to become a proficient English reader and open up a whole new world of possibilities!
If you want to watch it, the FluentU app has probably got it.
The FluentU app and website makes it really easy to watch English videos. There are captions that are interactive. That means you can tap on any word to see an image, definition, and useful examples.
FluentU lets you learn engaging content with world famous celebrities.
For example, when you tap on the word "searching," you see this:
FluentU lets you tap to look up any word.
Learn all the vocabulary in any video with quizzes. Swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you’re learning.
FluentU helps you learn fast with useful questions and multiple examples. Learn more.
The best part? FluentU remembers the vocabulary that you’re learning. It gives you extra practice with difficult words—and reminds you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned. You have a truly personalized experience.
