Nowadays, knowing how to interpret a text correctly is important not only for academic life, but also for professional life and for daily routine.
After all, learning to understand and interpret texts is not just important for college entrance exams, for example, but for life!
The ability to understand the most varied types of speech will help in learning other subjects, as well as be essential for understanding the world around you.
That's why we've prepared some tips that will help you considerably improve your text interpretation skills!
Check for now 5 tips on how to interpret a text correctly!
What is text interpretation?
Text comprehension refers to the process from the act of reading a textual production and understanding its structure to understanding the author's words.
Thus, it involves knowledge of the grammatical functioning of language, vocabulary and textual genres – to discern the format in which the message was produced, for example.
Text interpretation, on the other hand, refers to the act of perceiving what the author meant and, thus, extracting meanings from the textual production.
This process involves knowledge of the reader's world and the ability to understand the text as belonging to reality – and may even create intellectualization with other productions.
How to interpret a text correctly?
Although it seems complicated, knowing how to interpret a text correctly is fundamental for a broader understanding of society and the world as a whole.
After all, written language is present in all areas of our lives, and more and more companies are asking for essays in their selection processes precisely to measure the candidates' ability to interpret texts.
Check now these 5 tips on how to interpret a text correctly and catch up with your reading skills!
1. Read every day
The first tip on how to interpret a text correctly is to read it every day.
Increasing the daily reading load will help improve your ability to interpret texts, as it will expand the textual analysis exercises.
However, when we talk about reading, we are not referring only to books, but also to other productions, such as reports, blog posts and even publications on social networks.
In addition to written material, textual interpretation also covers the production of speeches in other formats, such as audiovisual – films, music and videos – and graphic language – tables and graphs, for example.
The goal is to expand your informational repertoire.
One tip is to expect great deals and buy several books in the most varied text genres.
One of the major holidays that offers the best deals on reading articles is Black Friday , which takes place on the last Fridays of November!
2. Improve your concentration skills
Another tip on how to interpret a text correctly is to improve concentration skills.
Otherwise, you could reread the same sentence 10 times and still not understand anything that was said.
Therefore, it is essential to work on concentration, improving the ability to stay focused on the same activity for long periods of time.
Remember that it is quite normal to have some difficulty staying focused for more than an hour on the same activity, for example.
So take a few breaks for coffee or a breath every 50 minutes of reading or studying.
It can be very difficult at first, and it's very likely that, in the first few minutes, you'll already want to open your social media and start getting distracted!
However, it is essential to persist in the actions described above!
Understand that improving your ability to concentrate will help you a lot in your studies and later in your professional life.
3. Explain the reading content to yourself
Try to slow down the text by breaking it up into smaller chunks so you don't have to interpret it all at once at the end.
Also, adopt some practices that help you understand all the sentences, thus not missing parts of the speech.
A good idea is to read it aloud and explain the text to yourself.
4. Study grammar
Another tip on how to interpret a text correctly is studying grammar!
Mastery of the standard functioning of the language is essential to improve text interpretation skills, as well as to develop reading and writing skills.
This is because grammar studies will help people to understand the role that each structure has in creating meaning in sentences.
While reading, always try to have a dictionary nearby.
Every time you notice a word whose meaning you don't know, write it down or look it up. This exercise will help you not to miss any important terms in the text.
5. Write a lot
Reading and writing are closely related processes.
Therefore, writing well will help you develop a better understanding of texts, as you will be more familiar with the structures of the language and how they organize themselves to create meaning.
