Reading

Practical advice based on some YouTube videos and ChatGPT

1. Choose something you can actually enjoy and understand.
For comfortable extensive reading, ~95–98% lexical coverage (known vocabulary) is a better target.  At 80%, one word in five is unknown—that is usually no longer comfortable extensive reading.

2. Read primarily for the story, not for vocabulary collection.
The video's advice not to stop at every unfamiliar word is one of its strongest recommendations. Try context first and accept some ambiguity. This is precisely what distinguishes extensive reading from intensive study.

3. Do a tiny recall after reading.
Close the book and mentally or orally reconstruct what happened: Who did what? Why? What happens next?
For nonfiction: Ask yourself what the author means, how ideas connect, what you already know, and what you think about the argument.
It is recommended that you make notes and paraphrase rather than merely copying the author's wording.
Keep it short—perhaps 30–60 seconds, rather than turning every chapter into an exercise.

4. Use the dictionary strategically.
Don't look up everything. Look a word, idiom, expression, etc. up when it blocks your understanding, keeps recurring, or genuinely interests you.

5. Consistency matters

Main advice:
Read → tolerate most unknown language → look up only important/interesting items → 30–60-second recall → continue next time.

And I would certainly not switch automatically to graded readers just because a native novel contains unfamiliar vocabulary. If you can comfortably follow the story, remain interested, and read at a reasonable pace, a real novel can be excellent extensive-reading material at your level.

Read a lot of comprehensible, interesting English without constantly interrupting yourself to study it.