Language learners who want to develop what they already know about their target language would want to learn of more ways on how to improve their language skills. Those that have already had experienced language programs also want to know how to retain what they have learned about their target language. Most say that in order to improve and keep your knowledge of an acquired language is to use it frequently.

I have many friends who are not native English speakers yet they have acquired a level of English fluency that can compare to native speakers. Most of them have been exposed to the English language since they were young through books, songs, films, and informative shows. All through their lives, they have encountered the English language since it is part of the education system of the schools in their respective countries yet not every citizen around them can speak or read English.

I asked a particular friend how did she become adept in writing and speaking English even though it is not her native tongue, and her only reply was: by reading. She loves reading books and started reading since she was a little girl.

When she entered grammar school, all the basic elements of English were taught from parts of speech to sentence elements to vocabulary to punctuations. As years went by, English classes became more complex and she strived hard to retain all of the knowledge into her system although she only uses English in school. The few times English became a part of her life outside school were during those times when she watched English movies, listened to English songs, and when she delved into her English-language books. Rarely was English used for casual conversations.

Reading is one of the four essential language skills and it can develop independently of listening and speaking skills but it often develops together with those skills. Reading helps build a language learner’s vocabulary and that is essential for listening comprehension during the later stages of learning a language. Reading also helps readers interpret and understand the script, find out the meaning of the words used, identify grammatical word classes, recognize basic syntactic patterns, and a whole lot more.

In the book Reading and Language Learning by Keiko Koda, a professor of Second Language Acquisition and Japanese at Carnegie Mellon University, the author said that reading and language are interdependent. Reading requires linguistic knowledge yet reading ability enhances linguistic knowledge expansion.

My friend has developed and retained her knowledge of English through reading and she is now teaching English literature to high school students. She may have honed her English skills differently from other people but she believes that reading holds an essential part in learning a language.

If you are a language learner or have already learned a foreign language, what is your opinion on reading in your target language?

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