As I've got older, I've become more analytical when it comes to reading. When I was young, if I didn't know a word I usually just skipped over it. Nowadays, if I find a word I don't know I usually look it up on the internet straight away and add it to a vocabulary list. The problem is, as the books I read become more and more dense, so does the vocabulary. Sometimes I'm looking up 2-3 words per page. I know this is brilliant for increasing my vocabulary, but it makes reading almost...stressful... at times. Certainly less enjoyable than when I was younger.
I read an interesting article earlier in the year - I think it was based on some research and it tackled this very subject. I'll post the link, if I'm allowed (new here, so I'm not sure what the policy is on linking to other websites.) The author concluded that the best way to deal with vocabulary when reading is to simply try and interpret the word as you're reading it, rather than looking it up straight away. They argued that looking up so many words ruins the 'flow' of reading and I do agree with that. It also said we're more likely to understand the subtleties of a word that we guess in context, given that words do not always go by a black-and-white definition when used in literature. I've concluded, thus far, that the best thing to do is try and interpret the vast majority of words and only look up the ones that I cannot decipher even within context.
Anyway, I was curious to know other people's thoughts on this. What do you do when you come across unfamiliar words in your reading? Are there any methods that work for you in terms of interpreting a word from its context? I'd be interested to hear what others think.
