Education
How to Improve Your Word Habits by Jimmy Cox
[Jan 26, 2008]
To attain peak efficiency in reading, you ought to work through all the words and phrases regularly employed in your own field. Chemists, lawyers, engineers and physicians do this as a part of their training. Why should you not be as thorough in your word habits as they are in theirs?
Do not expect brilliant results here overnight. But if your reading does not improve after three or four months of word drill, this will almost certainly indicate that you suffer from other serious handicaps.
A Word List to Master
Here follows a list of words taken, with permission, from a famous survey made by Professor E. L. Thorndike, of Teachers' College, Columbia University. For school use he prepared a list of the 10,000 words which appear most often in books and newspapers ordinarily read. I must assume that nearly all adults are familiar with the most common words among these. But probably the less common will offer a little difficulty at least to some who wish to improve their reading habits.
When you have learned all their important meanings you will have the basis of a non-technical working vocabulary. To perfect your business reading, you must next build up your own special vocabulary. As you learn new words here, write them down.