If you want to improve your English but don’t know where to start, why not try extensive reading (多読)? It’s a good and enjoyable way to build your vocabulary naturally and to increase your reading speed, while improving your general knowledge. And there are thousands of books in the PUK Library, some difficult and some very easy.

I’d like to focus today on Oxford Reading Tree. This is a very popular series in British primary (elementary) schools. The series is divided into many levels. At most of the levels, there are few sentences on each page and each sentence is fairly easy. In fact, at the lowest levels, there may be only 2 or 3 words on a page. The stories are fun, and also teach us things from history and geography.

Here is the ORT site for Japan: http://www.oupjapan.co.jp/gradedreaders/ort/

And here are a few pages from some of the easiest books: http://www.oupjapan.co.jp/gradedreaders/ort/media/TheBarbecue-sausage_page.pdf

So you can see that the books are easy enough for almost everyone!

You can borrow the books from the PUK Library (not the LLC!). I did a search just now and found 227 items.