Reading Power Vocabulary Text Hello, this is AJ again. Big smile...deep breath. Move that body, let's start the vocabulary lesson for "The Power of Reading." Okay, one of the words we had in there was competence. Now, Dr. Krashen said people develop competence when they read. They develop the competence they need to move from the beginning level to a level where they can use the language for more difficult purposes. Competence, competence. Competence means skill or ability. So when you read you develop more advanced skill in English. You develop more advanced competence in English. So competence means skill or ability. And then we have the word demanding, right? He says you develop the competence for more demanding purposes. More demanding purposes, more demanding actions. More demanding challenges. Demanding just means difficult. Difficult. So in other words you get better and better. You can do more difficult things with the language. So in the beginning maybe you have very simple, low level English or maybe intermediate level English. Probably most of you are intermediate level. If you read my website and bought my lessons you are definitely intermediate level. So if you're intermediate level but you want to use English for more demanding purposes, more difficult purposes. Maybe now you can talk a little bit but you can't go to a high level business meeting and use English very well. That's a demanding purpose. It's a more difficult situation. It's a more demanding situation. So again, demanding has this idea of difficult, something that's difficult. Alright, then we also had the word literacy. Literacy, that people develop literacy by reading. Surprise, surprise, that seems pretty logical. Literacy means the ability to read well. So again, literacy is just the skill, the competence, the ability to read well. It has this idea of proficiency or ability. It means you're good at something. Now, usually it means good at reading. We do sometimes use it in a more general way, where you could say "I have good computer literacy," for example. Now, we're not talking about reading. We're just saying computer ability. Basic competence with a computer, we would say computer literacy. It means I understand computers, I can use computers. I'm not an expert but, y'know, I'm good enough. But more specifically, and in this article especially, literacy just means the ability to read well. Okay, we had another little phrase, well read. In the sentence it said "We rarely find well read people who have serious problems with grammar." Okay, so well read means, it just means that you have read a lot of books. A well read person is someone who has read a lot. That means you have read a lot. You know a lot about books. Well not about books, it means you actually have read books. You've read a lot of books. So