You won't learn a new word unless you write it down and look it up in the dictionary or encounter the word more than 10 times in the book that you finally realize its meaning. Thus, if you want to learn MORE THAN A FEW WORDS from a novel, you'd better write them down in your vocab book and look them up later like after you finish the novel. Another key is revision. Always revise your vocab book on MTR or at your leisure time.
Another way to build your vovabulary is to buy ready-made word glossary. If you're a primary student, I'd prefer the book "English Vocabulary in Use" by Michael Mc Carthy Felicity & O' Dellthe and printed by Cambridge Unversity Press. This book has 3 standards including elementary (P.1-2 student), pre-intermediate & intermediate (P.3-4) and upper-intermediate (P.5-6) including an exercise book called "Test your English Vocabulary in Use".
If you're a secondary student or over, I'd recommend you to read teenage novels and record your vocab. "Word Smart" by The Princeton Review is another amazing glossary of 1,505 words you need to know to communicat effectively, be more persuasive, to get more from your reading and score higher on the SAT and other standardized tests. It has got precise definitions, examples and quizzes. This book may be a bit difficult but if you really learn from it, you'd surely outstand the crowd =) enjoy!
參考: Well, I am currently considering to do english tutoring for primary and secondary students after graduation at an Australian high school in Nov 07. If you are interested, feel free to e-mail to [email protected]
Yes, you will learn more vocabularies through reading books and you are advised to find out the words' meaning by consulting the dictionary. It's not easy to remember all the new words when you only read the book once. Try to drop down the new vocabularies and read a few times more so that you will find them more familiar. It's the truth that reading books can help you improving your English and I try to read English Newspaper everyday so as to learn more words as well as the sentence structure and grammar.