Should I skip over words I don't understand? Or use a dictionary?

We recommend not using a dictionary and skipping over words that you can’t understand yet. We also recommend not taking notes or in general doing anything other than reading the text with the purpose of understanding the message and enjoying reading. We explain the reasons for this in the answer to What should I do when reading a book? Should I analyze the language?. The only exception where it can be okay to look up the meaning of a word is if the word is appearing over and over and it’s a fundamental word to understand the topic at hand. We give more details in the answer to When encountering unknown words, do you recommend looking them up in the dictionary?.