'Element' is an invalid XmlNodeType error when parsing XML file

I'm very new to XML parsing and don't really know what I'm doing. I'm trying to parse a file in XML, but have encountered this error:

System.Xml.XmlException: ''Element' is an invalid XmlNodeType.'

Here's the code below:

    Dim settings As XmlReaderSettings = New XmlReaderSettings
    settings.DtdProcessing = DtdProcessing.Parse
    Dim xmlR = XmlReader.Create(jmdictpath, settings)

    Do While xmlR.Read()
        If Not xmlR.IsEmptyElement And xmlR.NodeType = XmlNodeType.Element Then
            MsgBox(xmlR.ReadElementContentAsString)
        End If
    Loop

The error runs on the line MsgBox(xmlR.ReadElementContentAsString). I've tested that the element is not empty, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Then I checked the xmlReader object in QuickWatch, and it looks like what the object is currently trying to read is a whitespace or line return character:

Is there some standard method to handle all cases like this when parsing XML so that whitespace characters don't get picked up as XML tags and confuse the reader?