Make the most of what you read
- Choose different reading pieces for different occasions: articles and light reads can be reserved for short periods. Books that require less focus can be listened to in audio format etc.
- Incorporate reading into your daily habit: put a book on your bedside table.
- Share your reads with others, to help you to better understand and appreciate what you read.
- Reflect on your reading: take notes or check out films that are based on novels (to compare interpretations).
MORE IDEAS FROM THE ARTICLE
- Skimming: quickly going through passages to find the main points.
- Meta guiding uses a pointer, such as your index finger or a pen, to guide your eyes along the lines of text.
- The vision span method uses the span of human eyesight to read words in batches.
- Rapid serial visual representation (RSVP): an electronic reading system displays words one at a time.
Regardless of which reading method you use, the evidence points towards the fact that speed comes at the sacrifice of understanding.
Depending on what you’re reading, this might not necessarily be a bad thing: If you’re trying to get through a dry piece to capture a few key points or you are going through a short piece that’s easy to understand, speed reading strategies might make sense.
RELATED IDEAS
Learning is a two-step process:
- Read/listen: feeding ourselves new information.
- Process and recall what you’ve just ‘learned’: connecting new materials to what we already knew.
A reading habit can help you in numerous ways.
- Browsing through a book can calm you as part of the daily bedtime routine.
- It will also replace bad habits like looking at your phone before bed.
- Audiobooks can help you get fit. A study found those who listen to a great audiobook at the gym are more prone to exercise regularly.
- Reading can improve your focus and short-term memory.
Reading is a complex process that involves the brain's visual and auditory processes, phonemic awareness, fluency and comprehension. There are billions of pages available to read online, along with billions of print books sold every year. All this choice is making us want to skim our reading, as we are short of time.
There are trade-offs in this 'speedy' approach, as we are sacrificing the quality of understanding over the quantity of information.