What Practice Should Readers Adopt to Get the Most Out of Their Reading

11 MIN READ

Reading Strategies

Reading Efficiently by Reading Intelligently

We all demand to be able to read well, any job we exercise. Whether we're looking at a project plan, web page, trade journal, printing release, email, or any other blazon of text – beingness able to read information technology efficiently and effectively is a key professional person skill.

Perhaps you read something that should exist useful, but fail to discover anything relevant in it? Practice you have to re-read documents several times to understand them? Or do you sometimes struggle to remember what you lot've read?

In this article and video, nosotros look at a range of strategies for becoming a better reader. By carefully matching your approach to your material, and taking control of the reading process, you'll larn how to get the best results from the time and effort y'all put in – on both page and screen.

Click here to view a transcript of this video.

Reading in Print vs. Reading Online

A 2018 Pew Research Eye survey shows that we increasingly read books in a range of formats and on a diverseness of devices – non just on newspaper. And chances are you lot subscribe to digital newspapers and magazines, or read web pages, email and social media every day.

However, the printed medium remains of import, so our reading skills demand to be flexible plenty to cope with digital and physical formats.

Each has its pros and cons, and information technology'due south important to consider them when you're choosing something to read and when you're reading it.

Here are four key differences between reading printed and digital texts:

1. Authority

Information technology tin can be harder to judge the quality of online data, especially if the publisher'southward or author's identity is unclear. Call up, digital texts may have been subject to less editing, checking and reviewing than those in impress. Many of them, though, can really exist more authentic, since they're much easier to correct and keep up to engagement.

ii. Extras

Printed texts may be accompanied by illustrations, photographs and diagrams, while digital texts can use many more than "added extras," including sound and video elements, quizzes, and links to other texts. These additions can enrich the reading process, but can likewise get distracting, or increment cognitive load.

iii. Order

Most printed texts are designed to be read sequentially. With digital texts, you tin navigate as y'all like, making it easier to observe what you need. However, there'south also more chance of missing something important, or of getting sidetracked by irrelevant cloth.

4. Engagement

While printed texts can be underlined or highlighted, many digital ones are even easier to engage with. Past copying and pasting, calculation virtual bookmarks, notes, and even sharing comments online, you tin handle the information better. Simply be selective with your annotations to foreclose the author'due south original ideas getting lost.

Tip:

When y'all're reading on a phone or another digital device, use technology to help raise the experience.

On an iPhone, for example, the Safari spider web browser has a "Reader manner." This strips out menus, ads, and other "ataxia," making it easier for you lot to focus on the text.

Several apps, including Aldiko and Wattpad, allow you lot to highlight primal passages, to leave notes as you lot read, and to share them with other readers.

five Ways to Read Faster and Read Smarter

Online or in impress, the post-obit five strategies can help yous to read more than effectively.

ane. Know What You lot're Reading – and Why

Before yous begin, ask yourself three questions:

• What is the purpose of the text? For example, is it to entertain, inform, explicate, or persuade?
• How useful is it? Is it relevant, accurate, impartial, current – or not worth reading?
• What are you reading information technology for?

Your answers will help you to select what to read, and to choose the most effective reading strategies. In the long run, you lot'll make better use of your time, and sympathise, remember and apply more of what you read.

And so, don't but swoop straight in. Invest a few minutes in preparing to get the most from reading:

• Use the cover, title page, introduction, and any other general data, to get an overall sense of the content and approach.
• Dip into the text here and there, to tune in to the author'due south tone of voice.
• Notice any boosted features that might aid you to appoint with the data.
• Read the Contents, look at how the information is organized, and start spotting the sections that will probable be most important for you.

These steps should ensure that you lot're reading something worthwhile, and are prepare to tackle it in the most productive way. And you'll have a good idea most how "closely" you'll take to read the text.

2. Place Central Information

If you've decided that you don't need to read something in detail, notice the quickest means to extract the basics. Use affiliate headings, abstracts and summaries. Look for illustrations and graphics. And focus on "user-friendly" features like fact boxes, bullet points, and FAQs.

Information technology helps to know where to wait for the key data. So spotting particular structures in writing tin assist your reading be even more efficient.

For case, a news article ordinarily summarizes a story in the first few lines, then adds layers of item, which y'all may decide you can "skim read."

In an opinion article, the of import information is likely independent in the introduction and the summary, with supporting arguments in between. When you lot've read the get-go and end, you tin can decide how much of the middle y'all demand to explore.

A characteristic article tends to have its nearly important data in the primary torso of the text, so you may decide information technology's all-time to start there.

Our article on Speed Reading has further help and advice for when a fairly low level of particular is needed, and time is tight!

Tip:

When you're reading digital texts, you tin can utilise the search tools in your browser or text editor to find key words or phrases.

There are also many apps to speed upwards your reading. Spreeder lets y'all fix your preferred screen size, paste in text, and control the speed at which it's displayed. Spritzlet shows web pages one word at a fourth dimension, challenge reading speeds of upwards to 1,000 words per infinitesimal are possible. BeeLine Reader uses graded colors to draw your eyes from line to line, to make reading feel easier and faster.

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Receive new career skills every week, plus go our latest offers and a free downloadable Personal Evolution Plan workbook.

Read our Privacy Policy

3. Increase Your Agreement

When you need more than than just a basic understanding, keep using introductions and summaries, just explore them in more item.

You can still "speed read" capacity, simply spend plenty time on the key words and concepts and make certain that you oasis't overlooked any important points.

Pay attention to diagrams, charts and graphs, as they are often used to explain complex ideas within the text.

And brand elementary annotations, or highlight important words and phrases, to ensure that yous're reading to the level of detail required.

Tip:

Many online manufactures and electronic documents were non originally designed to be read on a screen. If you discover something hard to use that way, consider press it. A study into on-screen reading showed longer texts are easier to grasp in print than online.

4. Recall and Review the Text

When "deep reading" is required, perchance to teach, or to retrieve for an exam, SQ3R is a powerful technique.

Its step-by-step approach involves surveying the material, using cardinal questions to guide you, then thoroughly reading, recalling and reviewing the text. Information technology checks that you lot really empathise what you're reading, and increases your chances of remembering information technology.

You'll also benefit from making more than detailed notes as you read. Practice "agile reading," by highlighting and underlining as you lot become, and by recording key information. Too, y'all tin can utilise Heed Maps to boost your understanding and powers of recall.

Try putting the ideas you read into your own words, too, by writing them up. Our commodity, Paraphrasing and Summarizing, explores several techniques to aid you to brand sense of and remember the texts you read.

And talking to others tin also make reading even more productive. And so share your questions, comments and follow-on ideas.

Tip:

If you're reading large amounts of difficult, technical textile, try using a glossary. Or, even improve, compile ane of your ain! Continue this abreast yous as you lot read, and add to it as your cognition of the terminology grows.

5. Control Your Reading Environment

To give yourself the all-time gamble of reading effectively, always think about where and when to do information technology.

For example, in bed, presently before going to slumber, reading for pleasure might be a good way to relax your listen. But it's likely non the best fourth dimension or place for in-depth study!

And then, schedule difficult reading tasks when your brain is at its best. Is This a Forenoon Task? will assist you to work out when this is.

And ensure that your reading environs is comfortable but not likewise comfortable! Observe somewhere quiet, free from distractions, and where the seating, temperature and lighting all help you to focus.

Tip:

For more than detailed information on how to select the most appropriate reading strategies in any given situation, take our Seize with teeth-Sized Training session Read Smarter.

Cardinal Points

Flexible reading skills are vital to cope with a wide range of material, in a variety of formats.

We need to adapt our reading behavior for printed and digital texts appropriately – including using engineering science to assistance.

Reading strategies should be based on the type of text you're using, and what you want from it.

• Know what you're reading - and why.
• Identify fundamental data.
• Increase your understanding.
• Recall and review the text.
• Command your reading surroundings.

wrightmuchatitily.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.mindtools.com/rdstratg.html

Share this post