The Art Of Reading

The art of reading is the part of the art of living. It is one of the charms of cultured life. It is indispensable for the cultivation of personality. As the experts say "reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body”. Reading makes a full man and who has no time to read commits mental suicide. Reading is an inexhaustible gold mine, a perennial source of pleasure. Reading is like depositing money in a savings account, the benefits compound themselves like interest. But, unlike a savings account, you can draw on your interest without ever having less remaining. Reading of good books is like “a conversation with the finest men of past centuries.” When you cease to read, you cease to grow. In the words of Lin Yutan,"the man who does not have the habit of reading is imprisoned in his immediate world, in respect to time and space.”
Reading is regarded as the most important single skill in study. The power of reading is one of the essential tools and to be unable to read reasonably quickly is to be seriously handicapped.
Process and purpose of reading: The mechanism of reading consists essentially in the translation of visual signs into mental states. One person thinks, and to represent his thought causes certain marks to be put on paper or elsewhere. Another person sees these marks repeat in his mind the processes that went on when the other thought. The purpose of reading is to obtain from the printed page the information, the thoughts, or feelings which the writer sought to communicate to his reader. There may be a further purpose to analyze, to select, to criticize, to enjoy but that further purpose requires that you first discover what the writer meaning is. A good reader varies his rate of reading according to his purpose in reading. A novel may be read very quickly. A single paragraph or a diagram in a textbook, on the other hand, may have to read through slowly four or five times before it is fully understood. Bacon wrote, "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”
Methods for increasing reading speed and also the reading methods: For slow readers or new readers I would like to recommend these methods:
1 Determination is the vital factor in increasing speed of reading.
2 Eliminate whispering, pointing and movement of the lips, head and hand as you read. Such movements tend to be slow up your reading and distract your mind.
3 Drop the word as the unit of language and adopt the phrase as that unit. Your effort should be to read phrases, sentences and even paragraphs rather than single words.
4 Slow reading results from a poor vocabulary. Increase you reading rate directly by enlarging your vocabulary.
5 Judicious skipping is an important principle of the art of reading. It makes it possible to enjoy great works of literature which we should otherwise neglect.
6 Remember the advice to get an overall view of a chapter of a textbook before studying it in detail, as you read make sure of the key ideas or underlined the main facts included in each chapter.
7 Buy the books which are necessary for your work or where your interest lies. Make use of your local library.
8 Choose a few books on the recommended list, not too similar to each other in contents.
Last point but not the least “Reading as a vice” : As practiced by people with this vice, reading is a passive affair. They seek neither ideas nor facts; merely the endless procession of words which prevents from facing the realities of the world or themselves. They run through page after page without interpreting or explaining, without making room for them in their minds. Reading should be an active process; otherwise it becomes unhealthy.