Topic: The Art of Effective Reading

Articles , English , / Thursday, May 9th, 2024

Sara Nargis
Rawalpindi

Do you believe that individuals possess different modes of learning intrinsically, such as reading or listening? However, I differ. While it has been psychologically proven, let’s delve into the rationale behind this so-called psychological phenomenon. Our learning tendencies often develop from childhood habits. For instance, if you’re habitual of vocalizing and moving while reading(the cramming style) used with our holy book,you won’t be able to read and grasp even a single sentence during prayer without that distracting motion. This is why most of us think of prayer as just an act of rapid movements, swinging while reading some memorized verses abruptly without knowing a bit about them. You need to know the difference between reading and reciting. Reading is not about saying words aloud.This limitation slows your reading pace, as your tongue restricts the speed of your mind. Consequently, you might start believing that reading isn’t for you just because you don’t know how to read. Subsequently, you may start watching YouTube lectures with hollow knowledge, only to be further distracted by unwanted notifications. Does this mean that listening also isn’t your thing if you struggle to comprehend or concentrate on auditory content? This paradox illustrates that many of us suck at both reading and listening, not due to an inherent deficiency but rather because of ignorance. We forsake the mastery of an art form by offering excuses and justifying our lethargy by using lame psychologically proven facts. PS: I hold no animosity towards psychology. So, what is art? It’s a skill that can be cultivated through practice and developed overtime.
These are some tips for effective reading:
1. Quiet the inner monologue: Stop making a sound while reading. Both sounds! The sound you make through your tongue and the sound your mind makes, the story telling sound. Stop the repetition of words in your mind. Because this repetition is limiting you reading speed. Align your reading speed with thinking speed. You can start distracting your mind whenever it spells words by making a humming sound or by using a chewing gum.
2. Schedule your reading time: You don’t need to be idle to read. With just 30 to 60 minutes per day, you can easily consume 1 to 2 books each month. Choose moments when your mind is alert and unoccupied. At an average reading speed, a 200-300 words page takes no more than 3 minutes to digest.
3. Use a pointer while reading: I suggest using a finger as you go through text. This will keep you focused because our eyes are vulnerable to distractions. Eyes tend to wander towards the unwanted sections of page, using a pointer will bring focus.
4. Stop reading stuff you don’t like: We nowadays have a craze to explore everything even if we are not interested, which is useless. It’s not a must to complete a book once you have started even if you don’t develop interest. However, make a rule of exploring at least 10% of a book before putting it aside.
5. Don’t highlight: Highlighting or underlining text wastes time and is of no use. Your opinions may differ. Do you highlight so that you can comeback and revise the book like its your course book? or do you want to memorize books you can look up to? or do you find colors appealing? Whatever maybe the reason, it doesn’t helps. What helps is handwritten notes, if you really want to grasp a fantastic book, just makes some after read notes to remember what you have absorbed.
6. Read more than 1 book at a time: This will keep you upto enthusiastic as when you get bored of the first, you can pick up another.
Pro-tips to remember and cherish what you read:
1.We remember the things that bring meaning to our brain or the things we are using in real life so apply or use what you learn in order to remember it. Applying can be of abstract nature. As having a different perspective about an idea you had before is an application.
2. Talk about what you read to someone. This will trick your brain to remember those ideas because we only talk about things that are important to us so our brain tends to remember the things we talk about.
3. You only have to remember what were the ideas of every book, not every idea of every book, which is useless and unrealistic.