To Read Effectively, You Must Preview and Review Everything That You Read.ã¢â‚¬â€¹
eleven MIN READ
Reading Strategies
Reading Efficiently by Reading Intelligently
We all demand to exist able to read well, whatever job we do. Whether we're looking at a projection program, web folio, trade journal, printing release, email, or whatever other type of text – beingness able to read it efficiently and effectively is a primal professional skill.
Maybe y'all read something that should be useful, only neglect to find anything relevant in it? Do y'all have to re-read documents several times to understand them? Or do you sometimes struggle to call up what you've read?
In this commodity 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 learn how to get the best results from the time and effort you put in – on both page and screen.
Click hither to view a transcript of this video.
Reading in Print vs. Reading Online
A 2018 Pew Inquiry Center survey shows that we increasingly read books in a range of formats and on a multifariousness of devices – not just on paper. And chances are yous subscribe to digital newspapers and magazines, or read web pages, email and social media every solar day.
Still, the printed medium remains important, so our reading skills need to be flexible enough to cope with digital and concrete formats.
Each has its pros and cons, and it's of import to consider them when you're choosing something to read and when yous're reading information technology.
Here are four primal differences betwixt reading printed and digital texts:
ane. Authority
It can be harder to judge the quality of online data, specially if the publisher's or author's identity is unclear. Remember, digital texts may have been subject to less editing, checking and reviewing than those in print. Many of them, though, can actually be more accurate, since they're much easier to right and keep up to date.
2. Extras
Printed texts may be accompanied past illustrations, photographs and diagrams, while digital texts tin can employ many more "added extras," including audio and video elements, quizzes, and links to other texts. These additions tin enrich the reading process, but can also become distracting, or increase cerebral load.
iii. Order
Most printed texts are designed to be read sequentially. With digital texts, y'all can navigate every bit you lot similar, making it easier to discover what you lot demand. However, in that location'due south also more risk of missing something important, or of getting sidetracked by irrelevant textile.
4. Appointment
While printed texts can be underlined or highlighted, many digital ones are even easier to engage with. Past copying and pasting, adding virtual bookmarks, notes, and fifty-fifty sharing comments online, y'all can handle the information improve. Simply exist selective with your annotations to prevent the writer's original ideas getting lost.
Tip:
When y'all're reading on a phone or another digital device, use applied science to help enhance the experience.
On an iPhone, for example, the Safari spider web browser has a "Reader fashion." This strips out menus, ads, and other "clutter," making it easier for you to focus on the text.
Several apps, including Aldiko and Wattpad, permit you lot to highlight key passages, to leave notes as you read, and to share them with other readers.
five Ways to Read Faster and Read Smarter
Online or in print, the following 5 strategies tin assist you lot to read more effectively.
one. Know What You're Reading – and Why
Before you begin, ask yourself iii questions:
- What is the purpose of the text? For example, is it to entertain, inform, explain, or persuade?
- How useful is information technology? Is it relevant, accurate, impartial, current – or non worth reading?
- What are you reading it for?
Your answers will assist you lot to select what to read, and to choose the most effective reading strategies. In the long run, you'll make meliorate employ of your fourth dimension, and understand, call back and employ more of what you lot read.
So, don't just dive straight in. Invest a few minutes in preparing to get the near from reading:
- Utilize the cover, championship folio, introduction, and any other general data, to become 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 vocalization.
- Find any boosted features that might help you to appoint with the information.
- Read the Contents, look at how the information is organized, and kickoff spotting the sections that will likely be most important for you.
These steps should ensure that you're reading something worthwhile, and are ready to tackle it in the most productive style. And you'll have a good idea about how "closely" yous'll have to read the text.
2. Place Fundamental Information
If you've decided that y'all don't need to read something in detail, find the quickest ways to excerpt the basics. Utilise 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 look for the key information. And then spotting particular structures in writing tin help your reading be even more than efficient.
For example, a news article usually summarizes a story in the commencement few lines, and then adds layers of detail, which yous may determine yous can "skim read."
In an opinion commodity, the important information is probable independent in the introduction and the summary, with supporting arguments in between. When yous've read the start and end, you can determine how much of the middle you need to explore.
A feature article tends to have its nigh important data in the principal body of the text, so yous may make up one's mind it's all-time to start there.
Our article on Speed Reading has farther help and advice for when a fairly low level of particular is needed, and time is tight!
Tip:
When you're reading digital texts, y'all can apply the search tools in your browser or text editor to find cardinal words or phrases.
There are besides many apps to speed upward your reading. Spreeder lets you prepare your preferred screen size, paste in text, and control the speed at which information technology'south displayed. Spritzlet shows web pages one word at a fourth dimension, challenge reading speeds of up to i,000 words per minute are possible. BeeLine Reader uses graded colors to draw your optics from line to line, to make reading experience easier and faster.
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three. Increase Your Understanding
When you need more than but a basic agreement, keep using introductions and summaries, merely explore them in more detail.
You can yet "speed read" chapters, but spend enough time on the key words and concepts and make certain that you lot oasis't overlooked any of import points.
Pay attention to diagrams, charts and graphs, every bit they are often used to explain complex ideas within the text.
And make simple annotations, or highlight important words and phrases, to ensure that you lot're reading to the level of detail required.
Tip:
Many online articles and electronic documents were not originally designed to be read on a screen. If you find something hard to use that way, consider printing it. A study into on-screen reading showed longer texts are easier to grasp in impress than online.
4. Recall and Review the Text
When "deep reading" is required, mayhap to teach, or to call up for an exam, SQ3R is a powerful technique.
Its step-by-footstep approach involves surveying the textile, using key questions to guide you, then thoroughly reading, recalling and reviewing the text. It checks that you really understand what you're reading, and increases your chances of remembering it.
You lot'll also benefit from making more detailed notes as you read. Practise "active reading," by highlighting and underlining as yous get, and by recording fundamental information. Also, you lot can use Listen Maps to boost your understanding and powers of recall.
Endeavour putting the ideas you read into your own words, likewise, past writing them up. Our article, Paraphrasing and Summarizing, explores several techniques to assist you to make sense of and remember the texts you read.
And talking to others tin can also make reading even more productive. So share your questions, comments and follow-on ideas.
Tip:
If y'all're reading big amounts of hard, technical material, try using a glossary. Or, fifty-fifty amend, compile 1 of your own! Keep this beside you equally you read, and add together to it as your noesis of the terminology grows.
five. Control Your Reading Environment
To give yourself the all-time chance of reading finer, always think about where and when to do it.
For example, in bed, shortly before going to sleep, reading for pleasure might be a practiced way to relax your mind. But it'southward likely not the all-time fourth dimension or place for in-depth study!
And then, schedule hard reading tasks when your brain is at its best. Is This a Morning Task? will help you to work out when this is.
And ensure that your reading environment is comfortable but not likewise comfortable! Discover somewhere quiet, gratuitous 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, accept our Bite-Sized Training session Read Smarter.
Key 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 accordingly – including using engineering to help.
Reading strategies should be based on the type of text you're using, and what yous want from information technology.
- Know what you're reading - and why.
- Place key information.
- Increase your understanding.
- Recall and review the text.
- Control your reading environment.
To Read Effectively, You Must Preview and Review Everything That You Read.ã¢â‚¬â€¹
Source: https://www.mindtools.com/rdstratg.html