The Purpose of Reading

The Purpose of Reading.

The purpose of reading is to connect the ideas on the page to what you already know. If you don't know

anything about a subject, then pouring words of text into your mind is like pouring water into your hand.

You don't retain much. For example, try reading these numbers:

7516324 This is hard to read and remember.

751-6324 This is easier because of chunking.

123-4567 This is easy to read because of prior knowledge and structure.

Similarly, if you like sports, then reading the sports page is easy. You have a framework in your mind

for reading, understanding, and storing information.

Improving Comprehension.

Reading comprehension requires motivation, mental frameworks for holding ideas, concentration, and

good study techniques. Here are some suggestions.

Develop a broad background.

Broaden your background knowledge by reading newspapers, magazines, and books. Become interested

in world events.

Know the structure of paragraphs.

Good writers construct paragraphs that have a beginning, middle, and end. Often, the first sentence will

give an overview that helps provide a framework for adding details. Also, look for transitional words,

phrases, or paragraphs that change the topic.

Identify the type of reasoning.

Does the author use cause and effect reasoning, hypothesis, model building, induction or deduction,

systems thinking?

Anticipate and predict.

Really smart readers try to anticipate the author and predict future ideas and questions. If you're right,

this reinforces your understanding. If you're wrong, you make adjustments quicker.

Look for the method of organization.

Is the material organized chronologically, serially, logically, functionally, spatially, or hierarchical? See

section 10 for more examples on organization.

Create motivation and interest.

Preview material, ask questions, discuss ideas with classmates. The stronger your interest, the greater

your comprehension.

Pay attention to supporting cues.

Study pictures, graphs, and headings. Read the first and last paragraph in a chapter, or the first sentence

in each section. 

Highlight, summarize, and review.

Just reading a book once is not enough. To develop a deeper understanding, you have to highlight,

summarize and review important ideas.

Build a good vocabulary.

For most educated people, this is a lifetime project. The best way to improve your vocabulary is to use a

dictionary regularly. You might carry around a pocket dictionary and use it to look up new words. Or,

you can keep a list of words to look up at the end of the day. Concentrate on roots, prefixes, and endings.

Use a systematic reading technique like SQR3.

Develop a systematic reading style, like the SQR3 method, and make adjustments to it, depending on

priorities and purpose. The SQR3 steps include Survey, Question, Read, Recite, and Review.

Monitor effectiveness.

Good readers monitor their attention, concentration, and effectiveness. They quickly recognize if they've

missed an idea and backup to reread it.

Copyright 1991 Donald Martin, How to be a Successful Student