Reading is very much necessary in life; also, we should know the correct strategies to read intelligently. By reading this blog you can improve your reading skills. Let’s Go.
WHAT’S IN IT
The Essentials of the Skill of Reading
Reading is always good for our minds. Reading is undoubtedly the most healthy practice and exercise for a practical reason. You might have heard about the quote:
“READERS ARE LEADERS”
This quote is very actual for reading, irrespective of the medium you opt for reading or how you’re following to read about any purposeful and meaningful things. It doesn’t matter which medium you’re taking: a blog, a book, a magazine, a newspaper, or any report, etc., but the intake of good content in any manner is always worth spending time.
Reading is a skill. It’s an art that can be learned. Many reading strategies can help you read efficiently and to read effectively while reading intelligently at the same time. Reading effectively means reading in a way that helps you understand and evaluate.
These skills are essential for any humans irrespective of the age group they are into, and most importantly, Students, no matter what field they’re going into: ’ll be doing a lot of reading. The more effectively you read, the easier it’ll be, the less time it will take, and the more you’ll enjoy the experience.
Common Reading Techniques
Reading is a tool that opens the door to many ways and also for many career options. So reading efficiently and effectively is an art that should be learned. There are many reading strategies and techniques which are to be known to read efficiently by reading intelligently.
- Below are some of the critical reading skills and techniques that are usually followed by people who found reading efficiently:
- Engage in pre-reading strategies before starting to read.
- Start by creating an optimal setting to read. A healthy environment is always a better choice to reduce the chances of distraction.
- Always choose the best time, place, and conditions.
- Research and investigate the content if you do not understand it completely.
Ways and Techniques to be followed to become a Better Reader
Reading Efficiently by Reading Intelligently is another art that requires some extra skill set and techniques to be followed. Let’s dive deep into the ways to be a better READER.
1. Know What You Are Searching For:
Before breaking into any book or an article, always take a few minutes to read Introduction or Preface and browse through the content section. That initial preview time will help you understand the author’s approach to the topic.
Study all the titles, subtitles, pictures, charts, graphs, etc., to understand the clear vision and the framework of the ideas that will help you connect the details later. It’s like starting up an engine.
2. Actively:
Do not just passively slide your eyes over the content, but engage in the text actively and try to understand the actual scenario by finding answers to your questions. Be careful, so you do not end up skimming and missing other important information.
3. What You Read:
Analysis of the content which you’ve read so far just after you’re done reading is also essential to make the content digest properly. It will help you memorise and retain the content better.
4. Key Concepts:
Once you’re done understanding the textual content, and you’re ready to summarise it in your own words, now you have to record the content in some manner, be it making a color code, highlighting or marking the text, or by just simply taking notes. You can choose the method which works best for you but just needs to stick to the same. It’s essential to read and understand the text first, and then go back and make the notes or record. Never forget to review the content you recorded; a regular review period (usually once a week) is an incredibly effective strategy for retaining the information you consumed.
5. Connections:
Making Connection is something that is the core of effective reading strategies. At any odds, when the text doesn’t make sense, you can try and make meaningful connections to make sense of it.
6. Visualize:
This is the practice of Visualizing the information you are grabbing to understand better what you’re reading. It’s pretty effective to make visual representations of what you’re reading as it might look like picturing the content you read. It is pretty similar to creating an image of the process in your mind. This will ultimately help you remember not only what you read and understood, but also you can relate it as it is functioning.
Do we get better at reading by reading more?
The common question which could come up in your mind at this time is –
“Do we get better at reading by reading more?”
Absolutely yes, the more you read, the better you become at it as you will learn the patience to read. It has many other advantages and will help you improve your vocabs also at the same time; it will push your wisdom.
Some Reading Tactics to follow
At this time, there are so many tools and tactics for being a better and effective reader and improving reading skills to read efficiently. There are specific points and things you need to be sure of before getting involved in reading anything via any medium, be it offline sources like books, magazines, etc. or an online medium like articles, blogs, e-books on your mobile device, Kindle device, etc.
If I had to summarise the content, then specific basic reading strategies are to be taken care of while reading to read intelligently and smartly:
- Know What You’re Reading.
- Secondly, Analyze What You Read
- Increase Your Understanding
- Active Reading Is Must
- Maintain the specific environment around you
- Skimming & Scanning Should Be Avoided
- Recall & Review The Text You Read
- Make Connections & Visualize to memorise better
Books that’ll help you improve your reading skills
There are several books that you can look to enhance your reading skills. All those books have some excellent techniques that’ll help you in improving your reading skills. But, here, I’m sharing with you two excellent books that I think will be best for you if you want to take your reading skills to the next level. These two books contain some efficient and easy techniques you can follow to read anything faster and even with better understanding. Have a look at these books!
How to Read Better & Faster:
How to Read Better & Faster is a book that teaches several Reading techniques that’ll help the readers increase their reading speed and retention time with better understanding. Reading faster isn’t just mean that counting for how many words someone can read in a minute or a particular time frame. What reading faster actually means is how much a person reads and understands in a specific period. In this book, the author, Norman Lewis, explains some efficient ways for a reader to improve his concentration and concept retention. So, these books can be constructive to improve your Reading skills.
Reading Development and Difficulties:
So, reading is not just a single skill, but it is a lot more. Reading is a combination of different abilities that coordinates to make the reader understand things faster. Likewise, in this book, author Kate Cain gives some valuable ways to develop reading skills and make them better and effective. Along with explaining such practices, the author also explains the difficulties that many people face in reading. The author also tells about the quick actions that one can take to avoid those difficulties.
Conclusion
Reading is an Art. Not reading, but compelling reading is a good word that focuses primarily on understanding and retaining in his mind after reading. In this blog, I’ve tried to explain everything about Reading skills, tips, and techniques to improve your reading skills and the books that you should look for to develop excellent reading skills. Now, as you read the entire blog, you can start your journey of compelling reading. All the Best!
Also, you can read our blog on Six Ways to build communication skills