How To Read Better

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    • Publish Date: Jan 15 2017 5:35PM
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    • Updated Date: Jan 18 2017 11:48AM
How To Read Better

Ever wonder why you prefer to watch a movie rather than read or why the smallest movement at your door is enough to draw your attention away from the words on the page before you?

Dr Hozefa Bhinderwala, consultant psychiatrist for three of Mumbai's top hospitals, says that this preference may be rooted in a primal instinct, the defence mechanism that helped prehistoric man protect himself from predators. That 'movements' tend to grab a person's attention, he writes, is a result of that conditioning. In his book, Small Steps to Big Reading, Bhinderwala addresses such issues, outlining remedies.

Losing track of where you are
Many people lose track of which line or paragraph they are on while reading. As a result, sometimes they skip a line or two or an entire paragraph. This is referred to as `progression'. At other times, they end up re-reading the same line or paragraph. This is referred to as 'regression.' If these ­ 'progression' or 'regression' ­ happen frequently, it can be quite frustrating as it results in slowing down the reading, and also makes understanding the matter more difficult.
The brain tries to make sense of the small bits of information that are sent to it. When these bits are not in the right order, the brain fails to arrange them to form the big picture. For some people, this then makes them develop an aversion to reading. Reading can be compared to solving a jigsaw puzzle. If you follow a system, starting by putting the border together, then find pieces based on similar colours, the project becomes easier. However, if you try to put pieces together randomly and they do not fit, what should be an enjoyable task becomes laborious and cumbersome.

Why do we lose track
The reason why our eyes move away from the actual direction of reading could be because of:

- Slowed reading
- Irregular eye movements
- Distractibility
- Daydreaming while reading

What is needed to deal with this is a tool that will:

1) Keep our eyes on the line that we are reading on a continuous basis.
2) Help us to increase our reading speed.
3) Prevent any kind of distraction while reading.

What you need is a launcher
What I refer to as a 'launcher' is a simple, blank 3x4 card. This tool which can serve all the three functions listed above is a device I have named after launcher-rockets. Launcher-rockets are mostly used to propel satellites out into space, away from the earth's gravitational pull. Once they take off, these rockets cannot be stopped or slowed down and they cannot return. They have to pursue the decided course of direction, and there's no scope for any change there. The same principle applies to the 'launcher' tool I allude to.

How it works:
The launcher, i.e., the piece of card has to be positioned in landscape orientation at the centre of the page, over the first printed line. That way you can read all the lines below. Glide this down steadily as you read every succeeding line. This reduces your chances of losing the line you were reading. The rule to keep in mind is that you cannot go backwards, i.e., glide the launcher upwards. When your brain knows clearly that you are only going to read the specific text once, and there will be no second chance to re-read the text, it becomes alert and the eyes get focused on the words before you. This will help improve your attention span and ability to concentrate.

This tool has other benefits too.
Firstly, your eyes and brain experience less reading fatigue, so you feel fresh and are in a better position to acquire more speed.
Secondly, without all that re-reading your interest level will be enhanced and your reading speed accelerated.

Read fast to read through
Reading may be compared to popular sports. When it is your turn to perform, you have a target to achieve. The longer you take to achieve this, the more difficult it becomes as the game inches towards its final stages. The audience enjoys a fast-paced game just as much as the brain enjoys rapid inflow of information and consequent comprehension. The slower a player performs, the more daunting the task may appear and often spectators lose hope.

When you are reading, the ultimate target for your brain is good and quick comprehension of the material. The brain wants to put the whole picture together and does not want to get stuck in the small details. Therefore, when reading is slow, the reader eventually gets bored with the subject, and unfortunately, very often even with the idea of reading. Reading at a slower pace than the comprehension speed of the brain will lead to distraction and mind-wandering.

Fast reading deletes trash

Our brain has this amazing ability to filter out what may be unnecessary and irrelevant. When you read fast, your brain is not only filtering out the unnecessary, it is also predicting the next words. It is somewhat like the auto-completion feature in some word-processing software; similar to a latest feature of mobile phones that predicts the remainder of the word when you are typing a short message (SMS) or the name of a contact in your contact list. Therefore, when you're reading, you can trust your brain to be able to make sense of a sentence even from a few words. You don't necessarily need to read all the words of every sentence. Unless you're a proof reader who has to correct grammatical and spelling errors, it is not very important to get into the nitty-gritty details of the language, so long as you can understand what the writer is trying to convey.

(Excerpted from Small Steps to Big Reading by Hozefa A. Bhinderwala, published by Bloomsbury)

Dr Hozefa Bhinderwala recommends reading these to enhance your reading skills:

For children:
Speed Reading 4 Kids by George Stancliffe: Written as part of the American Speed Reading Project, this manual is easy for kids to follow. It's written in well-spaced out paragraphs that aren't so big that a child would get intimidated. The book also has helpful tips for children with dyslexia and ADD.

Speed Reading in a Week by Tina Konstant: This is a delightful, short book with big font that appeals to young readers. The book offers easy-to-follow instructions and is written in an interesting format. To become speed readers, children are instructed to follow instructions for each day of the week. To make it even more interesting for children, this book is studded with cute cartoons and illustrations. Each chapter ends with a summary that makes you go over what you learned.

For parents who want to encourage their children to read:

Read to Me: Raising Kids Who Love to Read by Bernice E Cullinan
A good book for busy parents, this one deals with the hectic schedules of today's parents. It highlights ways in which parents may encourage kids to enjoy reading without taking much time out of their schedules. It also explains why this is necessary and urges parents to get their children to even go one step ahead and try their hand at writing as well.

The Between the Lions Book for Parents by Linda K Rath and Louise Kennedy
This book is an offshoot of a popular American children's television series. It uses animal characters to make reading fun and help develop it into a habit that endures. The book helps to teach kids the basic nuances of language as well and offers tips on how to enhance basic vocabulary.

For grown-ups:
Speed Reading the Easy Way by Howard Stephen Berg and Marcus Conyers
This book has been written expressly for people who want to improve their academic and work-related reading. It comes with reading passages that test your comprehension levels and allows you to do a self-assessment.

Power Reading by Rick Ostrov
This is a good course-book on speed reading for the examoriented learner. It hones one's reading skill and is easy to follow. The book holds the reader's attention too as it provides visual stimulation in the form of photographs.



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Comments

Karthik vr PARAMA BHATTARA KENDRIYA VIDYALAYA

Thanks for the information.😊📖

Vandana Subash City International School Wanowrie

Very nice tips..thx nie

R.Y.Lohitha Mahindra World School

Thank you for helping me find about my reading

Bhavana Jaison Atomic Energy Central School No 2

Informative

Aditi Mishra The Khaitan School

The launcher really is going to help me a lot. Thanks.

Sujay Mohanty Ryan International School

Reminds me of A.P.J. Abdul Kalam'' s quote reading a book can make one a knowledge center. Thanks for the tips.

Pragya RUKMINI DEVI PUB. SCHOOL(PITAMPURA)

Reading with full concentration is not that difficult if we try.

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