★Reading with your purpose in mind.

I read a lot, but I’m really slow when I read. I looked up a little info on getting more out of your reading material and thought I’d share some of what I found.

To get more out of your reading, consider your purpose in reading the material.

Why are you reading:
To commit information to memory?
To find out what happens next?
To study for an exam?
To be entertained?
To obtain a range of opinions?
To obtain statistics and data?
To obtain a broad overview of a topic?
To refresh your memory or revise?

Before starting your reading it can be very useful to get an overview. This will enable you to have a broad view of what you are about to read and will help you put new information into context. Here are some ways you can do this.

Get a feel for the book by checking out:

• the information on the front cover
• the graphics or pictures
• the blurb on the back cover
• the number of pages
• the length of the chapters
• the style of the presentation

(Plus, for me, anyway, it feels good to just hold a book and feel of it. I like to run my fingers along the spine and cover and flip the pages. It kind of centers me in “being” and is very pleasurable.)

Get some background by looking at:

• the publication date
• the foreword
• the introduction
• any information about the author(s)

Identify the key points covered by looking at:

• the table of contents
• the index
• the chapter headings

Instead of just reading paragraph headings and chapter titles such as “Basic Concepts of Reading”, change to “What are the Basic Concepts of Reading?” These questions will become “hooks” on which to hang new information. The questions can also relate to the Who?, What?, When?, Where?, Why? and How? of the reading.

Use your hand as a “pacer”. Place you index finger and thumb gently together and fan out your other three fingers. Place the three “fanned-out” fingers just under the line of text you are reading and slide them along in a “zig-zag” motion down the page as you read. Push yourself to read faster and before long you WILL be reading faster. If you practice this you may soon be able to scan two lines at a time.

This works because of how your brain processes the information. Your brain doesn’t really “think” one word at a time, it thinks in groups of words or ideas. It doesn’t really need to slow down to read every “it”, “and”, “the” and “but”.

Here is a link

to the page where I got the above information. There are also tips on how to study smarter, take better notes, and mind mapping.

˚state of wonderful  

Posted on 05/12/2009.

In response to themadcookieman’s post:
Nice post..as usual(:

In response to themadcookieman’s post:

Really good info MCM thank you very much.