Hu Wo (Cuckoo’s Song)
Improving reading speed is crucial in the current academic environment where the depth and breadth of knowledge are expanding rapidly.
These days, there is no end to study in different branches of specialization, even in one major. New fields of study are becoming as deep and wide day after day as man can afford. In such a climate of study, reading matter is still an essential task for academics. The more the study fields, the faster the reading rate just for a scholar must know his respective field inside out like a professor so that an average person cannot compete with him with his eyes closed. Here, nine suggestions on how to read faster than before are given as follows.
Focus on keywords
When reading, we should pay attention to keywords in the subject matter by underlining, highlighting, or memorizing by heart. The keyword of a sentence or passage may be a verb, noun, adjective, adverb, phrase, idiom, or collocation. For instance, in the sentence `He is a cute boy’, `cute’ is the keyword. Frequently written words in a passage might also be the keywords. But sometimes, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections can be focused on as keywords. Focusing on keywords makes the reading rate faster as well as a reader knows subject-related words in clusters and whether the writer has a comprehensive knowledge of the subject matter written by him at one sitting.
Avoid distractions
Hesitation to read, noise, procrastinating, and postponement disturb the reading rate too much. It is humorous to say some are under the illusion that lazybones will have a bad name, but this is going to put them at their ease. Nonetheless, hesitancy over reading is likely to drive readers to arrive at the conclusion, `No reading, no knowledge’. And intelligent readers tend to look for a reading space of peace and quiet, which allows them to pay great attention to reading material. It would be better if a reader does not listen to the radio or music while reading, except at audiobook time. Also, it takes our time to read, we know. We must, therefore, not play for or put off a regular reading time, only at least 15 minutes a day, so as to read more and more from this time onwards.
Pass over rereading passages
Generally speaking, if a passage is read over three times, it is certain that this passage is much more advanced than the literacy level of a reader. Of course, the reader has to choose and read subject matter that accords with his literacy skill or is a little more advanced than the level. In the main, there are the heading or the first sentence, the body or the middle sentences, and the concluding sentence or the last sentence in a passage. The topic sentence of a passage may be one of these three kinds of sentences and let a reader get the theme of the passage. Rereading a passage unconditionally and repeatedly is a sort of wasting time alone, actually.
Expand our peripheral vision
Some subject matter cannot be described with words; it is expressed with figures, systematic diagrams, and coloured pictures. Thus, readers like to make themselves understood with the help of these figures, diagrams, and pictures sometimes. When they do not even understand the point of the subject matter very well, they will be able to comprehend that point only by looking at those reading aids. Besides, a reader may skip extra definitions, further explanations, additional examples, indexes, and thanks of a book wherever necessary, apart from its contents, foreword, or preface. Often, a hypothesis is formulated in the introductory paragraph, and the key point is confirmed in the concluding paragraph of a reading passage.
Don’t subvocalize
Though subvocalizing creates the expansion and extension of vocabulary in a second language, this usually turns out to be a great barrier to a reading process, as in “The word `unquestionable’ contains four morphemes (un-quest-ion-able)”. Guessing ability and contextualized meaning should be used rather than subvocalizing and even looking up words in dictionaries as much as possible whenever necessary. It is believed that subvocalizing whilst reading a poem, like human anatomy, would completely destroy the beauty of the poem. Essential as the subvocalizing task is for linguists and researchers, so much time can be spent on that task, particularly by normal readers. Afterwards, subvocalization is responsible for slow reading for sure.
Set a timer
It is not always possible to read some pieces of writing in one sitting, such as novels and encyclopaedias. Accordingly, reading a book partially, that is, by pages or chapters, may be necessary. On the other hand, some bookworms read three or four books a day and believe in themselves to speak out 45-75 per cent of the subject matter in each book off the cuff for certain. Even though a person is not able to read a few books per day, he should read at least one book a week, a month, or every six months at worst. A book reading challenge might as well be created between friends or whoever.
Brush up on our vocabulary
Memory and forgetting often go hand in hand, and this becomes apparent to adult readers. Efficient reading involves recapping well-known vocabulary and rereading a great book of ours, too. A passage would possibly come across without any grammatical knowledge, but not without knowing theme-related vocabulary at all. Every reader ought to listen to daily news or read a newspaper so that he will be familiar with modern usages or trending words on a regular basis. After some books have been well read, their vocabulary usages offer words to have a good effect on other similar books’ studies.
Pursue our next goal
Readers can do reading in terms of writers, literary forms, and ages. Studying works of literature of the only writer contributes to taking notice of his writing style pretty well. The more, the better, therefore. Quite strangely, a friend of mine reads only the books of departed authors. Some people, especially future writers, read books according to literary forms they are interested in, for example, articles, essays, and short stories. In this way, almost all readers’ concentration is on the same type of writing. Others are given to reading by age or year, the ancient age and the modern age categorized in general. By doing so, readers will see the evolution of a language through time and space, as well as the literary forms that have been developed or are still developing in diverse ages.
Practice
Having read enough and a lot helps reading faster in the future. After that, reading does not require much of the thinking process as regards written themes. As often as not, little reading can cause slower reading more than average, mispronounced reading, and stammering. Even if it is all but impossible to read the whole passage or book, scanning and skimming have existed as two common effective ways of faster reading. Those with reading faster will stand head and shoulders above the man in the street. For instance, students with quick reading answer the question item `Read the passage’.
