Main ideas are perfect for outlining textbooks. Make it a habit to find the main idea in each paragraph you read.
ideas. There is usually one important detail associated with every main idea. The more important
details you can identify, the easier it will be to review for examinations. This is because you have made
a link between an idea and information that supports it. The more links you can make between
The first things to ask yourself are: “Why you are reading the text? Are you reading with a
purpose or just for pleasure? What do you want to know after reading it?” In other words, identify your
purpose.
Once you know this, you can examine the text to see whether it is going to move you towards
this goal. An easy way of doing this is to look at the introduction and the chapter headings. The
introduction should let you know whom the book is targeted at, and what it seeks to achieve. Chapter
headings will give you an overall view of the structure of the subject.
http://www.mbssites.com After grasping ideas from chapter introductions, ask yourself whether the book meets your
needs. Ask yourself if it assumes too much or too little knowledge. If the book is not ideal, would it be
better to find a better one?
Take 1-2 minutes to skim through the paragraphs to find the core idea. Know what is being
expressed. Know what you need. Read lightly and flexibly. Slow down to fulfill your purpose,
answering questions that are most important to you. Since very few words carry the meaning, speed up to pass redundant or useless information.
information from a simple fact.
Starting with a fact, ask the question “So what?” - i.e. What are the implications of that fact?
Keep on asking that question until all possible inferences have been drawn. Let’s take, for instance, a
military example shown below:
• Fact: It rained heavily last night
• So what?
• The ground will be wet
• So what?
• It will turn into mud quickly
• So what?
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• If many troops and vehicles pass over the same ground, movement will be progressively slower
and more difficult as the ground gets muddier and more difficult.
• So what?
Ask questions for learning. The important things to learn are usually answers to questions.
Questions should lead to emphasis on the what, why, how, when, who and where of study content. Ask
the questions as you read or study.
As you answer them, you will help to make sense of the material and remember it more easily
because the process will make an impression on you. Those things that make impressions are more
meaningful, and therefore more easily remembered. Don't be afraid to write the questions in the
margins of textbooks, on lecture notes, or any available spaces. The more these notes are accessible to you, the more you will be able to remember and learn them quickly.
learn here? What is the author's conclusion? How does the author present the topic? What are the key
points to the argument?" Such questions function to engage you in the activity. If you ask a question in
a lecture, you always remember the answer to the question. Similarly, if you become an “active reader,”
you are much more likely to retain the information that you amass. http://www.mbssites.com
chapter to evaluate them on how much they have learned during the whole reading activity. It would be
very helpful to answer these questions. If you have come across an item in which you can’t really
answer, go back and read.
Think about the text in three ways.
1. Consider the text itself, the basic information right there on the page. (This is the level of
most high school readers and many college students).
2. Next, think about what is between the lines, the conclusions, and inferences the author
means you to draw from the text.
3. Finally, go beyond thinking about the text. What creative, new, and different thoughts occur as you combine the knowledge and experiences with the ideas in the reading?
• Read and study questions as each chapter ends;
• Ask the question, "Why did my instructor assign us to read this chapter or section?"
• Ask the question, "How familiar am I about this subject?"
http://www.mbssites.com This variation belongs to what we call the SQ3R Method. This method has been a proven way
to sharpen study skills.
Stop reading periodically to recall what you have read. Try to recall main headings, important
ideas of concepts presented in bold or italicized type, and what graphs charts or illustrations indicate.
Try to develop an overall concept of what you have read. Try to connect things you have just read to
things you already know. When you do this periodically, the chances are you will remember much more and be able to recall material for papers, essays, and objective tests.
some ideas on how to read between the lines. In other words, you will be able to distinguish opinions
from facts; and you will be able to form your own judgment on the issues raised in a text. This advice
sheet will also give you advice on how to make use of text organization to understand a text.
Recite After Each Section
• Ask the questions about what you have just read, and/or summarize what you read even in your
own words.
• While recalling ideas from the text, use your own words in discussing.
• Underline (some even use highlighters or colored markers) important ideas in the text.
• Know what method of recitation best suits your learning style. Remember: you are more likely
to recall what you have read when you use more, if not all, of your senses.
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What Types of Reading Reflect Flexibility?
Preparation for a very difficult and unfamiliar course or for a new and complex scientific theory
may demand that you read to remember everything. Here you are probably reading about 200 to 250
words per minute. You read small groups of words and frequently reread for clarification. You may
find yourself mouthing the words. In these situations, you read to remember everything.
Working on a research project may demand that you read a wide range of related literature in
search of possible solutions to problems or of new information to support or deny an issue. Many of the
ideas in these materials will be familiar to you. In fact, ideas that appeared on one source may also
appear on the other. But since you are looking for the new and different, this allows you to race rapidly
over the known information and to slow down to analyze the new. Consequently, you need a strategy
that allows you to efficiently tackle each document.
Spare time may allow you to relax with a good novel or a favorite magazine. Pleasure reading
appears to demand very little of you. But you often carefully skim over the descriptions of the scenery
to focus on the action of the main characters. Those who delight in a leisurely perusal of the Sunday
morning newspaper often skip articles by noting the headlines and moving on to topics of interest.
What Factors Outside Your Control Influence Your Speed of Reading?
Background knowledge about certain subjects has a powerful influence and helps on your
reading speed. If you already know a lot about the topic of the material, you may glance at it and
discard it as a waste of time. Alternatively, you may race through the reading, mentally predicting what
comes next. You do not reread anything because you feel confident that you understand it. No vaguely
recognized words can slow you down.
http://www.mbssites.com On the other hand, if you do not know much about the subject, you must read slowly in an
attempt to absorb the new ideas and eventually lock them down together with the old information you
already know. Occasionally, vocabulary becomes the greater problem. You may have to reach for the
dictionary for clarification. You may reread a sentence or a paragraph to figure out what the author is
suggesting.
A problem for people who use English as a second language is that they have the knowledge,
but they don't have the equivalent English word translation for what they know. Children who have not
been read to before entering school are at a disadvantage when they enter first grade and try to learn to
read. They know English, but they don't know "book talk." Written English is different from spoken
English. Similarly, people who grew up speaking a different dialect or a different language often must
slow down as they read to adjust to the sentence structure of standard written English. Here, frequent
reading of popular or of professional materials, though boring and uninteresting, strengthens your comprehension of standard written sentence structure.
children develop both good eyesight and the visual skills needed for reading while using the computer,
consider the following reminders:
1. Remember that "eyesight" is different from "vision". The former is the ability to "see"
(which most children are born with) while the latter is the ability to organize, interpret, and
understand what is actually seen. Vision is developed and learned like other abilities such as
http://www.mbssites.com walking and talking. Your children require both good "eyesight" and good "vision" to
become excellent readers – not just either of the two, as they are not the same.
2. 20/20 eyesight doesn’t always mean that your children see the printed page or computer
screen the same way you do. It is actually the distance sight indicator and simply means that
your children can see a certain size of letter from 20 feet away. It is not at all related to
reading at near point. To monitor problems on vision grades, have your children read aloud
to you often, to insure that what they see on the printed page and computer screen is the
same thing you are seeing.
3. Good vision means that your children are being able to use both of their eyes as a team to
track smoothly from line to line, see at far and near, copy from a book to paper, keep letters
in proper order, and much more. Any disturbing behavior in the visual process can affect
reading, especially if the visual memory is under stress due to excessive computer, TV, or
gadgets use.
4. Train your children to look away from the computer screen and focus on something in the
distance every few minutes while using the computer. Also, check to see whether their head
is too close to the screen.
5. On a regular basis, let your children play catch outside, ride a bike, and participate in sports.
These activities can improve crucial reading abilities like tracking, focusing, peripheral
vision, eye teaming, and eye-hand coordination. These can strengthen near- and far- point
vision. Many of these skills are not typically learned during sustained computer use.
6. Limit children’s computer use. Children, especially those under three years of age, should
not be used to staring at the computer screen as it can ruin their eyesight while still at a very
http://www.mbssites.com young age. Instead, they should be exposed more on developmental skills not involving
computers like crawling, walking, talking, spatial awareness, tracking, and focusing, among others.
to calculate it. Don’t worry! There is a simple way in doing this. In reading a page of a book at a
comfortable tempo, count the number of words in the first few lines – whatever number of lines you
feel is representative of the page as a whole. Count the total number of lines in the page, as well. The
following formula can help you calculate your reading speed:
Divide the number of lines in the page by the number of lines used for the word count.
Easy, isn’t it? Only 3 simple mathematical processes are what it takes to know your reading
speed! Then again, if you increase the number of lines in which you do the word count, or the number
of pages you read, the accuracy of your calculation will increase as well. However, one page is usually
enough.
The average reading speed is about 265 wpm, though it usually ranges from 250 to slightly over
300.
http://www.mbssites.com To measure reading speed rate, consider a certain reading material and select a section of text
from it. Mark the beginning of the selection you decided to read. Read for a particular length of time –
use a timer or watch to help you time your activity – or for a certain amount of text (about three to five
paragraphs or one page). Also, mark the end of the selection and note the total time you spent reading.
To measure the level of comprehension, recall main ideas from the selection. The rule is if you
have read a particular text in a reading material for three minutes, you should remember three main
points. If you have reads for five minutes, you should be able to know five main ideas.
Count the number of words from the beginning to the ending mark. Divide this total number of
words by the number of minutes you spent reading. This is now your rate of reading expressed in words
per minute. There are actually two simple steps involved in performing your speed test: a selection to
read and the time it takes for you to read it.
The best way to calculate the number of words without counting it one by one is using
estimation. Turn to a “full” page in your book, somewhere which is not the beginning or end of a
chapter. Pick a full line at random and count the number of words. Usually, this line will consist of 10
to 12 words. Then, count the number of lines in the page so that if you multiply the first number you
have to it, you will have an estimate of the number of words per page in that particular book. However,
this will vary from book to book, so you should make a new calculation when you use a different book.
To illustrate the above procedures, let’s say you are going to do a five-minute speed reading
test. Be sure to have your clock ready or have a friend time you. Mark the part in your book you will
start reading with a pencil or take note of the page number. Signal your timekeeper to begin reading for
understanding. When the 5 minutes is up, stop and mark your position on the final page. Go back then
to your starting page and count the total number of pages you have read.
http://www.mbssites.com Multiply this number by the number of words per page calculated earlier. If you haven’t
finished reading all the words on the final page, just add the number of words you have read on it on
the product you got by multiplying the number of pages by the total number of words in each page. The
over-all answer is actually the number of words you have read in 5 minutes. Finally, divide this number
by 5 to get your words per minute.
Note that it is advisable to start reading at the beginning of a chapter so that the effect of half
pages is minimized. Do not worry too much about the “exact” number of words read as the estimates are reasonably accurate, and it is the increases in your reading speed that you will find most interesting.
increasing amount of information. If you read at 200-250 words per minute, like most people, you are
at a great disadvantage. Learning how to read quickly is actually not difficult and many people will
improve their reading speed just by understanding what goes on in their eyes when they read.
What is also important, besides reading quickly, is to understand the information read and how
to retain that information. What good is a speed reader if he doesn’t understand a thing he reads? Thus,
high-speed reading, together with complete comprehension, gives you an opportunity to reach your
highest potential as a leader in your field of work.
Information is power. The more you know, the more powerful you become.
http://www.mbssites.com To be at the cutting edge of your business, you have to know more than others in your field.
Fortunately, information is abundant and obtaining it is as easy as a few clicks on your computer. The
challenge is gathering and deciphering useful data that gives you the lead.
High-speed reading is one of your most important tools to gain ample information that may
make other people see that you deserve to be recognized
Many of the most successful business people you know are probably speed readers. They have
to be quick to effectively deal with all the information necessary to run successful organizations and
businesses. Though they may not talk about their high-speed reading skills, we are certain that those are
what brought them to where they are now. They might not be telling you because they don’t want to
reveal their advantage over you! It’s their edge. http://www.mbssites.com