Essay on Reading
John L. Hubisz, Ph.D., Hubisz@unity.ncsu.edu

Reading is essential. It does not matter whether you are a doctor, lawyer, auto mechanic, welder, student, teacher, parent, …, reading is important. With the proliferation of material in all fields of endeavour, it is crucial that every man, woman, and child, become a critical and a fast reader. Critical, because you must be able to sort the wheat from the chaff. You must be able to distinguish that which is important from that which is not. You must be fast because there is so much material that has to be seen to keep up with your field of interest; leisure time is enhanced when you latch on to something enjoyable and you can make the time to enjoy it. Interestingly, the faster you read, the better your comprehension! Slow readers have to go back to the beginning of the sentence or paragraph to remember what was read. It has to do with the way short-term and long-term memory operate.

A typical book might have anywhere from 100,000 to 300,000 words. For the sake of our exercise, let us use 150,000 words per book. If you read one hour per day, a simple computation produces the following table:

Words per minute	Books per year
300	44
500	73
800	118
1000	146
1200	174
1500	219

Now, of course, one does not just read books. There are magazines, journals, newspapers, instruction booklets, cereal boxes, etc. and they all have their own mode of reading and each has a different aim for the reader. As a youngster, I came across How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler, which I found to be very helpful. It is still available as a paperback, How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading, Completely Revised and Updated by Mortimer J. Adler & Charles Van Doren. Not all books are to be read in the same way and the authors provide guidelines for reading a wide variety of literature. They even give a recommended reading list (I would supplement it with additional science and mathematics books that are, indeed, great literature) and an appendix of exercises and tests.

No one can legitimately call himself a student unless he reads at least 25 books over and above those required in his classes. I strongly recommend that my students read all their textbooks for all their classes within the first two or three weeks of class. What does “read” mean here? “Read” means to very quickly go through every page and read every word including picture captions, footnotes, etc., without stopping to look up the meaning of words, or going back over a paragraph because you were not sure of what was said. You should not have a pen or paper nearby – it is not the time to take notes! You might read while standing in the grocery line or in a movie theater while waiting for the show to begin or while in the dentist’s office or, perhaps, during commercials. Later, you can get into more detail.

Some students complain of sore necks and headaches. Make certain that the reading material is placed at such an angle that your head is not bent forward and that there is sufficient lighting on the surface, but no glare. If you find yourself moving your head left to right and back, then you need to practice seeing the whole width of the page without moving your head. There are devices called tachistoscopes that will help you with practice readings that continuously increase the width of the selection. I have seen advertisements for computer programs that profess to do the same, but I have not used one. Once achieved you can now simply read straight down the page. A 15 cm ruler will help you move down the page quickly and will keep your eye from jumping back to a previous line. Later, as you get closer to an examination, this same ruler can be used to underline important points – but, not yet!

If you are a student, the teacher will be moving on through your text. Take notes. Review them later and write them out in more detail with comments and questions. You want to stay two steps ahead of her. You have taken one step. Now, you are to go through the material a second time in preparation for class. Place a pen and paper flat on the table next to you. If you come across a word that you do not know, write it down, put the pen down, and move on. If you think of a question to ask someone, write it down, put the pen down, and move on. Take notes in class and never skip a class! Another book that I believe will be most helpful, is a companion volume, How to Speak, How to Listen by Mortimer J. Adler. These are skills that should be taught in class, but rarely are.

With an examination in the offing, you are set to go through the text for the third time. This time you will be amazed at how much you now know. You can now use your pen and the 15 cm ruler to underline important points. You will see that there are many fewer places to underline than had you attempted this on the first reading, when you knew little about the subject.

As to speed, 300 words per minute is much too slow. You are probably mouthing each and every word. Some of the hints above will help your speed, but you might be well advised to pick up a book in the library on the topic. Evelyn Wood has a program that has been around for a long time. Searching “Evelyn Wood” will lead you to many programs using her technique, e.g. Remember Everything You Read: The Evelyn Wood 7-Day Speed Reading & Learning Program (Paperback) byStanley D. Frank can be purchased for about $7.00.It is well worth it.You should certainly make it a goal to get your speed up to 1200 words per minute.

If it took you more than a minute to read this essay, you are reading too slowly!

John Hubisz