ART OF READING

Evening Star, Issue 22414, 11 August 1936, Page 11

ART OF READING

SOME BETTER METHODS WAY TO RELEASE THOUGHT How do you read ? asks Marjorie Shuler in the Boston ‘ Monitor.’ Can you take one glance at a page and lift the heart right out of the contents? Do your eyes fly from left to right in a steady skim? Do you see whole phrases at a time or merely one word? Is your speed around 600 to 700 words a minute, which is fair, or can you manage 1,000 to 1,500, which is pretty good, or do you amble along with your finger following each line, mouthing each word in an effort mentally to hear it, and thereby slacken down your pace to some 80 or 100 words each 60 seconds? If you tested yourself you might discover some pretty interesting facte. Is it really lack of time, for instance, which prevents your doing all the reading you would like, or is it that it takes you fifteen minutes to go through the column of type which you could finish in two minutes?

It all appears to be pretty important not alone to the individual but to society as a whole, for college professors after much research and many tests have decided that not knowing how to read is the invisible handicap which keeps many human beings from realising to the fullest their individual capacities and intelligence. They believe that truancy, delinquency, even crime, have their roots m the frustrated sense of children who do not read well enough to keep up with their classmates and who consequently lose their ambition under the taunts of being lazy, dull, stupid. They think there would be fewer gang members if there_ were more visitors at public libraries. They credit not knowing how to read together with lack of cultural background in homes with being two of the main reasons why few adults read much and very few read what might be called good books, thereby lowering the general knowledge of art, science, politics, economics, social questions.

If you are poor in arithmetic you know it. Tf historical dates slip out of your thinking as fast as you try to put them iu you are awaro of that fact. If you can’t spell many friends will help to bring your defect to your attention. But you may not be reading properly and be all unconscious of that fact.

This was the case with a college freshman recently. He seemed unable to keep up with his assignments, so lamentably deficient that Ins teachers had about decided that he could never graduate. Then someone thought to test his reading. They found that it took him 10 times as long to cover a page as the average among his classmates. He was using considerable mental energy just to see what it was all about without actually having started to memorise. As for his thinking, he was found to be the equal of Yale University law graduates or graduate students in Columbia University. So now, along with calculus and advanced French, he is learning how to read. Plenty of New York City public school children also are being taught reading in a series of experiments reaching from the elementary through the high schools. The work was started among elementary pupils in January, 1934. under the direction of Dr Arthur

I. Gates, of Teachers’ College, Columbia University, and earned on by W.P.A. workers. During this time 12000 children have been taught, 97 per cent, of them coming out with as good or better grades in reading than the average public school pupil. The first step for the person who wants to utilise his reading skill to the Greatest advantage is to time himselr. If. he finds that he reads fewer than 600 words a minute, which is the average for a fourth grade child, he can increase his speed by a conscious effort. According to Dr Gates, he should practise several times a daj’j attempting, as in a game, to beat his own record. He should not persist when he finds the occupation too tiring of too boring, but he should stick to his purpose m the long run. He should not be discouraged if he comes to what are called plateaux in learning, the monotonous stretches in which it seems as though nothing is being accomplished. Like changing a tennis stroke, it may seem for a time as though, the new technique were too irksome,. too limiting. But persistence brings mastery, and suddenly the user of the new way will- find that it has become a tool in his hand. . Some things definitely to eliminate are* the use of the finger to follow lines of type and the articulation or words. Both of these slacken speed perceptibly. ■ . Highly interesting material should be selected for the experiment. Long eye jumps should be attempted. The reader should watcl to see whether he isi taking full advantage of punctuation marks or whether liis uncertainty as to their intent confuses him. He should look for context clues which help him in advance of actually seeing the next word to anticipate it. And he should attempt to see entire phrases at a glance, not merely word tor word. ..... He will be helped by setting himself the stint of really learning ten new words a day, and by frequent consultation of the dictionary to widen his understanding of meanings. While he is improving ms technique he should begin to make a distinction between the three, general branches of reading, painstaking perusal with a certain memorisation of the words or their general tenor, skimming which is useful in glancing down the page of a newspaper or magazine to determine whether or not you wish to read certain articles, and rapid reading which is resorted to for the general idea of a story where the plot is the main interest and there W no fine writing or phrasing over which to mull. It is a waste of time to apply careful reading to a fact which is of only temporary use and which can be readily discarded after a few days or weeks, just as it is a mistake to skim too rapidly through passages which are so beautiful in idea or in expression that they should be dwelt on with lingering appreciation. On the other hand, rapid reading is not necessarily careless reading. . It is useful then to determine which technique you will apply to the page before you. If you want to learn how to skim you might try putting your hands over the edges of the page and glance at the centre to see whether you can get the sense of it quickly. After practising this method for a time, the eye should bo so trained fiat it will seek the centre of the page and yet follow important words to the sides. If the aim is careful rending, then it is advisable to stop at tho conclusion of a paragraph and see whethci you have grasped its salient point. Can you repeat it in your own words ? What arguments did tho author advance in support of his contention? What is your point of view on the subject? What have you previously read concerning it? Is this author in agreement with your own general thought? lias what von read helped to improve your thought or by seeing adverse arguments havo you clarified your own position and strengthened it ? Again, are you watching for indications of bias or prejudice in the author.

and equally for expressions of kindness, consideration, tolerance? Can you build up a word picture of your author from your own understanding of his words, whether they are crisp or graceful, staccato or involved, gentle or sarcastic ? Can you comprehend what is his outlook on living and is it consistent with your own so that you are willing to confide a place in your thinking to his writing? Right reading to one’s self should improve reading out loud. A clear appreciation of the meaning should banish monotonous tones, help us to make the right pauses, to place the emphasis where it belongs, and to separate thought into its proper phrases. To take wings with words is like exchanging the slow, creaking, laborious rumble of the ox cart for the swift, smooth glide of the aeroplane. Ceasing our stumbling struggle for the mechanical grasp of the words, we are able to let our understanding soar to a comprehension of the ideas which the words express.