10 Days to Faster Reading Read online

  Leadership for the Knowledge Era

  Eating Out in Style

  Decorating for the Holidays

  Sibling Rivalry: Just a Myth?

  > Introductory paragraph(s): If you remember back at school, every essay had to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. These parts are commonly known as the introduction, the body, and conclusion. The first or first few paragraphs of any article or chapter are the introduction. They set you up for where your trip is heading. The introduction may be one paragraph or several. A rule of thumb is to consider your introduction over when you read the first subhead, if there is one.

  If you are unsure how much of the introduction to read, begin by reading the first few paragraphs. If you are getting the idea of where the reading is going after the second paragraph, which is very possible, then stop reading and go to either the first subhead or first sentence of each paragraph.

  § Subheads: Subheads are the big cities on your road map. They are the backbone of a reading outline and they give you a strong clue about what may be discussed. Subheads are often indicated in boldface and are generally on a line by themselves, often in larger print than the rest of the text.

  T The first sentence of a paragraph: The first sentence of a paragraph gives you the main idea. In school it was called a topic sentence. This is probably the most important clue from knowing what details might be covered under each subhead.

  They are like the main streets of each city your road map takes you through. If you train yourself to read just the first sentences of every paragraph, you will be finding an important structure of the writer's outline. Once in a while you may find that the first sentence is vague or contains an incomplete thought. In that case, read the second sentence to complete the thought.

  __Roadways: Roadways are the remaining part of the paragraph not yet read. When you begin using the pre-viewing process, don't read entire paragraphs. Being new to the process, you might be afraid you will miss something and draw yourself back into laborious word-for-word reading. The idea is to only read those words that will give you the most information in the least amount of time. It is only after you become comfortable with not reading every word and confident in the pre-viewing process that you can allow yourself to read selected paragraphs in their entirety. The ones you select should be of interest to you as well as only those that meet your reading purpose or responsibility. You are then effectively skimming, not just pre-viewing (see Day 8).

  < Concluding or summary paragraphs (also abstracts): The end of every piece of writing has a summary or conclusion. It tells you something about the reading. It could be the last line of the reading or the last several paragraphs. Much research-based writing starts with an abstract, an entire summary of the article, usually just one or two paragraphs. It helps give the reader the background knowledge necessary for understanding the complex concepts presented in the article.

  (?) Questions at the end: This is meant only for those who are reading textbooks with questions at the end of each chapter. It is effective to review the questions before you read the text because they give you your reading responsibility, or what the author intended you to know. Some people think this is cheating. I call it reading actively, fair and square.

  When you pre-view a chapter, you can jot down symbols from the road map legend on a separate piece of paper or in the margins of text. For example, you will recognize that the # symbol is the title, the > symbol is the introduction, and the T symbol is the first sentence of the paragraph, and so on. There are some other places of interest on your road map worth looking at before you begin actual reading. They include:

  Pictures

  Tables

  Graphs

  Charts

  Captions

  Bold print

  Italicized print

  Bulleted points and numbered lists

  Length of reading

  Margin pullouts (pull quotes)

  Separate articles within, sometimes called sidebars or boxes

  Unfamiliar vocabulary

  Author's information

  Copyright date

  Footnotes

  Pictures, tables, graphs, charts. By looking at pictures, tables, graphs and charts you will be able to:

  1. Get a quick visual clue about what the text is discussing

  2. Increase your reading speed. Have you ever heard that a picture is worth a thousand words?

  Captions. Captions usually describe an illustration or photo. They are usually located underneath or directly beside the visual and are helpful in clarifying the image's meaning and text.

  Bold and italicized print. Try to become accustomed to using your eyes and brain to find these different type styles. Bold and italicized print tells you:

  1. When a word or words are important to the text's meaning.

  2. When a new vocabulary word is introduced.

  Bulleted points and numbered lists. If you were pre-viewing this chapter and quickly read the bulleted points listed before this section, you might have thought, "Okay, I understand. I don't need to read the detailed descriptions below." Or you might have thought, "Okay, I'd like to know why these are so important. I will read the descriptions, or selected ones, below on more detail." Bulleted points and numbered lists do the following:

  1. Communicate a lot of information in a short amount of space.

  2. Help you choose what you need to read in more detail.

  Length of reading. By knowing the reading's length before you begin, you can decide:

  1. How you want to manage your time by predicting how long it will actually take you.

  2. Whether the reading topic is worth that much time.

  3. If you want to save it for when you have more time.

  4. How you might break a longer reading down into smaller, more manageable sections.

  Margin pullouts (pull quotes). This is a term use for anything printed outside the text in the margin. For example, a margin pullout may give you the following:

  1. Quotes pulled from the reading.

  2. An explanation of a vocabulary term.

  Separate articles within. Also known as sidebars or boxes, these can be pre-viewed by looking at the subheadings and first sentences of paragraphs.

  Unfamiliar vocabulary. Identifying unfamiliar vocabulary can:

  1. Help you gain a better understanding of the content before you read for detail.

  2. Focus your reading purpose to help you decide whether you need to define the term before you begin to try to figure it out from the context.

  3. Create your own vocabulary list with definitions before you read.

  Author's information. Knowing the author's information before you begin reading can:

  1. Give you clues about the author's point of view

  2. Tell you what experiences have led the author to his or her writing on a particular subject.

  Copyright date. The copyright date gives you the following:

  1. When was the writing written? A computer manual from 1993 is probably not up-to-date.

  2. A time context to date the information, indicative of the point of view. You can find the copyright in books near or adjacent to the title page next to the copyright symbol ©.

  Footnotes. Footnotes or references are usually found only in academic or research-based writing. Footnotes do the following:

  1. Inform you where the material originated.

  2. Provide more explanation about a specific topic being discussed in the text. By quickly looking for these clues, you can get the gist of most nonfiction material in a short time. When you add a faster reading strategy to pre-viewing, such as key words, phrases, key phrases, or a pacer, you have a supercharged way of getting the most background knowledge in the least amount of time.

  Time Trial No. 5: Road Map Exercise

  This exercise will take you less than eight minutes. You will be pre-viewing "Day 6: Hanging Out the Caution Flag" for this exercise. You will hopefully find that you will g
et the gist without reading it in detail. Please read the directions before turning to Day 6.

  1. With a stopwatch or clock with a second hand next to you, get ready to time yourself for five minutes.

  2. Begin your pre-view by quickly reading the chapter title, then the introduction, which is the first or first few paragraphs. Remember to use your faster reading strategies to assist you. When you feel you have read enough of the introduction, stop reading in detail.

  3. Continue reading just the first sentence of the next and subsequent paragraphs.

  4. As you're quickly driving along the writer's road, notice other clues such as illustrations, bulleted points, or bold or italicized print.

  5. As you read, be aware your purpose is to piece together the outline until the five minutes are up. If you finish before the five minutes are up, round your time to the nearest 10 second mark. For example, 3 minutes 17 seconds would be 3 minutes 20 seconds.

  6. At the end of five minutes, stop your pre-view. Do not be concerned if you did not get to the end.

  Comprehension Statements

  Without looking back at the reading passage, respond to the following statements by indicating whether the statement is True (T), False (F), or Not Discussed (N).

  ______ 1. A mindful reader is skeptical.

  ______ 2. True critical readers only look for the negative things or things they don't like when reading.

  ______ 3. There are five main categories of questions you can mentally ask while reading.

  ______ 4. The author engages in critical dialogue in this chapter.

  ______ 5. Critical people make better critical readers.

  ______ 6. There are more facts than opinions in this world.

  ______ 7. When an author develops his writing, he may use other words to support his argument.

  ______ 8. A word can have different meanings depending on how it is used.

  ______ 9. Reading word-for-word guarantees you will not miss all the small important words.

  ______ 10. Critical readers are fast readers.

  Now, estimate how many of these answers you believe you have correct out of ten _____

  Get your words per minute by taking your pre-view time and locating your pre-view Words per Minute Chart. Then write your pre-view words per minute on your Personal Progress Chart. Realize you did not read every word, which contributes to a faster result. If you compare your scores from previous practice readings, you may be pleasantly surprised by how much faster you read with little or no loss of comprehension. When you learn to pre-view, you spend your time looking for the more meaningful material in the reading.

  Check your responses in the Answer Key.

  Did you understand more than you thought?

  How many pages did you get through?

  Were you able to follow the writer's outline?

  Were you tempted to read every word? If so, what happened?

  Did you feel more actively involved in the reading process?

  Would you go back and read it in more detail now or do you feel you got enough information at this point?

  If you did go back and read it in more detail, how might your reading strategy differ? Would it be faster? Would you have better comprehension?

  It's likely that this pre-view test drive was not comfortable for you. It's like putting a whole new swing into your golf or your tennis game. It may feel mechanical and shaky at first. You may be concerned about your comprehension. In the beginning, this is more of an exercise in eye movement than comprehension. If your eyes can locate and read just the key information, then comprehension will occur.

  Experiment with pre-viewing on all nonfiction reading material in your reading pile. Remember that pre-viewing can serve not only as a replacement for reading in detail, it can also be an introduction or a review. In a short period of time, by experimenting with this pre-view process, you will find it gets easier and more efficient. You may wonder how you ever read without it.

  Fast Tracks: The 40/60 Line

  What you find in the pre-view road map is what I consider to be the meat of all nonfiction reading material. These clues give you about 40 percent of the key information. The remaining 60 percent is filler, fluff, or explanation. This means you can choose what portion of the remaining 60 percent to spend your time on. You may only need another 20 percent (40 percent pre-view + 20 percent actual reading = 60 percent), which then means you have saved yourself 40 percent of your reading time. You also read actively and got what you needed in less time.

  There is no exact order in which to pre-view the clues. It makes sense, however, to chronologically follow the subheads and first sentences of paragraphs to better understand the author's thought process. Let the pre-view clues cue your brain in to what is most important in the reading and, even more importantly, to learn what is of most value to you. Remember that mindfulness is the search for what's meaningful to you. In pre-viewing, this choosing encourages mindfulness and makes you feel more responsible for your outcome. This is a quality of active, mindful readers.

  Turbo Comprehension: Is Getting the Gist Enough?

  From the pre-view exercise, you might feel you only got the gist of the chapter. And rightfully so. Your purpose for doing the exercise was to try to locate the pre-view clues. Your responsibility was to do it for three minutes and then answer the ten statements to the best of your ability. You were not asked to recite the chapter in detail or to remember it for a test next week. You might, however, be able to talk in general about the chapter's contents.

  For much of the reading you have piled up, getting the gist will have to be enough. You do not have time to get more, unless your purpose or responsibility dictates doing so.

  Try Using the 5W's and H

  If following the pre-view outline seems restricting, remember that you need to adapt it and make it work for you. If you believe that the concept of getting background knowledge is a valuable one, then find the best way for you to get it, given the information in these pages.

  An additional way to ensure comprehension is to pre-view or read looking for the 5Ws's and H; who, what, when, where, why, and how. You can get the key information by looking for the answers to each one of these questions.

  Spend Time to Save Time

  Many people initially believe that pre-viewing requires a lot of time. Explaining it takes time but doing it is very quick. As you become more skilled, you can pre-view a two page article in less than a minute or a ten-page chapter in less than five minutes depending on your background knowledge and purpose.

  Why take to time to pre-view? Let's take a thirty-minute time frame. Say you have a ten-page chapter that would normally take you thirty minutes to read from beginning to end. Now let's say you pre-view the chapter instead, which takes you eight minutes, leaving you twenty-two minutes to read the chapter in detail. With the background knowledge you found in the eight minutes, you should easily be able to read faster to meet the twenty-two-minute time frame. You actually are likely to read it in less time than that because you found during your pre-view some sections you decided you didn't need to pay much attention to.

  Scenario 1

  30 minutes to read from beginning to end

  Scenario 2

  8 minutes to pre-view + 22 minutes to read detail = 30 minutes

  Which thirty minutes is a better use of your time? Which encourages more active reading and better comprehension, after which you better remember new information? Which might save you time? The answer to all these questions is Scenario 2. Remember the value of background knowledge; it is great for comprehension but also for speed. A tried and true time management principle applies here: It takes time to save time.

  Students can also use the pre-view process to review before an exam. This saves time by avoid-ing mindless rereading and focusing on unfamiliar areas.

  Newspapers Vary the Road Map

  In general, newspaper articles follow a version of the pre-view outline. However, newspaper journ
alists generally write in an A-frame or inverted pyramid style. They place the most important information at the beginning and slowly work down into less important details of the event or issue covered. This is because if there is a late-breaking story or more advertising, editors cut the story from the end, still keeping the most important details up front. So by reading more detail in the beginning, you get the meat of the story.

  Many newspaper articles contain one sentence paragraphs. This makes reading just the first sentences of paragraphs challenging. You might try reading just the first line, not the complete sentence, of the paragraph to see if you want or need to read more.

  Is there Always a Map?

  Over the years, I have become an expert pre-viewer. I have also looked at most of the nonfiction material participants bring to my workshops from their reading piles. From this, I would venture to say that about 98 percent of the material followed an understandable pre-view outline.

  If you primarily read material that has not gone through an editing process, then you will probably be hard-pressed to find an outline. However, anything that has been published in magazines, e-zines, newspapers, regulation handbooks, computer manuals, and textbooks will all have the preview outline.

  If you write any material for school or work, you can improve your writing's readability by pre-viewing your own work. See if your main ideas are in the first sentence of your paragraphs. If not, you may have buried them inside the paragraph or not even mentioned them at all. After previewing your own writing, you may wish to edit your work.

  Gauge Your Attitude

  Let's take an attitude check. Mentally fill in the blank of the following statement:

  I am a(n) ________________________ reader.

  Is your reading attitude changing?