Appendix G. On Reading
We all began to learn how to read as young children, and we are
still learning. Formal instruction in reading as a skill in its own
right usually ends by the fifth grade, but the presumption is that
reading ability continues to improve as a result of continued reading
for other purposes. However, there is no better evidence that only
perfect practice makes perfect. If you acquired poor reading habits
as a child, as most of us did, you have probably practiced those ways
of reading so much that they are very well learned.
Improving reading skills is important for success in college,
and it is also important for everyday life. It is true that you can
hear the news on the radio and see it on television, and it is also
true that some books are now available on audio cassette, but you are
short-changing yourself as far as understanding the news and enjoying
most good literature if you cannot read well. Regardless of how good
a reader you are now, it would be advisable to buy a paperback book
on some topic of interest to you, and use it to improve your reading
skills.
The purpose of this appendix is to help you determine how well
your present reading skills match up with what most educators believe
is appropriate for college students. I have also included a few
exercises that should show you some of the ways you can practice skills
that are required for efficient reading. The college bookstore has a
number of excellent books devoted entirely to reading skills, and you
can decide for yourself whether you need remedial work.
You need to remember two things:
It is never too late to learn
and
correcting bad habits requires time and effort.
I have listened for many hours to recordings made by students
reading standard texts, and if you can arrange to do so, you might
profit from making a tape so you can hear yourself read. Some
people usually skip words that they don't recognize, while others
mis-read unfamiliar words as being familiar ones. In the particular
text I used, the word "causality" was frequently mis-read as
"casualty," even though that completely changed the meaning of the
paragraph. Students who have developed such poor reading habits
will have to learn to stop when they see a doubtful word. If they
are not sure of the word, it is best to look in a dictionary while
hey are overcoming self-deceiving tendencies.
On the following two pages are two sections intended for timed
reading. Please use a watch that enables you to record both minutes
and seconds so you can time yourself as accurately as possible. The
first page is to be read silently, and as fast as you can while being
sure that you at least get the general idea of what is written. The
second page is to be read out loud, with the same objective. I urge
you to read as you normally would because the goal is to find out for
yourself how your reading skills compare with good standards.
(Note: Try to ignore the small carat_marks between the lines during
these first readings. I will explain their purpose later.)
Timed Reading 1. Rapid, silent.
Reading Speed
When I was about sixteen years old, I was admiring the
^ ^
new cars and I asked the salesman if they could really go a
^ ^
hundred miles an hour. When he said that they could, I asked
^ ^
him why they built cars that could go so fast when the speed
^ ^
limit was sixty miles an hour. He answered by analogy: If a
^ ^
person sets out running at top speed, s/he may go very fast
^ ^
but is likely to get tired very soon. If a person wants to
^ ^
run a long distance, s/he had best run at a slower speed. It
^ ^
is much the same with a car. If it is able to go 100 miles
^ ^
an hour, it can cruise for many miles at 60 miles an hour.
^ ^
That same analogy applies to reading speed. You may
^ ^
rarely want to read at top speed, but the ability to read at
^ ^
a fast speed makes reading at a slow speed smooth and easy.
^ ^
If you learned to read slowly, as most of us did, you can
^ ^
learn to read fast only by practicing faster reading. No
^ ^
amount of practice reading slowly will lead to fast reading.
^ ^
In order to understand why you have to practice reading
^ ^
fast in order to learn how to read fast, you need to know a
^ ^
bit about the way our eyes work. We see the world around us
^ ^
in terms of "glances," or very brief images as our eyes dart
^ ^
here and there. In effect, our eyes send a series of snap_
^ ^
shots to our brains and our brains are able to combine these
^ ^
images into a reasonably stable picture. You know that a
^ ^
motion picture is actually a series of still pictures that
^ ^
are flashed on the screen in rapid succession In much the
^ ^
same way, our vision when reading is a series of very brief
^ ^
glances as our eyes dart across the page. This means that
^ ^
your reading speed depends on how many glances you need in
^ ^
order to send enough information to your brain that it can
^ ^
figure out what the words are.
^
TIME: _____Minutes _____Seconds
Timed Reading 2. Rapid, out loud.
Reading Comprehension
The only reason for reading anything is to understand
^ ^
something of what was written. There is nothing gained by
^ ^
reading fast (or slow, for that matter) if you do not learn
^ ^
anything. However, comprehension is not all_or_none. Your
^ ^
purpose in reading some things may be simply to get the
^ ^
general idea of what they are about. On other occasions,
^ ^
you may want a better understanding of the supporting ideas
^ ^
in addition to the main ideas. And of course when you are
^ ^
studying something for a future test, you will want to know
^ ^
more of the details presented in the book.
^ ^
What this means is that you should learn how to vary
^ ^
your reading speed depending on your purpose in reading and
^ ^
the difficulty of the material. When the words are common,
^ ^
the style simple, and the topic familiar, you can probably
^ ^
read at your top speed with good understanding. The other
^ ^
extreme may require slower reading just to get the general
^ ^
idea. I usually start out reading fast, and then go back
^ ^
and start re_reading more slowly when I find that I can not
^ ^
follow the ideas at the fast speed.
^ ^
One way to force yourself to read slowly is to read
^ ^
out loud. I am sure that you were taught not to move your
^ ^
mouth and lips when reading because you can't speak as fast
^ ^
as you should be able to read silently. But I find it hard
^ ^
to read slowly and silently, so reading out loud forces me
^ ^
to slow down. I also find that it is easier to understand
^ ^
difficult material if I read it out loud. Hearing the words
^ ^
as well as seeing them insures that I am paying attention
^ ^
to the material. Indeed, I sometimes find that, when I am
^ ^
taking a test, I "hear" the answer that I read to myself out
^ ^
loud when I was studying.
^
TIME: _____Minutes _____Seconds
Reading Standards (Comprehension)
Even more distressing to me than listening to the halting way
which many students read, was listening to them trying to summarize
what they had just read. Although I only asked you to get the general
ideas of timed readings, you should be able to say something, from
memory, about the following questions:
1a. Why should a student be able to read fast?
b. How does one learn to read fast?
c. What physical action determines reading speed?
2a. Is comprehension all_or_none?
b. How does speed affect comprehension?
c. How does reading out loud affect comprehension?
Question 2b implies a trade-off between speed and comprehension.
Although it is true that you can learn to read fast with good
understanding, speed has its price. This means that, especially
when you are learning to read fast, you have to accept some loss in
comprehension. But the loss is surprisingly small and recovers with
practice. This is because we can think much faster than we can
possibly read.
One reading habit that I would call "very bad" is continuing to
read without any comprehension of what one is reading, with the false
hope that understanding will somehow happen later. Written material
always builds upon itself, and comprehension of the first part sets a
limit on comprehension of the next part. Perhaps in a mystery story,
some confusion may be resolved when you find out "who done it," but
in general, the time to understand what you are reading now is now.
Although some might call it heresy, I recommend that you skip a
word you don't recognize until you can decide if you need to look it
up right away. Because our language is very redundant (see the next
part of this appendix), and because the meaning of a word is often
implied by the context, you may understand enough without stopping to
check the meaning of a word. For example, you may not know the word
"heresy" in the first sentence of this paragraph. But when you read,
"Although some might call it BLANK, I recommend...," you should get
the idea that my advice is contrary to conventional wisdom. And more
importantly, if instead of skipping the word, you mis_read it as
"hear_say," you would get a very different idea about the sentence.
Regardless of whether you decide to look up any words you do not
recognize, the imperative reading habit is to stop at the end of each
paragraph and decide whether you understand what you have read. For
some purposes you may only need to get the gist, and at other times,
you may need a fuller understanding of the details. But always re_
read any paragraph if you're really not sure what it meant.
It is the author's responsibility to write in such a way that an
attentive, functionally literate student can understand. If you have
trouble with only one of your texts, ask the professor to suggest a
supplemental one. But if you find all texts difficult to read, your
skills are at fault and deserve whatever remedial effort is necessary
to bring them up to par.
Reading Standards (Speed)
Each of the time-readings contains 300 words. Most scientists
who have studied reading believe that college students should be able
to read silently at a speed of about 300 words/minute. Hence, your
reading speed is up to par if it took you about 1 minute to read the
first passage. If you took much longer, you need to develop faster
reading skills.
One reason that people read slowly is that they are mouthing the
words as they read. You can read silently but still be moving your
tongue and lips. Compare the time you took to read the second passage
out loud with your time for the first passage silently. Clearly, if
these times are very nearly the same, you must be speaking the words
to yourself during silent reading. Reading silently should take no
more than two_thirds, and preferably only half as long as reading out
loud. If you can say the words in two minutes or less, you should be
able to read them in one minute or less.
How does one learn to keep one's mouth shut? As young children,
we had to read out loud so others could help us learn. Because first
learning is very persistent, we probably tried to fool the teacher
(and ourselves) by going through all the same motions except that we
didn't actually voice the words. The best way to overcome this habit
is to force yourself to read so fast that your tongue and lips cannot
possibly keep up.
As described in the timed reading, we read by means of a series
of brief glances at the page. The best way to control these glances
is to train your eyes to follow your hand moving across the page. To
do this, keep your thumb and little finger of your right hand out of
the way, and make a kind of line with your finger nails by bending
your middle finger. Place this finger_line right below this line of
type and read the rest of this page by sliding your hand along each
line and moving your eyes along with your hand.
At first, you will likely let your hand follow as your eyes read
along each line. Even this can be helpful if it prevents your eyes
from glancing back at what you have already read. The important thing
is to keep your eyes and hand moving pretty much together. They can
not be exactly together because your hand can move continuously along
a line while your eyes can only take in a series of glances. But try
to make those glances where your hand is.
The next step is to let your hand lead and your eyes follow. As
you continue to read this page, slide your fingers along at a steady
pace and gradually increase the pace. Don't worry if you miss some
words; keep your eyes following your hand. I recommend that you read
this page again in this manner, building up to a speed at which your
eyes always seem to be trying to catch up with your hand. Then after
finishing this page, return to the first timed reading. It has 30
lines to be read in 60 seconds. Move your finger-line from one carat
to the next at the rate of one/second. (First get into a rhythm by
counting one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, etc.) That is how fast
you should be able to read.
Reading Standards (General)
The College Board described the expected reading competency of
college freshmen as follows: "The ability to identify and comprehend
the main and subordinate ideas in a written work and to summarize the
ideas in one's own words." On the rest of this page are several para_
graphs taken from an introductory Psychology text. Stop after reading
each paragraph and try to express the main idea in your own words. If
you are not sure, re_read the paragraph. Then underline the key words
and phrases. Finally, after you have finished all paragraphs, state
your overall summary of the general point of these paragraphs.
"Our natural manner of speaking predisposes us to distinguish
between learning and motivation. When you ask the question, "HOW did
someone do something?" you are typically asking about learning. How
did the thief commit the crime? How did the mountain climber scale a
peak? How did the scientist discover some new phenomenon? In all such
cases, you are impressed by the fact that someone has learned to do
something you don't know how to do.
"When you ask the question, "WHY did someone do something?" you
are typically asking about motivation. Why did the thief commit the
crime, the mountain climber scale a peak, or the scientist discover
some new phenomenon? Even knowing how the feat was accomplished is
often not enough. . . we want to know what motivated the person to do
it. Why do some people spend so much time and effort jogging or
engaging in other physical fitness activities? Why do collectors covet
paintings, stamps, or phonograph records? The answer in all cases is,
of course, that they are "driven"___or motivated___to do so.
"Accordingly, we already have a pretty good intuitive idea of
what the term "motivation" means. Motivational factors are relatively
temporary and reversible states that tend to energize or activate the
behavior of people. This contrasts with "learning," which is a rela_
tively permanent process resulting from experience that results in a
potential for behavior. Learning changes are usually gradual whereas
motivational changes may be very sudden. If someone shouts the word,
"FIRE," you would probably be immediately aroused to do something but
you would know what to do only if you had rehearsed a fire drill.
"Learning is viewed as habits or knowledge available for per_
formance; motivation is the force that activates habits into actual
performance. This conceptualization is captured mathematically by
saying that learning and motivation combine multiplicatively. One of
the important implications of this rule is that, if either component
is zero, the combination is zero. Both learning and motivation are
necessary, and the more of each, the greater the performance.
"Another important implication is that the same level of per_
formance can result from different combinations of the two factors.
A poor performance, as in one's grades in college, can reflect either
(or both) poor learning strategies or weak motivation. The cause of
the problem may therefore not be obvious, especially to someone else.
Obviously, however, the treatment of the problem depends on the cause
and hence the distinction is an important one to understand."
On Redundancy
A letter, word, or even sentence is said to be "redundant"
when it adds no new information to what has already been conveyed.
For example, if I say, "This course is very difficul-," you really do
not need the final "t" because it is the only possible letter that
could fit in that space. Similarly I might say, "This course is very
difficult. You will have to study hard." In this case, the entire
second sentence is redundant because what we mean by a very difficult
course is one for which you will have to study hard.
Redundancy is frequently only partial; there may be several, but
still a limited number of possibilities. Hence, if I say, "Please
give me a pa-," I could mean "pad," "pan," or even "pat," but not
every letter in the alphabet could fill the blank. Or if I say, this
course is very 'blank'," you know the missing word is an adjective
that applies to courses, but it might be "interesting," "useful,"
"important," or some such word. . .but it could not be "elephant."
Our natural language is very redundant. Even when we do not
intend to repeat ourselves, many of our words are not entirely
necessary. This fact has several important implications. One is that
you do not have to hear every single word a speaker says, or read all
words in a book. You can miss quite a few words and still get the
gist. Another implication is that, if you are actively participating
when you are listening or reading, you can correctly anticipate many
of the words before you actually hear or see them.
Like most learning skills, taking advantage of redundancy when
reading is a learned behavior that can be improved with practice. To
develop this skill further, you can use two cards to cover the text,
one moving down line by line, and the other moving to the right as
you read. The goal is to try to anticipate what the next word, or
part of a word is going to be. As you get better, you will be able
to move the cards across and down the page faster and faster.
As background for practicing that task, I have prepared some
exercises. In the first of these, you are to read out loud, trying
not to have to pause on words with redundant letters omitted. In the
beginning, do not try to read very fast so that you can be sure you
are processing the information as you are reading.
One of the memory mysteries is the alcoholic blackout.
My first black___ was a scary experi____. I could remem___
everyth___ that happen__ up t_ a certain poin_ in tim_, and
simply could n__ remem___ anyth___ aft__ t__t t___. Even
wh_n m_ wife tol_ me I had ha_ a grea_ ti__, tel____ jok__
and sing___ s____, m_ mind was blan_. As the nam_ sugge__s,
an al_______ b_______ means t__t _ part of one's lif_ is
los_ forev__.
During t__ nex_ few ye___, I had man_ bl______s. I
woul_ awak__ in ___ morn___ with evid____ t__t I had do__
complex th___s the ni___ bef___: find m_ wa_ arou__ tow_,
check in__ _ hot__, even writ_ a repor_. Bu_ _ coul_ n__
rem_____ do___ tho__ th___s an_ I oft__ worri__ abo__ wh_t
oth__ th____ _ migh_ have don_ dur___ the b____out peri__.
Perhaps I had don_ a goo_ dee_, perfor___ _ hero__ act, or
commit___ _ cri__. I wi__ nev__ kn__.
Unfortun_____, there is no warn___ abou_ an impending
b_______. The__ __ n_ wa_ of sens___ t__t yo_ reach__ t__t
stage o_ get____ dr___ fro_ whi__ you_ mem___ wi__ b_ b____ed
o__. Anyon_ ca_ hav_ _ b_______ fr__ drin____ to_ mu__, b__
freq____ b_______s are _ clear sig_ t__t one __ a_ al____lic.
I wis_ _ ha_ kno__ t__t then!
_
A good way to develop an appreciation for redundancy is to go
through a text and cross out letters and words that are obviously
redundant. Mark a line through redundant material in the next theme.
One of the memory mysteries is the prior sleep effect. It
has long been known that sleeping after learning is beneficial
to memory. This may be because learning is consolidated during
sleep or it may simply be that nothing happens during sleep to
interfere with what was learned. Whichever, we may ask whether
sleep before learning also affects memory.
It does, but the effect is negative! When sleeping people
are awakened and given new material to learn before going back
to sleep, they seem to learn perfectly well. But when they are
later tested over the material, they remember very little. How
much they remember depends on how long after waking before the
learning occurs. There is some negative prior sleep effect for
up to an hour. This may be one reason that dreams are quickly
forgotten.
One implication of the prior sleep effect is that you best
not schedule study time immediately after sleeping or napping.
A second implication is that, if you have an early morning
class, you should be sure to get up early. A final implication
is that, if you doze off during a lecture or while studying,
you not only lose that time, you won't remember much of what
happens next. Students need plenty of sleep, but you should be
sure to sleep after, not before learning.
Redundancy depends on past learning, and hence there will be
individual differences depending on one's learning history. For ex-
ample, if I say, "It's the exception that proves --- ----," the last
two words are redundant only if you are familiar with the expression.
(The words are, "the rule.") Or if you ask a teacher, "Do you grade
on - -----?" the missing words are probably obvious. For this reason
there is no single correct way to determine whether a letter or word
is wholly or partially redundant; the proof is whether you can get
along just as well without it.
In reading the final theme, if you find it more difficult to read
the paragraphs with redundant letters omitted, you should certainly
spend time doing exercises such as the two-card one described earlier.
One of the memory mysteries is motivated forgetting.
Human memory is selective: of the many things we experience,
only some can be remembered. Among the experiences that we
may not be able to remember are the very painful ones. Our
memory processes try to protect us from having to relive
unpleasant experiences.
One poss____ explana____ of moti_____ for_______ is state
dependent learning. I have previous__ tol_ you t__t learn___
is somewh__ specif__ to t__ contex_ in whi__ lea_____ occurs.
I al__ point__ out t__t your biologi___ sta__ is one aspec_
of t__ con____. If t__ biol______ st___ is extre__, as when
one is drug___ (drunk) or ver_ afra__, the__ may be no mem___
of wha_ o__ exper______ unles_ on_ __ in t__t sam_ st___. For
ex_____, the__ ar_ word_ to song_ t__t _ learn__ when _ w__
drun_ t__t _ coul_ onl_ re______ whe_ I wa_ dr___.
State dependent learning may be important to students. If
you learn in a totally relaxed state, you may not remember
much if you are very anxious taking an exam. Hopefully, the
way state dependent learning could account for motivated for_
getting is obvious. If one is terrified during a painful ex_
perience, one would have to be in a state of terror in order
to remember the experience.
Howev__, mot______ for_______ seems __ be much mor_ gener__
th__ st___ dep______ lear____. We all "for___" man_ thin__:
a date, an assign____, an appoint____. We may for___ to bring
note_ to _ meet___, tick___ __ _ concer_, or mone_ __ _ gam_.
We ma_ for___ to writ_ _ let___, to pay _ bil_, or __ feed a
pet. In a great man_ of suc_ cas__, we ma_ disco___ t__t wha_
we for___ i_ someth___ w_ real__ di__'_ wan_ __ rem_____.
It was Freud who called attention to motivated forgetting
as an example of how unconscious motives may be revealed in
everyday errors. By his account, everything from misplacing
things to slips of the tongue reflect our true feelings. Thus
a person who can't recall your name may not have a very high
opinion of you! In any event, some forgetting may result from
motivation.
Ther_ ar_ man_ mor_ mem___ mys______. On_ __ th_ tip_of_
the_tongue pheno_____. No on_ kn___ how w_ ca_ hav_ _ ver_
confid___ feel___ of kno____ someth___ whe_ w_ ca_'_ thin_ of
it at t__ mome__. Even mor_ amaz___ __s t__ fac_ t__t this
pheno_____ __ contagiou_. When some___ block_ whe_ try___ t_
rem_____ some_____, oth___ ma_ al__ blo__. To be su__, human
mem___ __ _ mys_______ place. . .so near and yet so far.