Reading and seeing words may sound similar, but they are very different actions. I can see and recognise words in an essay, but still fail to understand what the whole essay means. The words pass through my eyes and leave my mind - nothing stays. They texts and words are like objects in the scene - I see them, I know them, but I do not pay attention in understanding them.
As a knowledge worker, my job depends on thinking clearly and understanding complex topics. If I continue to read without understanding, my mind lacks the required clarity and insights for guide my decisions and actions. Reading only matter if I can improve my thinking.
To be better at reading, the first step is to read daily. Reading is a mental exercise, and it is similar to any physical exercise - it needed to be practised everyday.
According to the summary of Mortimer Adlers’s How to read a book, there are four level of readings to be practised:
- Level 1 - Elementary Reading. This is basic reading: recognising words and following sentences. This is the level I use most often now.
- Level 2 - Inspection Reading. This is reading to know the main ideas and deciding whether it’s worth spending more time. Most materials are not relevant enough to deserve full analytical reading, so inspection reading helps me understand the main ideas while saving times for the most important materials.
- Level 3 - Analytical Reading. This is serious reading for understanding. It requires mental work and time, so I need to selective about what I read deeply. At the end of a deep read, I need to do four things:
- Classify the book
- Summarise the book
- Define the main points with order and relations
- Define the problems the authors are trying to solve, and their solutions
- Level 4 - Syntopical Reading. This is reading to master a subject, not a singe material. It requires understanding multiple materials of a subject, identifying similarities and differences between them, and developing my own insights. During this reading, I need to do four things:
- Formulate the questions I am trying to find answers
- Identify the main right materials, and the relevant passages in the materials that have the answers to my questions.
- Digest the contents write the answers in the contents using my own language. Different materials have different answers. I need to identify their similarities, and differences.
- Challenges the answers.