How to Read Effectively Many students tend to read books without any purpose. They often read a book slowly and in great deta

Good morning, everyone. Today I’m going to talk about effective reading.
   When a teacher or lecturer recommends a student to read a book it’s usually for a particular purpose. The book may contain useful information about the topic being studied or it may be invaluable for the ideas or views that it puts forward, and so on. In many cases, the teacher doesn’t suggest that the whole book should be read. In fact he may refer to a few pages which have a direct bearing on the matter being discussed.
   Unfortunately, when many students pick up a book to read, they tend to have no particular purpose in mind other than simply to "read the book". Often they open the book and start reading, page by page, line by line, word by word: in other words, slowly and in great detail. The result is that students frequently don’t have an overall view of what they are reading; also they tend to forget fairly soon what they’ve been reading.
   Students can make their reading much more effective by adopting a strategy aimed at helping them to understand and to remember what they read. Firstly, they should decide precisely why they are reading the book; perhaps it’s to find some information that’ll answer a question; perhaps it’s to understand a difficult idea or argument, and so on. Then the students should decide exactly what they’re going to read: it’s seldom necessary to read the whole book. A good starting point is the Contents page at the front of the book; a quick look at the chapter headings may help to indicate what should be read. The Index at the hack of the book is often extremely useful in helping to pinpoint the exact pages that need to be consulted for particular pieces of information.
   When it has been decided what% to be read--a chapter of a book, for example--then it’s helpful to get an overview of the contents before starting to read. This can be done by reading the introduction, usually the opening paragraph, and the conclusion, usually the final paragraph. In addition, a glance at the headings of sections or sub-sections will show the order in which the items are introduced. As well as doing this, some students find it useful to skim, or read very quickly, some sections in order to get the gist, or general idea, of the contents.
   Finally, students should ask themselves a specific question connected with the main part of their reading. They should then endeavor to answer it by making appropriate notes as they read. This will help them to focus on the reading as well as providing a summary, which can be re-read later. This is, perhaps, the most effective element in the reading strategy.
   The importance of this last point can be seen from the following quotation taken from Teaching and Learning in Higher Education by Ruth Beard: One reason for poor comprehension from reading may be that students fail to make notes or to ask themselves questions about the text. Evidence obtained by Carmichael and Dearborn showed that whereas a reader normally seemed fatigued after one and a half hours, if the reading material was broken down every twenty-four pages by short tests, reminding him what he had read, he could go on without fatigue or loss of efficiency for periods of up to six hours.
   If a student puts into practice everything that’s been suggested so far, can we say that he reads efficiently? Well, we must remember that most students have a lot to read and only a limited time in which to read it. As a result, it’s important that a student reads as quickly as possible. If he can increase his reading speed without loss of comprehension, then he’ll become a more efficient reader.
Basically, there are three main kinds of silent reading speed, all for different purposes. The slowest speed is study speed, for a high level of understanding and when it’s necessary to remember details; next is average speed, for easier textbooks, novels, etc., the fastest is skimming, when it is not necessary to have a high level of comprehension. Skimming is used to get a general idea of what an article or a book is about.
   Various surveys have been conducted into students’ reading speeds, which are measured by the number of words read in a minute. One, by Edward Fry, showed that a good reader achieves 50% comprehension while skimming at more than 800 words a minute; this is, of course, very fast. He has an average speed of about 250--500 words a minute for 70% comprehension. This fails to about 20(F-300 words a minute for study speed with a high-level comprehension rate of 80%--90%. On the other hand, a poor reader is unable to skim at all. The average speed of a poor reader is 150 to 180 words a minute with a comprehension rate of 70%. If 80% 90% comprehension is required, then the study speed is about 90-125 words a minute.
   A reasonable average reading speed for students to aim at is about 250 words a minute.