The Trick I used to make reading easier
The Dilemma
For many years, I always struggled with paying attention when reading. As a child, I would struggle to keep up with the voice of whoever was narrating the text, and often, I would get lost in the colourful scenes I painted in my thoughts cued by the words I was seeing (or hearing) on paper. Before I realised it, I had just read three lines of text that completely blew by me. The frustration of having to re-read those lines again and again and again was enough to build an unpleasant relationship with reading.
For this reason, it was easy for me to get discouraged from reading. Coupled with my unrelenting nature to compare my abilities to those of my peers, I simply could not understand how many of my friends could endure such a painful process and why I couldn’t. Years later, now in my early twenties, I realised that my assumption was wrong. It was not that my peers could overcome the obstacles that plagued me, but that they were able to utilise what I believed to be a distraction and used it to their advantage. They allowed their imagination to steer their comprehension.
The “Trick”
It turns out that much of reading comprehension doesn’t come from hearing the sentences play out and then being able to recite them fully. In fact, reading comprehension is really about experiencing what the author is trying to portray through their selection of words. The emphasis is on absorbing the text as an experience rather than just as text. In simpler terms, as the sentences on the page cue images in your imagination, you are experiencing those words at a deeper level. Just as in other areas in life, it is much easier to remember an image than a body of text. People use a series of landmarks to memorise a particular route rather than trying to remember the route as a list of steps and directions. Why not apply that to reading? Maybe that’s why it’s generally easier to remember a face than a name.
So as you read lines in a book, don’t be afraid to allow your imagination to guide your comprehension. It’s not always a distraction! It’s your mind helping you take in what you are reading. As you practice this, you get better at it. As you get better at it, you benefit from faster reading speeds, at a greater level of comprehension. In time, you will start to build a happier and more fulfilling relationship with books. And like your seasoned book-loving friends, you too can access the amazing outer-worlds books can take you.
It may sound silly that it took me years to come to this realisation but I believe that many people share the same “inability to focus” when reading. Hopefully, this post has been able to reach you and has helped you realise that you can enjoy reading and subsequently encouraged you to read more. It’s genuinely a life-changing hobby!
Tan
Note: Admittedly I didn’t just stumble upon this realisation on my own. I came across a number of great youtube videos on speed-reading and reading comprehension that helped re-wire the way I thought about reading. I decided to share the two most influential ones to start you on the same path.
Max Joseph-BOOKSTORES: How to Read More Books in the Golden Age of Content
