How’s your day going? And if I may ask, how many books have you covered this year? It’s just the 3rd week and you can still cover many books this year. Currently I’m reading “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe. He was an excellent writer; a master wordsmith. Chinua Achebe’s books hold you spellbound till your are done with the book. I encourage you to pick one of his books.
It won’t be wrong to say that; “Art helps us escape reality by putting forward an imagination of reality.” Well, something like that… oops, sorry, I digress!
In my last post, I informed my readers that I was on the 3rd book, by the 3rd week… yes, right on track for the “A Book – A Week Challenge”. And I’m loving every bit of it. I am moved to task; spend less time on gossips, unnecessary screen time on phone and of course, acquire more vocabulary to my word bank. So let me encourage you: If you’ve been finding it difficult to pull through on this challenge, this post is for you. And if you want to know how to improve your reading skill or habit… you would also benefit from this post. So as the French would say; On y va! (Let’s go…!)
I took the liberty to reel out some more benefits for reading… as an extended list to my last post. I won’t dwell much on these points, just a list.
The added benefits of reading includes:
- Improves concentration
- Improves memory
- Increases vocabulary
- Reduces stress
- Improves writing skills
- Reading reduces stress
- Improves Creativity
- Develops Empathy / Makes you more empathetic
- Reading improves literacy
- Develops Analytical skills
- Enhances communication
- Creates Entertainment
- Develops Imaginative Skills
- Increases Brain Power
- Builds vocabulary
- Great for Cognitive development
- Reading inspires success
- Improves knowledge
- Reading improves sleep
- Boosts vocabulary and language skills
- Helps with Critical thinking
- To mention a few…
Should you require more information on the above, you can reply to the post and I would give more details. Now, on the crux of the matter; How to enjoy reading.
I am so glad to inform you that you begin to enjoy reading when you understand or clarify 3 major questions. These include:
- Why are you reading. – The Purpose
- What are you reading. – The kind of text or book
- How are you reading. – The process / skill / approach to reading the book or text.
Only then can you adopt a plan to enjoy your reading. Let me explain further.
The Purpose for picking a book
People read for different reasons. This becomes the purpose for reading a book. It is like picking up a newspaper with many sections. Some people are interested in sports, some the editorial, some persons would be drawn to politics, while a young chap would just be looking for a job and check the job advert section.
The point here is that your purpose for reading would determine the kind of book you read. It determines what interests you. If you pick up a book that meets your interest or your need at that point in time, there is every likelihood that you would breeze through the book and perhaps finish it… There is every likelihood you would enjoy it.
Some may read because they want to be entertained, or acquire knowledge about a subject, or may be do some research, or just because they wish to broaden their knowledge.
Note: Ask yourself: what do I want, what do I hope to achieve at the moment with the book that I want to read. What is my mood or what mood do I hope to attain?
The Type of Book you are reading
In the same vain, some persons read primarily for leisure and want to entertain themselves. This would determine the type of books they would be interested in. For someone who has an exam or interview, his/her purpose is clearly defined for academic / career pursuit. This purpose is geared towards study. In this case, based on the purpose the type of books that may be read is based on subject matter or research. Hence, the various purposes or interests that meet peoples’ need for reading give rise to the various kinds of books; journals, novels, text books, history, biographies, etc. that is read.
There are many books in the library and some persons would never touch or conceive the idea of reading some books. People basically search for the types of books they would like to read; books that meet their interest. The point here is, if you wish to enjoy reading, know what interests you or what you wish to achieve from the reading then pick up the kind of material that would fulfil that purpose.
The Process of reading / the way you read the book.
This is basically the major gist on this post of how to enjoy reading. I have seen so many people pick up a novel and then drop it. Or you find students who pick up a course material and then give up on the text. The next time you plan to read a book and you expect to finish it, follow the tips below.
4 Different Types of Reading Techniques
So we have 4 basic techniques when it comes to reading? These include:
- Skimming. Skimming, sometimes referred to as gist reading, means going through the text to grasp the main or general idea of a text
- Scanning. Here, the reader quickly scuttles across sentences to get to a particular piece of information. The goal is to get a specific idea. This is sometimes the approach people use when answering comprehension questions in exercises.
- Intensive Reading. This is the digging deep kind of reading. Here the reader may read at a slower rate and carefully to enable him/her articulate clearly or memorize some points.
- Speed Reading (sometimes called extensive reading): This requires some level of expertise or practice. This is so because it might appear that the reader is skimming through the text but the reader is actually getting all the nitty-gritty of the text. This skill is best when a ready has to cover a lot of text material.
From the techniques above it easier to choose how you wish to cover your book within a specific period of time.
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Other methods of enjoying a book:
Treasure Hunt: How best to read Academic materials…
Learn to ask yourself questions before you commence reading. This gives you the urge to search for the answer in the book. The book becomes a treasure hunt. This was the approach I used way back in school (both secondary and university). I made study exciting for me. I created a purpose for reading before I commenced.
For example, when I read about chemical compounds in chemistry, I had to ask myself why some chemical compounds react in one way and others don’t. Before I knew what was happening, I would read through that part of the text book and even check other text books. This is because the mind is naturally inquisitive… it wants to know.
This same approach of treasure hunt keeps a student preparing for exam awake when he attempts to answer some past questions. The brain is eager to be fed with the answer. I would advise that the method of asking questions or treasure hunting in books would make your reading more interesting. It is similar to what novelist do; they create suspense and the reader is eager to know what happened. Same way, one can create such suspense for oneself.
Daily Page Count: Timing on your book…. How many pages a day count…
Let’s say you have a book with over 200 pages; how many pages can you read in a day? What’s your daily page count? I would assure you that one of the ways of improving your reading habit is by giving yourself a minimum page count target a day. You can start from a realistic number and with time you increase it.
Reading is an exercise, and like all exercises, you would work on your discipline and perseverance. The more you give quality time to an exercise the greater the appetite and stamina to complete more exercise. The same analogy can be applied to reading. You would considerably increase your reading speed and daily page count by working out a plan for yourself.
By increasing your daily page count, you would be able to ascertain how long / your duration for reading certain text or materials. More importantly, you would gradually learn how to speed read. In turn, you apply the speed reading skill when you encounter a book that seems uninteresting to you but you wish to finish reading.
In conclusion, reading can be fun if only you develop the right habits to reading. We have discussed 3 major questions which serves as a guide. Your answer to these questions would also determine the reading technique you may choose to adopt. Lastly, we look at 2 salient points that would greatly improve our reading process. We would do well to treasure hunt while reading and also learn to develop a culture of identifying or improving our daily page count. These approaches would make read enjoyable and satisfying.
The Read A Book A Week Challenge is on and my next book is Chukwuemeka Ike’s The Chicken Chasers, The last book I read from this author is “The Bottled Leopard”. I believe this would be equally interesting and didactic. See you in the next post
John
Project Manager – lokogoma.com / Mini – Library
08023542319
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