Guides for ...

Guides for Developing Reading Skills

Rhetorical strength-the suasive quality of writing-is developed by reading a lot. To be a good writer you have to be a good reader, too.

1. Increase your eye spans and the speed with which you make them. Eye span is the number of words that your eyes focus on at one time. Learn to read groups of related words in one eye span in this manner: The back door closed--with a bang--that shook the house.
2. In silent reading, do not use the lips, mouth, or throat to form words. Do not use a finger to mark words or lines. train your eyes to keep the place.
3. Avoid holding reading material too close to your eyes. This position narrows your eye span and slows your eye movements. Find the farthest distance at which you can see the print well and practice reading in this position.
4. If you have any defects in vision or hearing, get medical treatment.
5. Make your vocabulary grow.
6. Before you begin to read a selection, make clear to yourself the purpose of the writing so that you can relate to the purpose the ideas that you read. Use titles and headings to help you follow the thought and organization.
7. Concentrate as you read, to help you get the meaning of a sentence the first time that you read it. Reread only if necessary.
8. Learn to organize the central idea of a paragraph and to observe how the other ideas support it.
9. As you finish reading a paragraph, think of the topic that should logically follow in the next paragraph.
10. Develop interest in any reading that you must do. Interest increases reading ability; lack of interest causes poor reading.
11. To become a good reader, you must practice reading. Make up your mind to read more than you do now. Read new kinds of material.
12. Learn to adjuct your reading rate to the kind of material that you are reading and to your purpose in reading it.

• Skimming means looking quickly through printed material until you recognize words for which you are looking or words in which you are interested.

• Rapid reading is the method that you use for light and interesting material, such as recreasional reading.

• Close or thorough reading is the kind that you do when you need to understand and remember what you read. Here you should apply what you have already learned about taking notes and about outlining and summarizing.