Voices of Africa

Types of Reading 1. Recognize types of reading To evaluate your success as an effective reader, you might look at your ability to adjust your reading to the different types of materials and to your different purposes in reading. 2. Purpose for reading Either you are reading for ideas or for facts. In addition, you need to distinguish between “light” reading for entertainment and “heavy” reading for aesthetic appreciation of style, content, or philosophy. This type of reading involves a combination of intense concentration and uninterrupted contemplation. 3. Skimming and scanning Both techniques involve reading the clues set up by the author. Most textbooks are organized to make intelligent skimming possible. All devices such as chapter titles, sectional headings, boldface or italicized type, and underlining are clues to help you with this technique. Take time to think before you start to read, and get a good idea of just what you are looking for. Then clues can save a great deal of reading time by leading you right to the sections in which you are interested and allow you to skip over the rest.  Skimming can be very effective as a preliminary step to reading something more

thoroughly. It gives an overview of what you can expect in the material.  Scanning is an essential aspect of any search for specific information. Use it in sources such

as telephone books, encyclopedias, dictionaries, or general reference sources. It also is an essential aspect of the self-recitation study technique, which emphasizes reading to seek answers to predicted questions.

4. Idea reading Idea reading extends use of skimming techniques beyond the heading into the content para- graphs. It involves more comprehensive coverage of total word content in a highly selective fashion. It is a technique of rapid reading in which the eyes move rapidly. They catch large phrases at each glance and register with the brain only the most significant words or ideas in those phrases. You can develop extremely rapid rates of reading with it. It means being familiar with the makeup of the English language as a means of communication. Rapid recognition of key sentences, illustrative words and phrases, and the skeletal structure of the sentence are essential to discovering the basic meaning. It means making quick decisions as to the relative importance of different sentences and paragraphs as you read. It means quick recognition of the author's clues and rapid association with ideas you already understand that relate to this material. 5. Exploratory reading Exploratory reading, or general content reading, involves more detail than the two types mentioned before. This approach is appropriate for longer articles in magazines, for descriptive literature, and for light fiction. It may be used for similar reading in which you wish to pick up a better understanding of some new ideas. You should use this technique on many outside references in which you wish to find background material, but in which you will not be tested for

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detail. Emphasis here should be placed on recognizing and understanding main ideas more thoroughly. You should relate them to other ideas in the article or to previous knowledge of the subject. 6. Study Reading Study reading is a type in which you must get a maximum understanding of the main ideas and their relationships. This is the type you must apply to your textbooks. You may apply it to contracts, legal papers, technical manuals, instructions, and other similar materials. Here you frequently deal with materials that you must read and understand now and also remember for future use. Clues are important. A preliminary scanning may be quite helpful. The actual reading process, however, needs to be an alternating activity between reading for ideas and thinking about those ideas. The actual reading process itself may be quite rapid, but greater skill must be developed in thinking and organizing the ideas for long-term retention. 7. Critical reading This type of reading must be applied wisely. You may find a certain article that tends to stir you to action. You should stop and consider what you have read more carefully. Many periodical articles, books, and advertising materials are loaded with carefully worded propaganda devices. These are designed to sway your opinion or to sell you on some particular idea or product. Be careful that a rapid reading of the main ideas does not lead to false conclusions. You should go back and consider carefully what you know about the source of the reading material. What are the possible biases or ulterior motives that its publisher or author may have? You also should consider what you know about the author's background experience and potential knowledge of the subject. You should watch the reading material for inconsistent logic or false analogies. Particularly important is an awareness of emotionally loaded words that appeal to basic emotions. With experience, you soon can learn to spot some of these types of appeals through quick scanning for the clues the author provides. Then you can beware of these techniques before beginning to read. In any reading, you should frequently ask yourself: "What is the author trying to make me believe and why?" 8. Analytical reading Certain sections of study materials require a much more thorough type of reading than those mentioned before. Mathematical theorems and problems, scientific formulas and certain definitive statements of key ideas require careful attention to each word and to its relative importance. You must approach such reading with a questioning mind, seeking complete clarification. You can team, to recognize such passages and to slow your reading pace to deal with such sections more adequately. In conclusion: Identify & Adjust By learning to recognize different types of reading and to judge what types of reading skills to apply to them, you may become more effective in your overall use of reading time. Streamline your reading activities to meet the needs of the time and the material to be read. Such judgment can be developed only from practice.