How to Grow as a Reader
The ‘Good Ole Days’
When in school, we could grow as
readers without too much effort on our part, because every day we had
instruction in Language Arts in English class. Twelve years every weekday for
at least 180 days we grew as readers. In college, formalized instruction in
English only occurs if you schedule English courses, if you have time for them
in your degree plan. Otherwise there doesn’t seem to be a lot of guidance on
how to grow as a reader once you leave school. While there are many flaws in
the education system, it did, from my perspective, help me grow as a reader.
The question is: how did it do that and how can I replicate that process in my
own life independently?
Reading
English instruction at first taught
us how to read. I’m going to assume that we’re all past that point and don’t
need a refresher in that aspect, as you can read this post. From there, English
instruction splits into two overlapping categories: reading and writing. As I
mentioned before in my post “Writing to Read and Reading to Write”, I think you
cannot be good in one without the other. However, I’ll focus primarily on
reading in this post, but do not neglect writing if you want to continue to
develop as a reader. From there instruction on reading in elementary, high
school, and college splits off again into several different branches, but I
think comprehension and analysis are two of the biggest.
Reading: Comprehension
Comprehension is key, because if you
do not understand what is going on then there is no point in reading the book.
However, it is often no simple task. Different cultures, words*, and contexts
can easily obscure a book’s meaning from the most astute reader. Therefore, it
is crucial that, even after you have exited the education system, you don’t
neglect comprehension. Unfortunately, we often cannot ask someone what is going
on if we are confused. So my solution to this has been to read as well as I can
and then go online and read a summary of what happened. At first it felt sacrilegious
to read the summary, it felt like I was cheating, but I had already done the
‘work’ of actually reading the book. The summary merely cleared up the sequence
of major events and as I read the summary after I read the book chapter or play
scene, my experience wasn’t tainted by the summary. I am able to form my own
opinion about what happened and then learn that, “Oh Homonculus is a little
human in the phial Wagner is holding and not just some bright ghost floating
around. That makes so much more sense.**”
Reading: Analysis
After you can comprehend what is
going on, it’s time to break out your conspiracy theory hats and get down to
analysis. Of course, book clubs are excellent for this and online discussion
forums like reddit offer great opportunities to discuss the book. However,
those aren’t always the most convenient so once again those sacrilegious sites
like SparkNotes, Gradesaver, and Schmoop, can come in handy as they often have
discussion questions to think about along with the text. One thing, I
particularly like to do, besides bugging anyone around me or within texting
distance about the book I just read, is allow the book to ruminate in my mind
for a bit to allow my brain to digest it before I move onto the next one.***
But Wait There’s More!
All of this is great and all, or at
least I think so and I wrote it so that’s what it is. But there’s, in my
opinion clearly, more to how the education system made us grow as readers than
just comprehension and analysis. How? Well just hear me out, because at certain
points of my life I would have vehemently disagreed with what I’m about to
‘say’. Part of the haphazard genius of the English education system is the way
it forces people to try out books that they otherwise never would have. This
method exposes students to a wide range of styles, periods, and authors keeping
their brains on their toes. Now I’m not saying spin around in the closest
Barnes and Noble with your eyes closed and the first book your hand hits is the
one you should take home, but…No don’t do it.
Variety, Even If Unpleasant
On the other hand, I think there’s some
value in occasionally reading a book you never would have read the first 5
words of otherwise. In my long saga of going through the classics lists, I have
skipped books. If they don’t appear in libraries, I question whether they
actually can be a classic. Others have been mainly math and not words; I’m
looking at you Einstein’s Relativity and Coperincus’ Heavenly Spheres. But I
don’t always skip the books, even if I can tell right from the start that I am
in no way going to like them at all Sam-I-Am
Mr. Edward Gibbon
Case in point, the last book I reviewed (more like ranted about) was Mr. Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. TL;DR it
was as dry, redundant, and long as the title indicates. Why did I torture
myself for 1148 pages? To grow as a reader. Of course growing as a reader
doesn’t always have to be painful. I actually liked Bastiat’s The Law, but I do think there are
necessary growing pains in reading. People are always writing about how our
attention spans are too short and our resole is diminishing, but then never
seem to come up with any feasible solution on what to do about it. We can’t go
off and live as hermits. Finances, friends, family and the feeling of sanity
prevent us. Of course we can go on brief hiatus from the internet, our phones,
and so on, but those are by necessity temporary. However, I think reading tough
material like Clausewitz’s On War is
valuable and it’s not that I’m a closeted masochist.
Brains are Muscles Yadda Yada
Undeniably you have heard it said
many times before: our brains are like any other muscle. They must be
stretched, pushed and exercised or else they will not stay strong. What better
way to accomplish this than reading antiquated classic books that I might not
often enjoy, but always challenge me?
How About You?
Am I totally off the mark here? Does
anyone else use these methods to grow as a reader? How do you grow as a reader?
How have you been challenging yourself lately? Let me know!
Notes:
*While I think
it is important to look up words, I would recommend not looking up every word,
particular in some texts, as it breaks up reading and actually makes
comprehension more difficult. Circle
it and come back to it or write it down to look up later, but don’t let every
word interrupt your reading flow. My rule of thumb is when it gets annoying
that I don’t know a word (because it keeps popping up) or it really intrigues
me, then I look it up.
**Only true Goether fans will get that. /s Also
there’s a hint on what’s coming for my next book review. Shhh
***Unless of
course it’s something like the cliffhanger between Stephen King’s Dark Tower 3
and 4, then I move on as fast as possible and save the ruminating for later.
Sources:
Comments
Post a Comment