How to Improve Your Reading for Understanding

Original Editor - Michael Rowe

Top Contributors - Ewa Jaraczewska, Jess Bell and Kim Jackson  

Introduction

Reading is a two-way conversation between the author and the reader, between someone who knows more about a subject and someone trying to learn about it. Reading is considered "the primary source for obtaining knowledge and information" and a "gateway to success in education." Regular reading becomes a habit only when the act of reading is persistent, constant and done critically. Reading and learning are linked, so effective reading strategies can help a learner achieve learning success. Positive reading attitudes lead to positive reading experiences and good academic performance.

Reading is a process that requires motivation, interest, purpose and strategies. To be actively involved in reading, an individual must be critically engaged with the text, understand the intention for reading, stay focused and mentally committed. Active reading is "reading with questions in mind and searching for answers." It is a skill and a process that needs to be developed and requires effort. Because active reading is cognitively demanding, individuals need to do it when they are at their best mentally.

This article summarises how to improve your reading for learning and understanding.

Levels of Reading

According to Mortimer Adler's classic, How to Read a Book, there are four levels of reading: elementary reading, inspectional reading, analytical reading, and syntopical reading. These levels are discussed in more detail below.

Elementary Reading

• The level of reading taught in elementary (primary) schools
• Converting alphabetical notation and symbols into sounds that are combined to form words and sentences

Inspectional Reading

Inspectional reading is considered a deeper reading experience. It is divided into systematic skimming and superficial reading.

Systematic skimming is a quick check to decide if the reading material deserves more time and attention. It includes the following steps:

• reading the cover and the preface
• reading the table of contents
• checking the index and glossary of terms to familiarise yourself with the language
• finding core chapters and reading a few paragraphs from them
• reading the last pages to get a summary of the author's arguments
• listening to an interview with the author, if available, to learn what the book is about

If the reader decides that the material is worth reading, they move on to superficial reading. Superficial reading is considered a first step towards analytical reading. Superficial reading enables you to:

• read the text from start to finish relatively quickly
• get a sense of the overall structure of the text

Analytical Reading

Analytical reading is a critical reading of the text. It is a thorough reading that engages the reader's mind. There are four steps in analytical reading:

• Step one: Categorise the book. For example, is the book instructional, theoretical, or practical?
• Steps two and three: Determine the overall structure of the book or its blueprint. To do this, you will need to:
  • describe what the whole book is about
  • list the major parts of the book in order
  • relate book parts to each other

• Step four: Define the problem the author is trying to solve

Syntopical Reading

Syntopical reading allows the reader to synthesise knowledge from several books (or reading materials) on the same subject. Completing the following five steps allows for a broad understanding of a subject:

1. Find the most relevant passages from each book through inspectional reading
2. Reframe the author's arguments in your own words - this gives you a unified vocabulary with which you can explore the topic
3. Identify the questions that you want answered
4. Define the issues that emerge when a question has multiple answers
5. Analyse the discussion between the different answers to your questions and establish an informed opinion

Why and How to Read More

Reasons to Read More

Reading widely helps to:

• appreciate the topic under study
• identify the main authors whose opinions are important for the study
• gain a better overview, or scope, of a topic
• generate more and better ideas

Commit to Reading

Committing to reading is about making the time to read. It can be accomplished in the following ways:

• listening to books via audiobooks or text-to-speech features built into apps
• listening to podcasts featuring relevant authors in the field
• setting up your environment so that reading is easier to do than watching TV
• setting aside time to read by including “reading time” in your daily schedule
• removing the temptation to fill time with passive entertainment, like streaming apps on your phone
• getting into the habit of carrying a book at all times
• staying away from reading books that are not helping to move closer to the chosen learning objectives
• avoiding interruptions while reading

Reading Journal Articles

Reading journal articles requires different skills and approaches than reading books or textbooks. It typically involves inspectional reading of an article and extracting only what is needed.

The British Medical Journal has published ten articles in a series called How to Read a Paper. These articles are listed below. They provide an overview of different approaches to reading journal articles.

• Papers that go beyond numbers (qualitative research): is the result more likely to be accepted as a fact if it is quantified?
• Papers that summarise other papers (systematic reviews and meta-analyses): which are the most enduring and useful systematic reviews?
• Papers that tell you what things cost (economic analyses): economic analyses define choices in resource allocation
• Papers that report diagnostic or screening tests.: "New tests should be validated by comparison against an established gold standard"
• Papers that report drug trials: explains why uncontrolled before and after studies are not hard science
• Statistics for the non-statistician. II: "Significant" relations and their pitfalls: “Significant” relations and their pitfalls: provides information on assessing the statistical validity of a paper
• Statistics for the non-statistician. I: Different types of data need different statistical tests: offers a checklist of preliminary questions to help with the appraisal of the statistical validity of a paper
• Assessing the methodological quality of published papers: determine if the methods used in the research paper are valid
• Getting your bearings (deciding what the paper is about).: learn how to read a paper with a specific clinical question in mind
• The Medline database

If you are involved in research, the following short YouTube videos will help you improve your reading strategies:

1. Introduction to critical reading introduces reading as an active process
2. Reading with purpose explains how knowing the purpose of reading drives reading strategies
3. The reading process discusses why you should read and write simultaneously
4. Anatomy of a journal article presents key features of journal articles
5. Reading as a dialogue defines reading as a social practice or a dialogue between the writer and the reader
6. Print or screen reading? Do you print a paper or not?
7. Reading critically means asking questions
8. Practical strategies on how to read more effectively
9. Reading as part of your writing practice explains how important it is to be active and write as you read
10. Reading to improve your own writing highlights how it is necessary to get some distance from your work
11. Reading to improve your writing as reading other people's work can improve our own articulations
12. Cultural politics of reading focuses on not becoming overly pragmatic

Taking Notes While Reading

Note-taking during reading is a crucial step to improve reading for understanding, as reading and writing are linked to learning.

"You should always read with a pen in your hand. In this context, I'm talking about a metaphorical pen, where the idea is that active reading is an interaction with the author or authors of a text." -- Michael Rowe

When reading, you should always think about what an author is trying to say. It is reasonable to ask questions in return:

• questions and comments should be annotations within the text
• your annotations should form part of your literature notes, which in turn become your permanent notes

For more information on literature notes, permanent notes and note-taking, please see: How to Take Notes for Learning.

On-paper vs. On-screen Reading

The following table highlights some key differences between on-paper and on-screen reading.

On-paper reading	On-screen reading
The reader can engage more deeply and actively with the author	It changes the way the text is read, possibly because it can be difficult to navigate digital texts
It facilitates a more active approach to reading	It enables the reader to search for information, which makes it easier to find concepts, chapters, and notes within the text
It feels easier to skip around meaningfully	It allows annotations to be exported to other apps, which makes it easier to work with the text in different places

On-screen reading can have some negatives:

• notifications from apps and services can interrupt reading
• it can be more distracting, as authors often include hyperlinks that take the reader away from the central text

Conclusions

• Active reading is an essential part of learning practice
• Active reading is a skill that can be improved
• The first step of reading a text is knowing why it needs to be read
• There are four stages of reading:
  • Elementary reading is sufficient for reading news or entertainment
  • If you are reading as part of your learning, you will need to step up to inspectional reading
  • Analytical reading is a critical reading of the text
  • Syntopical reading allows you to synthesise knowledge from several books and develop an informed opinion
• You may need to move between different reading levels when reading a text

Resources

1. Kleon A. How to read more. Austin Kleon blog, 2019.
2. Mewburn I. Beware the couch. Reflections on academic reading. The Thesis Whisperer blog, 2019.
3. Rana Z. You are what you read, 2017.