Reading and Comprehension

Reading and Comprehension are essential activities

Reading is not merely a past-time activity. It is a professional requirement for excellence in all spheres of life. Unfortunately, though reading is taught at the earliest period of life, very little improvement happens over time. Contrarily, there is a decline in the ability as we age.

The modules have been thoughtfully chosen to help not only the students but also others so that they can help themselves to move ahead of others. These skills are essential for not only reading but also for all professionals who need to use vigilance, keen observation, sustained attention, and critical decisions.

This program is designed to equip one and all with the professional skills of reading to understand. Almost all the time we keep reading a lot of material only to forget it. Reading and Comprehension enhance the skill of not only reading faster but also retaining information longer. Consequently, both your time and effort are saved.

Almost every day we read and almost every day we forget. So next time when we read or study we will be questioning what guarantee is there that we remember what we have gone through. “Yesterday I studied, today I don't remember much, today I study, what guarantee is there that tomorrow I will remember?” This is a simple question anybody will ask.

This is why the whole process of studying and remembering and trying to write it down in the examination will be a painful process that we will not be able to enjoy doing.

Difference between ability and skill

In primary education, four basic skills are taught: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and Listening. However, all these remain as abilities and none of them are converted into skills.

If we can’t remember what we read, then we are not using the right strategy.

Reading is a skill and not a mere ability. All skills are learned through trial and error learning. We keep trying until we minimize all errors until we reach zero error twice consecutively. In traditional curricula, no opportunity is provided to practice and practice should be done until one reaches 100% efficiency.

Is there a difference between an ability and a skill?

An ability is that you can do something. For instance, all of us can run but all of us cannot run in the Olympics. It is like a difference between an amateur and a professional. An amateur can do what a professional can do but not in the way the professional does it systematically. The number of errors is negligible in a professional.

All of us know how to use a knife. Given a knife, all of us know how to cut a vegetable. It does not mean that all of us can become surgeons. A surgeon is a skilled person who knows exactly how to go about it systematically. You need the training to become a surgeon.

Another example is kicking a ball. All of us can kick a ball but can we do it like a professional? A professional footballer can accurately kick the ball to the goalpost or pass the ball exactly to his teammate. For instance, recently I was just reading that a football player will be running something like seven miles in one match. For one and a half hours they will be continuously running. If you don't have such a capacity for such a task, then you can only become a spectator.

So, there are additional abilities that are required to make it a skill. Several abilities put together will make it a skill and all these abilities need to be practiced so well and in coordination that it becomes a skill.

Should we stop it at an ability level or should we increase it to a skill level? This is the question we need to ask. We have to develop a skill to be proficient in what we do. A skill is something that is relegated to the subconscious so that the automatic process happens on its own. (See 'Conscious Capture' & 'E = MC2 in Education').

Automatic functioning through Cerebellum

Once a skill is developed it becomes automatic. There is an organ in the brain called Cerebellum, which is a mini-brain. This takes care of these coordinated functions of the body. Once it is programmed the functioning becomes so smooth and easy.

Playing a game, walking, or it could be any of the things that we do without actually giving attention to it.

How many of us bother too much about when we are walking? We do not see whether we are using our left leg or right leg. Do we say left leg go front or right leg go back? We only see where we have to go and walking becomes automatic.

This is regulated by the cerebellum. This is why when we are walking, the moment we are conscious of something, we will slow it down because we were engaged in an automatic process (See ‘Conscious Capture’). For instance, suppose you are learning a game for the first time, or let us say you are driving a vehicle for the first time, each action is very difficult. But once you learn, everything becomes very easy.

Suppose the first time you're riding on a bike, leaving the clutch itself is so hard and every time you leave the clutch the engine goes off. Once you learn, you don't even remember leaving the clutch. And you can go any distance without even bothering about how you are using the clutch. This is done subconsciously rather than consciously.

Are we able to write automatically so that we only think about what we are writing and writing becomes automatic? Every letter we write we have to see and we scratch so many times, we will make so many mistakes, and then we redo the whole thing. This difficulty is there because it is still under conscious control and it has not been made into a skill.

Are we able to read subconsciously so that whatever we read we will automatically comprehend?

Our job now is to convert our reading ability into a reading skill. Once we learn that, it becomes automatic so that we don't have to bother remembering. Our job is just to find out what we should read, read it, and retain it.

Today we read everything, but we don't know how much to remember, what to remember, what not to remember, what to read, and what not to read.

Many a time we read the same thing over and again because we have forgotten whether we have read it or not. How many times have we read the same thing without knowing that we have already read it? After finishing the reading we say "I have read it somewhere but I do not know where!”.

Suppose you have it as a skill, the moment you read the first sentence itself, you know you have read it. You don't have to waste your time rereading it. You can skip that and say "I already know this, let me know something I do not know”.

One of my secrets in '59 Secrets to Studying', which also is my Mantra is:

Know what you know, and know what you do not know.

If you do not know what you do not know, then you will not know what to do with what you know.

So, once you have this under control, you can only go through what you do not know instead of reading everything and getting mixed up.

Thus, the essence of a skill is to master it. The advantages of mastering reading and comprehension are that we will not only know what it is but at the same time we can learn it properly.

Learning leads to change in behavior

When learning happens, there is a change in our thinking, perception, emotion, or action. If there is no change in any of these, then the learning has not occurred. We just know. Just the knowledge will not benefit us because we are not using the knowledge for ourselves.

So at least it should change our thought process. You were thinking like that earlier and now you have changed your thinking. If you don't change your thinking but you just know, then it will not help you. For instance, let us say "I know a lot about swimming but I can't swim." All our knowledge is not going to be useful to us. We can lecture about swimming to any number of people but when we are put into the water, we may drown.

What we are dealing with is the language area of the brain, which is situated in the left hemisphere of the brain. There are two areas -- Broca's Area and Wernicke's Area. Broca's area is situated in the frontal lobe of the brain, nearer to the motor area, and hence controls speaking and writing. Wernicke's area is situated in the temporal lobe, nearer to sensory areas, and hence controls Reading and Listening. More about 'Language Skills' can be found here.

As we are now dealing with Reading and Comprehension, we are programming Wernicke's area so that it can process information properly. The other areas of the brain are called Association Areas, which will have different kinds of information that can help in transmitting the information whenever required. If we know how to program ourselves, it becomes easy for us to use our capabilities.

Actual reading happens very little in your reading behavior. If you analyze this, then you will find out that most of our time is taken by other things than reading. This is why our retention is only 35% or less. If you know all these mechanisms you can rectify your mistakes and increase your comprehension and retention.

Reading and comprehension are very essential activities in our day-to-day lives. They make us effective in

Ø Knowing

Ø Learning

Ø Remembering

Ø Judging

Ø Evaluating

Ø Reasoning

Ø Thinking

Ø Communicating

Ø Decision-making

Before you begin going through the program, watch the following video on ‘Introduction to Reading’