|
|
|
|
|
| Click
Above To see Other Informative Videos by Ed Strachar
|
Reading comprehension should not be that hard, provided what we read is within our realm of knowledge, and that you possess the secrets to do so.
And yet the reality is, most people after finishing a book recall less than 10% of the content. That's why most reading exams in school were multiple choice. If they gave fill in the blank and short essays almost all the schools would fail!
Actually, we have all heard the facts before about how powerful the brain is and how many supercomputers it is equal to.... So it must be possible to learn how to tap into this great mental capacity we are gifted with.
I want to make this simple and easy for anyone who is struggling with reading large volumes of information or has read and understood complex material.
Since I want this article to be short and concise, I do ask you to simply trust that you are capable of reading with much greater comprehension over large volumes of material. It's possible. And it is also my experience that no school nor teacher I have ever seen has been able to teach how to do it effectively. That goes for most of the speedreading courses out there also.
In order to understand well, 4 things are critically important:
1) You must be focused on what you are reading - meaning that for the time you decide to hold that material in front of you, your mind must be free of distractions...whether it be that annoying little brother of yours or that nagging back ache. Anything that is causing your mind to give attention to it, is drawing from your ability to concentrate and thus makes comprehending what you read a struggle. Mastery of a focused mind is the primary key to good comprehension, as well as a host of other life skills.
2) Interest in what you are reading. Yes, I know, we all have been asked to read something far out of our boundaries of interest. That's what schools do so well. And yet, if your mind isn't intrigued, if you are not searching for an answer...or absorbed by the text, prose, story or information, you will simply tune out just as you would a boring movie. That's natural. Thus it is imperative that you learn how to get fully involved in what you are reading.
In the extreme, that means that you must eagerly seek what is on that next page with such anticipation that you can think of nothing else, though the content of the book you are reading does not attract you. It's amazing when you can learn to be attached to it, and you know what, most of us have been there at least once in our lives and therefore we know its possible.
3) The third key is to be able to tone up our mental capacity. For example, an athlete will loosen up and practice a bit before the big event. This helps to get in the right rhythm before we read. You could just imagine that if one just came home from sitting in traffic for an hour and then had to read a book, he/ she might be a bit weary. Being in the right state is critical.
4) Finally, the last key is to be able to recall the information within a system that is easy and effective. Note taking and highlighting can help, but new research shows much more effective methods. Among the best is one initially developed by Tony Buzan, a British Brain Researcher who studied genius' notebooks and found that they took notes in a certain pattern consistent with how we now know the brain works. He then created a system called Mindmapping, which has since evolved to ever-greater heights by various people.
None of these four steps can be ignored if a reader wants to comprehend well. Just the same, anyone who can do these steps effectively will read better. When you do each step to the extreme, then ultimate results are possible for anyone. In the Reading Genius® course, that's exactly what we accomplish, and we do it to music to make it intense fun.
