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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 distractios...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.
