Part I: The Dimensions Of Reading
There are 4 levels of reading: elementary, inspectional, analytical, and syntopical.
Chapter 1: The Activity and Art of Reading
Tacit Knowledge: “We do not have to know everything about something in order to understand it.”
Active Reading
Reading is not passive, but it can be more or less active. The more active the reading the better.
Analogy of “catching the ball”: “Similarly, the art of reading is the skill of catching every sort of communication as well as possible.” It’s only between you and the author.
The Goals of Reading: Reading for Information and Reading for Understanding
“Learning” is understanding, not gathering or remembering more information. There must be a difference with the book and you that you don’t understand and in this way you may be able to increase your understanding.
“With nothing but the power of your own mind, you operate on the symbols before you in such a way that you gradually lift yourself from a state of understanding less to one of understanding more.”
Art of Reading: the process whereby a mind, with nothing to operate on but the symbols of the readable matter, and with no help form outside, elevates itself by the power of its own operations.
Conditions of reading for understanding?
1. Initial inequality in the understanding
2. The reader must be able to overcome this inequality in some degree.
Reading as Learning: The Difference Between Learning by Instruction and Learning by Discovery
Difference between being enlightened and being informed. “To be enlightened is to know, in addition, what it is all about: why is the case, what its connections are with other facts, in what respects it is the same, in what respects it is different, and so forth.” Knowing what the author says, what he means, and why he says it.
Being informed is a prerequisite of being enlightened.
Discovery is the process of learning something by research, by investigation, or by reflection, without being taught.
“Knowledge must grow in his mind (the student’s) if learning is to take place.”
Learning by instructions vs. discovery (aided or unaided): difference in the materials on which the learner works.
Present and Absent Teachers
Reading is learning from an absent teacher. When you ask a book a question, you must answer it yourself.
The primary goal of this book is to know how to make books teach us well.
Active Reading
Reading is not passive, but it can be more or less active. The more active the reading the better.
Analogy of “catching the ball”: “Similarly, the art of reading is the skill of catching every sort of communication as well as possible.” It’s only between you and the author.
The Goals of Reading: Reading for Information and Reading for Understanding
“Learning” is understanding, not gathering or remembering more information. There must be a difference with the book and you that you don’t understand and in this way you may be able to increase your understanding.
“With nothing but the power of your own mind, you operate on the symbols before you in such a way that you gradually lift yourself from a state of understanding less to one of understanding more.”
Art of Reading: the process whereby a mind, with nothing to operate on but the symbols of the readable matter, and with no help form outside, elevates itself by the power of its own operations.
Conditions of reading for understanding?
1. Initial inequality in the understanding
2. The reader must be able to overcome this inequality in some degree.
Reading as Learning: The Difference Between Learning by Instruction and Learning by Discovery
Difference between being enlightened and being informed. “To be enlightened is to know, in addition, what it is all about: why is the case, what its connections are with other facts, in what respects it is the same, in what respects it is different, and so forth.” Knowing what the author says, what he means, and why he says it.
Being informed is a prerequisite of being enlightened.
Discovery is the process of learning something by research, by investigation, or by reflection, without being taught.
“Knowledge must grow in his mind (the student’s) if learning is to take place.”
Learning by instructions vs. discovery (aided or unaided): difference in the materials on which the learner works.
Present and Absent Teachers
Reading is learning from an absent teacher. When you ask a book a question, you must answer it yourself.
The primary goal of this book is to know how to make books teach us well.
Chapter 2: The Levels of Reading
The rule: the more effort the better.
First Level: Elementary Reading
- One learns the rudiments of the art of reading, receives basic training in reading, and acquires initial reading skills.
Second Level: Inspectional Reading
- Pre-reading, is the art of skimming systematically. The aim is to examine the surface of the book, to learn everything that the surface alone can teach.
Third Level: Analytical Reading
- Thorough reading, complete reading or good reading.
- The best reading you can do given unlimited time.
- Is “chewing and digesting” a book. It’s for the sake of understanding.
Fourth Level: Syntopical Reading
- Comparative reading
- The syntopical reader is able to construct an analysis of the subject that may not be in any of the books.
First Level: Elementary Reading
- One learns the rudiments of the art of reading, receives basic training in reading, and acquires initial reading skills.
Second Level: Inspectional Reading
- Pre-reading, is the art of skimming systematically. The aim is to examine the surface of the book, to learn everything that the surface alone can teach.
Third Level: Analytical Reading
- Thorough reading, complete reading or good reading.
- The best reading you can do given unlimited time.
- Is “chewing and digesting” a book. It’s for the sake of understanding.
Fourth Level: Syntopical Reading
- Comparative reading
- The syntopical reader is able to construct an analysis of the subject that may not be in any of the books.
Chapter 3: The First Level of Reading: Elementary Reading
Stages of Learning to Read
1. “Reading readiness”
2. Learning to read very simple materials. Discovery of meaning in symbols.
3. Characterized by rapid progress in vocabulary building and by increasing skill in “unlocking” the meaning of unfamiliar words through context clues.
4. Characterized by the refinement and enhancement of the skills previously acquired.
Typically, these four stages are attained with the help of living teachers. Only when someone has mastered these 4 stages, he can move on to the higher levels of learning. Some people, after almost 20 years of schooling, learn how to read, this shouldn’t take that long.
1. “Reading readiness”
2. Learning to read very simple materials. Discovery of meaning in symbols.
3. Characterized by rapid progress in vocabulary building and by increasing skill in “unlocking” the meaning of unfamiliar words through context clues.
4. Characterized by the refinement and enhancement of the skills previously acquired.
Typically, these four stages are attained with the help of living teachers. Only when someone has mastered these 4 stages, he can move on to the higher levels of learning. Some people, after almost 20 years of schooling, learn how to read, this shouldn’t take that long.
Chapter 4: The Second Level of Reading: Inspectional Reading
Inspectional Reading I: Systematic Skimming or Pre-reading
Main Aim: to discover whether the book requires a more careful reading. It can also tell you lots of other things about the book.
Suggestions:
1. Look at the title page and, if the book has one, at its preface. Read each quickly.
2. Study the table of contents to obtain a general sense of the book’s structure.
3. Check the index if the book has one.
4. Read the publisher’s blurb (back front page)
5. Look now at the chapters that seem to be pivotal to its arguments.
6. Turn the pages, dipping in here and there, reading a paragraph or two, sometimes several pages in sequence, never more than that. Read the last two or three pages of the main part of the book.
Inspectional Reading II: Superficial Reading
“In tackling a difficult book for the first time, read it through without ever stopping to look up or ponder the things you do not understand right now… You will have a much better chance of understanding it on a second reading.”
Speed Reading
Is the ability to read at different speeds, not just a faster one, depending on the difficulty of the book.
Concentration is activity in reading.
“You cannot comprehend a book without reading it analytically.”
Main Aim: to discover whether the book requires a more careful reading. It can also tell you lots of other things about the book.
Suggestions:
1. Look at the title page and, if the book has one, at its preface. Read each quickly.
2. Study the table of contents to obtain a general sense of the book’s structure.
3. Check the index if the book has one.
4. Read the publisher’s blurb (back front page)
5. Look now at the chapters that seem to be pivotal to its arguments.
6. Turn the pages, dipping in here and there, reading a paragraph or two, sometimes several pages in sequence, never more than that. Read the last two or three pages of the main part of the book.
Inspectional Reading II: Superficial Reading
“In tackling a difficult book for the first time, read it through without ever stopping to look up or ponder the things you do not understand right now… You will have a much better chance of understanding it on a second reading.”
Speed Reading
Is the ability to read at different speeds, not just a faster one, depending on the difficulty of the book.
Concentration is activity in reading.
“You cannot comprehend a book without reading it analytically.”
Chapter 5: How to Be a Demanding Reader
“If your aim in reading is to profit from it – to grow somehow in mind or spirit – you have to keep awake.”
The Essence of Active Reading: The Four Basic Questions a Reader Asks
1. What is the book about as a whole?
2. What is being said in detail, and how?
3. Is the book true, in whole or part?
4. What of it?
You must know them and remember them while reading. You must also be able to answer them precisely and accurately.
How to Make a Book Your Own
“Full ownership of a book only comes when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it – which comes to the same thing – is by writing in it.” Intellectual ownership of the book
1. Underlining
2. Vertical lines at the margin
3. Star, asterisk, or other doodad at the margin
4. Numbers in the margin
5. Numbers of other pages in the margin
6. Circling of key words or phrases
7. Writing in the margin, or at the top or bottom of the page
The Three Kinds of Note-making
Questions answered by inspectional reading
1. What kind of book is it?
2. What is it about as a whole?
3. What is the structural order of the work whereby the author develops his conception or understanding of that general subject matter?
Note-making
1. Structural (inspectional)
2. Conceptual (analytical)
3. Dialectical (syntopical)
“Habit is second nature.”
The Essence of Active Reading: The Four Basic Questions a Reader Asks
1. What is the book about as a whole?
2. What is being said in detail, and how?
3. Is the book true, in whole or part?
4. What of it?
You must know them and remember them while reading. You must also be able to answer them precisely and accurately.
How to Make a Book Your Own
“Full ownership of a book only comes when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it – which comes to the same thing – is by writing in it.” Intellectual ownership of the book
1. Underlining
2. Vertical lines at the margin
3. Star, asterisk, or other doodad at the margin
4. Numbers in the margin
5. Numbers of other pages in the margin
6. Circling of key words or phrases
7. Writing in the margin, or at the top or bottom of the page
The Three Kinds of Note-making
Questions answered by inspectional reading
1. What kind of book is it?
2. What is it about as a whole?
3. What is the structural order of the work whereby the author develops his conception or understanding of that general subject matter?
Note-making
1. Structural (inspectional)
2. Conceptual (analytical)
3. Dialectical (syntopical)
“Habit is second nature.”