However, many people think it is impossible to understand a line at a glance. Their reason is that it takes a certain time for us to read a line and we can't see anything at all. This paper will introduce its principle and cultivation method.
Others think that ten lines at a glance can only be used for browsing, and intensive reading should be read slowly word by word. This paper also wants to introduce intensive reading and training methods through principle analysis and examples.
I am an old teacher with many years of teaching experience, and I began to improve my students' learning methods for many years before I retired. Now I will give you some humble opinions and contribute to you. First, how to achieve "block reading" in reading?
1, block reading theory.
The first level of reading is reading. If you don't read quickly, everything behind is useless. Some people don't believe in quick reading. They say how many words can you read at a glance? There are so many lines that you can't understand them. How can you read them?
Actually, this statement is wrong. They raised this question from the perspective of word-for-word reading. In fact, if everyone breaks the word-for-word way, at first glance, your vision can accommodate more than ten lines. But to read it, there must be a technology called "block reading".
We read words not for reading, but to connect words and understand the complete meaning they convey. Generally, a group of words convey one meaning. In language, there are many words for grammar and for fear of misunderstanding. These words belong to redundant information in the word group, so you don't have to pay attention to them when reading. A common language often has a relatively fixed context format, and the real meaning is embedded in this format. From the above analysis, we can know that there are not many words that can be seen at a glance in a group of words. The above analysis is the theoretical basis of our reading.
But "block reading" is a kind of word reading technology, which is not reflected by your understanding of the theory. 2. The formation theory of reading ability.
All actions under conscious (or unconscious) control belong to technical operation, which cannot be completed by theory alone. It needs to go through three stages: from theory to method, from method to technical operation, from technical operation to ability formation. "Block reading" achieves the same effect. When going through these three stages, it is not realized according to a rigid model. The key to the three stages is the formation of "block reading" ability.
For example, some people say that he didn't train deliberately, but in fact he experienced the formation process of the above-mentioned "block reading" ability. He experienced a large number of reading processes at the fastest speed, accumulated the experience of "block reading" of word groups in reading practice, and formed the ability of "block reading". His extensive reading practice is a kind of training. The formation of his "block reading" ability comes from perceptual experience. There is no clear method, nor does it rise to the theoretical level. Without the first two stages, his "block reading" ability is normal. Most people's fast reading ability is innate and formed in a lot of reading experience. They didn't even think of summarizing the method from it, nor did they think of putting forward a theory about it. This is also absolutely normal.
The above process also shows that fast reading does not necessarily need any theoretical guidance or even deliberate training. So it's useless to put forward a theory? Otherwise, for those who don't believe that speed reading can be realized, a perfect theory can persuade them to try to cultivate their speed reading ability. So as to achieve the purpose of popularizing fast reading.
However, many people think that the corresponding ability will come naturally with the theory, and even ask, I already know what "block reading" is, why can't I "block reading"? Because knowing is not enough, it needs deliberate training. We can't ask an adult who can't read fast to learn to read fast, and it's too late to form the ability to read fast only by reading a lot. As soon as he picks up a book, his instinctive system will automatically invoke his slow reading experience, making him read as slowly as an old cow. A lot of reading fails to naturally form the effect of fast reading ability. So he has to go through the three stages we mentioned earlier. Instead of just going through the last stage. 3. Correct pronunciation and reading problems.
Pinyin reading is the slowest reading method. But you have formed the habit of pronunciation and reading, which is hard to change. Getting rid of it is almost a very painful process. If you don't have the perseverance to get rid of it, it is impossible to achieve speed reading.
The way to correct pronunciation and reading problems is this: after you open the book, scan a sentence quickly with your eyes. Then close your eyes and remember what it said. At first, I may not remember anything because I can't rely on my accustomed pronunciation and reading. You do this again and again until you can recall some, and then the whole sentence. Seeing something in this training may be several times slower than your pronunciation, but you must stick to it until you see a word and don't think of its pronunciation first. Then increase the number of scanned sentences. If you can watch a paragraph at a time and remember a lot (not all), your training will make great progress. 4. Examples of fast reading (1)
Let me tell you an example. After retirement, I used to work in the computer room of a driving school as the director of the computer room. One day, my boss and I were talking about computer room management. The boss suddenly took out a letter to me, almost examining my management level. I only glanced at the letter and returned it to him. It took less than three seconds, that is, three pages of writing paper were wiped by hand. The boss is a little annoyed. Perhaps no employee has been so presumptuous to him. He asked me angrily, why don't you even look? I said, I'm done. He said, impossible. What are you talking about? I replied, didn't that female student accuse the coach of being rude to her and touching her with her hand or something? The result surprised the boss. Asked what I thought, I told him it was the result of fast reading. In the future, he will never look down on me, a little old man in a dirty coat and hat. 5. Examples of fast reading (2)
At the age of forty, when I first came into contact with computers, I attended a training class and distributed two textbooks, one on microcomputer structure and the other on microcomputer language. The number of words in each book is about 200 thousand words. It took me an hour and a half to finish reading them, which ensured that I could easily understand the teacher's explanations in the future lectures and compile my favorite programs to run. In one month's study, I have written about 50,000 words of my own teaching microcomputer structure and language teaching materials. 6. The state of the brain when reading. Sightseeing is a way of reading that does not associate words with sounds. "Block reading" is faster, and it is a reading method that does not associate a single word with its meaning. The basic principle of language understanding is to establish reflection, and different reading methods establish different reflection routes.
Phonetic reading establishes a polyline reflection. From the glyphs seen by the eyes to their sounds, from the sound of words to the meaning of words, from the meaning of words to the meaning of phrases and sentences, from the meaning of sentences to the meaning of paragraphs.
Sightseeing has some functions of cutting corners and straightening. The first step and the second step are omitted and combined into one, and the mapping from glyph meaning to literal meaning is directly established.
The mapping established by "block reading" is more concise, which directly establishes the mapping between the font image group and the paragraph meaning.
Since reflection is the connection between two nerve parts, you won't "feel" what is happening in your brain. The result is a flash of light. Pinyin reading, as soon as you see the glyphs, their sounds flash immediately, which is an involuntary reaction. When reading, the meaning of the glyph flashes as soon as it is seen, which is also an unconscious process. "block reading", as soon as you see the word group, the meaning of this group of words flashes immediately, which is still an involuntary reaction.
It can be seen that the speed of reading is determined by what kind of reflection you establish when cultivating your reading ability.
Some people think that sight reading is difficult to understand because their sound reading has become a chronic disease. At this level, it is difficult to change. But if you make up your mind to practice, you can still correct it. 6. The state of the brain when reading.
Sightseeing is a way of reading that does not associate words with sounds. "Block reading" is faster, and it is a reading method that does not associate a single word with its meaning. The basic principle of language understanding is to establish reflection, and different reading methods establish different reflection routes.
Phonetic reading establishes a polyline reflection. From the glyphs seen by the eyes to their sounds, from the sound of words to the meaning of words, from the meaning of words to the meaning of phrases and sentences, from the meaning of sentences to the meaning of paragraphs.
Sightseeing has some functions of cutting corners and straightening. The first step and the second step are omitted and combined into one, and the mapping from glyph meaning to literal meaning is directly established.
The mapping established by "block reading" is more concise, which directly establishes the mapping between the font image group and the paragraph meaning.
Since reflection is the connection between two nerve parts, you won't "feel" what is happening in your brain. The result is a flash of light. Pinyin reading, as soon as you see the glyphs, their sounds flash immediately, which is an involuntary reaction. When reading, the meaning of the glyph flashes as soon as it is seen, which is also an unconscious process. "block reading", as soon as you see the word group, the meaning of this group of words flashes immediately, which is still an involuntary reaction.
It can be seen that the speed of reading is determined by what kind of reflection you establish when cultivating your reading ability.
Some people think that sight reading is difficult to understand because their sound reading has become a chronic disease. At this level, it is difficult to change. But if you make up your mind to practice, you can still correct it. 7, the cultivation of fast reading ability.
To cultivate the ability of "block reading" is not to recite the relevant theories several times before learning, but this ability will be realized under the guidance of the theory. Then you will never reach "block reading" and never reach more advanced reading. You can't complain that the theory you see is an armchair strategist. You can only complain that you don't know the process of developing reading ability.
Theory can't be automatically transformed into your ability after you understand it. You need to cultivate yourself and make yourself have this ability. Theory has little effect on the cultivation of ability. As far as the theory of "block reading" is concerned, it can only tell you that there is such a fast reading method. If you don't believe in such reading ability after reading it, then you can't take the initiative to cultivate it, and you can't have such reading ability. First of all, you have to believe in this ability. If you ask, why should I believe it? I just don't want to believe it? Then you'd better stop arguing and read as you like! Anyway, you don't waste my time. Take your time!
After you believe in this ability, you can't follow the theory word for word. In order to prevent this, my "block reading" theory basically does not mention the method of realization. Because everyone's situation is very different, a fixed method is often not suitable for everyone. Everyone should train himself according to his own situation.
There is a rule that everyone can follow, that is, it is necessary to form the ability of fast reading in a large number of fast reading exercises. In order to accumulate practical experience, we can read in blocks regardless of reading quality. Hundreds of thousands of words of novels can be read in one or two hours, and hundreds of thousands of words of science and technology books and social science books can be read in three or four hours. Because you have no experience in fast reading, your initial reading results must be bad, but you must think back after reading and see what you remember. For what you still remember, you will enhance your information. Persistence will also enhance your confidence in yourself. When you can read better through fast reading. You can further check whether you have the ability to "read in blocks".
Why I firmly refute the landlord's theory that time is inversely proportional to quality is because his argument will make people lose confidence in fast reading. It will make people insist on reading slowly for fear of poor quality. In fact, when your reading ability is constantly improving, you will find that the reading quality is directly proportional to the difficulty of reading, but not inversely proportional to the time. 8. Sightseeing and "block reading" training theory.
Below we theoretically analyze the methods of training sight reading and training "block reading".
I pointed out in Psychology of Consciousness that the activities controlled by consciousness can be transferred to those controlled by unconscious automatic control system, which we call the activities of transferring consciousness.
People who are used to visual reading, as soon as they open the book and don't think about what method they want to read, their unconscious automatic control system will automatically call visual reading ability to read. The formation of many people's reading ability is not intentionally cultivated, but naturally formed in his extensive reading.
However, some people are not so lucky. These people have been reading with voices since childhood, and later they have developed the bad habit of not understanding words without turning them into voices. This is audio reading. Their voice reading has also become an activity controlled by an unconscious automatic control system. As soon as they open the book, their unconscious automatic control system will naturally call the pinyin reading ability without using any method they want to read. This ability makes them have to turn the image of words into sound first, and then turn sound into meaning. This sound reading is obviously a very slow reading method.
In order to speed up reading, people who are used to audio reading should learn to master sight reading. However, this mastery is not theoretical. Theoretically, almost all people who read aloud know the truth of sight reading, but they can't regain conscious control in reading, and the call for pronunciation by unconscious automatic control system always prevails. Therefore, we must use intensive methods to restore the control of consciousness on reading, and form the control of unconscious automatic control system on visual reading in training.
As we have seen before, it is not always a good thing for an unconscious automatic control system to control activities. When it controls an advanced and efficient activity, it is a good thing. It is a bad thing when it controls a backward and inefficient activity. The person who is good at pronunciation is the latter. Therefore, they are faced with the problem of "de-subconscious automatic control system control" (note that if the subconscious theory is used, this is the problem of "de-subconscious").
To solve the problem of "de-controlling the unconscious automatic control system", it is often to replace the original activities with new unconscious automatic control system control activities. Moreover, the process of consciousness transfer in the new activity must be stronger than that in the original activity. So I suggest that netizens who study sight-reading take an extreme approach. When reading a book, quickly scan a line and immediately close your eyes to recall. At first, because the process was too sudden, he would not recall anything. But persistence will increase the content of memories little by little, and finally you can remember the general idea of this line by scanning it.
What I want to point out is that we must never take a step-by-step approach. We can't use one word for sight-reading, trying to master sight-reading. Step by step. Why not? Because when you read word for word, the unconscious automatic control system has called the pronunciation ability to complete the pronunciation. Your consciously controlled visual reading can't resist unconscious auditory reading. In other words, in order to complete the "control of the unconscious automatic control system" (or "subconscious"), we must choose an extreme means to suppress the activities controlled by the already formed unconscious automatic control system. The extreme means of reading a sentence and closing your eyes that we introduced will make the unconscious unable to read words before acting.
Of course, the method I introduced is not absolute, but the principle of "de-automatic control" ("de-subconscious") is absolute. If you don't use powerful means to restrain unconscious audio-visual reading activities, you will never learn to read and you will never be able to read skillfully.
However, if you don't fight back your original reading ability, don't let it affect your reading. It is not enough to learn to read by some methods, but also through a lot of repeated reading training, so that the reading ability is controlled by an unconscious automatic control system, and the reading ability automatically runs as soon as the book is opened. This is the process from learning to proficiency.
From learning to proficiency, it is a simple and not simple process. The reason why it is simple is that it basically does not need any superb skills and methods, but only needs a lot of repetition. It's not easy to say that many people can't stand this kind of massive repetition. Especially adults. Adults are intelligent, so they like to do things skillfully. This clumsy repetition is both disdainful and annoying to them. So most people just study and don't continue to develop proficiency. So, before long, old habits will come back and new methods will disappear.
To complete the transition from learning to proficiency, we should not only force ourselves to repeat a lot of boring things, but also do everything possible to find our interest in repetition. Taking visual reading as an example, you can find some favorite novels and essays for training, and drive a lot of repeated training with your interest in the reading object.
This kind of training should be based on automatically entering the reading state as soon as the book is opened, and there is no need to consciously consider what reading method to use. At this time, your visual reading ability has reached the state controlled by unconscious automatic control system.
To sum up, the formation of visual reading ability has three stages. The first stage is to de-automate audio reading ability, the second stage is to form visual reading ability, and the third stage is to form automatic visual reading ability. Not only sight-reading ability should be cultivated in this way, but all kinds of reading ability should be cultivated through these three stages. 9. The cultivation of block reading.
Let's discuss the formation process of "block reading" ability.
We have introduced the "magic" of "block reading" in the last article. It can read the useful information of a word group at a glance. We also introduced the principle of "reading in blocks" in subsequent posts. There are a lot of useless information and redundant information in word groups. As long as you learn the means to extract useful information from it, "block reading" is completely possible.
For example, when I introduced my experience in front of a driving school boss, I didn't brag about what I meant, because if you study like this, you can definitely do it. I use a slow explanation to explain the reading process. However, the actual reading is done automatically by an unconscious automatic control system. If it is as slow as the explanation, it is not speed reading.
A letter must start with a title and a greeting, which are all useless information to me. We mainly look at what the author has to say. So I saw the word "expose". Then I just need to know what to reveal, and the rest is not important to me. And I saw the "bump" below. According to the discussion in the driving school, I know that the female student complained about the male coach. Seeing too many details makes me sick. I signed a letter asking the leader to deal with it seriously. It's no use. I returned the letter to my boss in a few seconds. Of course, I actually read a lot of words, but only the three words "disclosure" and "contact" condensed above are really useful. If you read faster, it won't take too long to find these three words from three pages of stationery, will it? So I'm not boasting, I just used a more magical description to arouse people's interest in speed reading.
Being able to quickly find useful information from a group of words requires you to accumulate constantly. As the saying goes, Rome was not built in a day. This kind of accumulation requires both speed and care.
The so-called speed means that you must always keep the style of fast reading: "I would rather read more than read too slowly." This is contrary to the habits of many people. Many people "would rather see through it slowly than look back." If you can really see through it once, the latter is also a good way. The two are just the difference between "reading more and reading faster" and "reading slowly and reading it all at once". But in fact, because it takes time to digest a knowledge, you can't see through it at once if you read it slowly, but you can leave enough digestion time in each interval if you read it quickly. It helps you digest. In other words, the way to read faster is to leave yourself a lot of time to think, and the way to read slower is to spend a lot of time reading. Compared with the two, the faster reading speed, the more conducive to real understanding.
Adhering to the principle of fast reading has another advantage: it will realize the automation of fast reading and accumulate experience in quickly retrieving useful information in fast reading. So as to prepare for realizing "block reading".
Careful means that you should pay attention to which sentences are the most common cliches in reading. Where is the useful information contained in those cliches? In order to quickly find useful information from cliches. Careful also requires you to pay attention to which words appear only to help make sentences and do not carry useful information, so you can skip them when reading.
When you master some of the above things, it means that you actually need to read fewer words than you see, and "block reading" is no longer a problem for you.
When doing "block reading" training, there is a principle that you are nothing if you don't practice.
"Practice what you have" refers to what you have achieved a lot of repetition, which will automatically show up in your reading. Therefore, when you are training "block reading", you must be careful about the appearance of useful information in the word group. If you are negligent in training, you will lose information in automatic "block reading" And because "block reading" is difficult to correct after automation, your lost information will become a reading problem.
"Practice as you want", and you will practice if you don't pay attention. If it happens to have a bad influence on reading, you will be dyslexic. For example, the reading method introduced by the landlord ignores the retrieval training of new information in useful information and inadvertently increases the training of reading interest, which leads to the landlord suffering from "old-fashioned utilitarian" reading disorder. Therefore, caution also includes resolutely not using bad reading methods, otherwise it will be difficult to change once it becomes a habit.
"No practice, no practice" means that if you don't pay attention to the details of training, it is absolutely impossible to automatically appear in your "block reading" process. So don't think that you have everything as long as you are quick.
Therefore, we are also training the ability of "block reading", and the level of "block reading" ability is different with different degrees of attention. There can be fast and high absorption readings and fast and low absorption readings.
Reading ability is an acquired ability, which has nothing to do with genius. He has something to do with his character. People with quick temper tend to develop fast reading ability, while people with slow temper generally don't. However, not all people who cultivate fast reading ability have good reading quality. Only well-trained people can achieve rapid and high-quality absorption. Generally speaking, there are relatively few people who can read quickly and well, so people think they are geniuses. There is no need to be superstitious about those. As long as you work hard, you will become a reading genius.
"Block reading" is not something that can be used all the time. If you encounter a situation that you haven't encountered during training, you can't use "block reading" because you are not familiar with the language structure of word groups. For example, when I read Hegel's books, I can't use "reading in blocks" because the Chinese vocabulary and sentence-making methods there are very unfamiliar.
For example, if you train "block reading" on the basis of modern Chinese, then you won't "block reading" when reading ancient Chinese. I happened to read miscellaneous books when I was training my "block reading" ability, so I can deal with ancient Chinese. However, now some people talk to themselves, one sentence on their heads and one sentence on their feet, which is really daunting! 10, the relationship between fast reading and slow reading.
In today's knowledge explosion, fast reading is very important, because it can make you gain more knowledge. Whether you can get what the original author really wants to express in fast reading and realize the author's artistic conception is related to your reading method, not to the reading speed. Seeking common ground and seeking differences are all one-sided reading methods, which are naturally relatively faster, but not faster than comprehensive reading. Therefore, it is a morbid psychology to oppose speed reading if you are afraid of it.
Of course, some people read books just for appreciation, just to experience the taste in reading slowly over and over again. They deliberately read slowly, and when they read fast, they lose the charm of slow reading. Just like some people like Beijing opera. The story is already familiar, the lines are memorized, even the tunes are memorized. They still listen again and again, either to retrieve information or to experience the fun of listening to songs with their eyes closed. Reading that simply pursues artistic conception has nothing to do with learning to read. It's no fun talking together. But we also have to admit that there is such a slow reading method. It does bring happiness to many people.