Be an ideal reader

People read many things from text books to romance. But how they read them intrigues the experts. No matter what you read, the way you read is of prime importance.

For instance, have you ever watched how a child reads his favourite fairy tale or how a teenager reads a love letter? You will find that both the child and the teenager are engrossed in their reading. They do not know what happens in the outside world when they read because they are excited and glued to what they read.

Apart from scientific studies showing the way an eye scans lines of print, your reading style can send out many important signals to your character and personality. Next time when you travel in a train or bus, watch how people read. By doing so you can judge who they are by the way they read.

Unfortunately, very few Sri Lankans read while travelling. One reason is that most of our buses are jampacked and you do not get even a seat. Secondly, the conductor's incessant shouting can be very irritating. But many train travellers have the habit of reading newspapers and books.

In the past we were taught that we can judge a man by what he reads. Today we have gone a step further and say that we can gauge a man by the way he reads. That means our reading habits go hand in hand with specific personality traits.

If you see a person reading a newspaper or a book slowly and thoroughly, he is a perfectionist. In other words, he is a careful reader who is bent on gaining knowledge and entertainment. Extreme perfectionists read books and newspapers with a pen or pencil in hand.

You can see them underlining words, sentences or whole paragraphs, putting question marks or writing their own comments in the margin. Lord Macanlay was such a perfectionist who annotated everything he read. Extreme perfectionists do not skip a single unfamiliar word without consulting the dictionary or some knowledgeable person.

Sometimes, they copy the sentences or paragraphs in their note books and keep them ready for future reference.

You may have seen some of these perfectionists at work. They sit rigidly erect and keep their reading material in order on their tables. Once I walked into a lawyer's chamber in Hulftsdrop, of course with his secretary's permission, and found him sitting rigidly erect in his chair and reading a law report. It took a few minutes for him to realise that there was a visitor in his room.

The opposite type is the sloppy reader who reads too fast in a slipshod manner. He will spend only a few minutes to go through a newspaper. In fact, such people really do not read; they only scan. Sloppy readers can be seen sometimes in examination halls.

They do not read the question paper carefully. As a result, they make blunders all the time. For instance, they answer all the nine questions whereas they are expected to answer only five! Sloppy readers tend to become highly irresponsible people in later life.

Another type of readers can be termed "fault finding". They read books and newspapers to find grammatical mistakes. Once there was a chief sub Editor of a leading newspaper. He always found fault with whatever he read. He forgot the fact that you cannot be word perfect in newspapers, as everything is done in a hurry to meet deadlines. Therefore, a few typographical errors are inevitable.

What is intriguing is that such fault-finding readers never attempt to write anything. They fear that others will find faults in their writings and give lame excuses for not writing anything. Meanwhile, there are some anti-social readers who read books or newspapers to attack the author or the writer. Some of them write to the author or send anonymous letters to the editor. They forget the fact that writers are entitled to their opinion.

When some people read, you can see their lips moving. These readers lack the ability to concentrate. They read the same paragraph over and over again without really trying to understand it. What is more, such readers do not pay much attention to what they read.

As a result, they hear all the outside noises and other disturbing sounds. Even if they try to read a book in perfect silence, they will find that the silence itself is unbearable!

If you belong to this plodder type, try to stop moving your lips when you read. You must read with your eyes. Only your eyes should move but not your lips. Also avoid moving your head from side to side when reading.

Sometimes, people read books to get away from their humdrum lives. They are generally known as bookworms. Once a new lady lecturer joined the staff of a private institute where I was teaching. I was reading the newspaper when she walked into the staff room.

I stopped reading it just to have a chit-chat with the newcomer. Lo and behold, instead of speaking to me, she picked up the newspaper and started reading it. People of this type are chronic escapists. Through books they live the lives of others.

There is another group of readers who come very close to bookworms. They use reading as an opiate. These people do not read book or newspapers to get information or knowledge. They do so to calm their nerves.

Many women read books when they go to bed. I do not think the bed is the proper place for reading. However, they believe that reading can calm their nerves and put them to sleep. What they should remember is that the book is not a sleeping tablet!

Then who is an ideal reader? If you can read a newspaper or book easily and remember what you read, you are an ideal reader. Such a reader knows how to adjust his reading speed to suit what he reads. If he reads light fiction, he can afford to read it fast.

When he reads a text book, he has to read, mark and digest. Reading experts say that the ideal reader can read 500 words a minute when he reads light fiction. When he reads a serious text book, the speed comes down to 150 words a minute.

If you wish to be an ideal reader from today, assume a relaxed position when you read. You will soon realise how easy to concentrate even if you happen to be in a noisy classroom. Rewards for such patient reading are many. An ideal reader becomes successful in adult life. He also becomes well-balanced person.

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