Reading Provides Necessary Survival Skills

With the coming of the television age and the increasing emphasis on pictures and sound in all quarters of our society, many people would have us believe that we are moving rapidly away from reading as a necessary life skill. But this is not the case at all.

Good reading is a more important life skill than ever before and the printed word continues to be the cornerstone of both higher education and better positions in the job market.

For students, almost all studying involves reading. For adults, reading is day to day, either a stumbling block or a smooth path to pleasure and opportunity. This is why good reading hobits are not only an important study skill for the student, but also an important life skill for anyone.

SCANNING - You can get a good idea about the material by taking a few moments right off to read the title, chapter headings, section titles and headlines. The purpose of scanning is to get a quick understanding of what to expect from the reading, so that you will know what you are reading as you go along.

Maps, charts, graphs and pictures are clues that will help the reader to cue in on the content and organization of the material. This simple technique of scanning can help you read for ideas because you will know where you are going when you begin to read.

READING SPEED - Another good reading habit is reading fast. The expression "haste makes waste" does not apply to reading. In fact, most people read much too slowly. Right now you are probably reading this slower than you need for good comprehension. Studies show that fast readers are the best readers, and that slow readers often lose their concentration and comprehension abilities because their minds will wander out of boredom.

Remember, nothing hurts concentration more than reading too slowly. Your mind will keep up with your reading speed if you ask it to. By always reading at your top speed, you challenge your understanding and make it easier for your mind to concentrate on the material.

VOCABULARY BUILDING - For a person with good reading habits, a printed page contains not only words but ideas, actions, thoughts and feelings. But all these things are built on words. The more words you are familiar with, the less you are ware of reading words and the more you are aware of content and meaning. Expanding your vocabulary will help you to read more effectively and rapidly.

Many people simply skip over words they do not understand. This, naturally, hurts their overall comprehension. Other people stop at each new word and look it up in the dictionary, but this method can slow down your reading, affecting concentration and comprehension.

But you can build your vocabulary without using a dictionary each time. Here are two rules:

Pause for a moment on each new word and let it register in your mind.

Try to guess what the word means from context clues, from the words around it.

What happens with this method is that you will see the word again and again. Each time you will have a stronger impression of the meaning. Soon, the new word will be familiar and its meaning clear.

The key to the method is to be alert to new words. Don't skip over them. You'll find you are adding to your vocabulary each day and a good strong vocabulary is a great help to reading quickly and with strong comprehension.

Good reading habits like these can help students and working adults alike to be more successful. The special world of school and the real world of school and of everyday life can be more comfortable, productive and rewarding with the addition of simple yet important life skills such as good reading habits.

博覽群書能給你提供種種必要的生存技能

因為進入了電視時代，社會生活的各方面都把圖像和聲響放在越來越重要的位置。所以有許多人認為我們應該迅速地改掉閱讀這一生存所必須具備的技能，但實際情況根本就不是這樣。

現在良好的閱讀能力是比過去任何時候都更加重要的一種生存技能。書面的文字資料依然是高等教育和就業市場上能找到較好職位的墊腳石。

對學生來說，幾乎任何課程都必須經過閱讀；對成年人來說，堅持天天讀，就是一條通往幸福快樂能夠抓住大好機遇的一條平坦大道，否則就會成為你前進路上的絆腳石。因此，良好的閱讀習慣不但是學生學習的重要技能，對任何人都是一種重要的生存技能。

快速游覽--拿到閱讀材料先用極短的時間馬上看看標題、篇章題目、小節的題目及文中的大號字體，以便能抓住這份材料的主要思想內容。快速游覽的目的就是要迅速地理解你從這份閱讀材料中所期望獲得的信息，以便你能知道在你接著繼續讀下去的時候你將會讀到些什么內容。

各類地圖、圖表、曲線圖和圖片都是很有用的線索，為幫助讀者去理解所讀的材料的內容和組織結構提供一些啟示。這種簡易可行的快速瀏覽的技巧有助于你在閱讀中抓住中心思想、段落大意，因為在你開始閱讀以后你就會知道你將要讀到的內容。

閱讀速度--還有一種良好的閱讀習慣就是快速閱讀。不能把"欲速則不達"這句話套用到閱讀上。事實上絕大多數人的閱讀實在是太慢了。也許此時此刻你在新聞記者本文時的速度要比為了更好地理解本文所需要的閱讀速度更慢。多次調查研究都表明了，讀得快閱讀效果最好，讀得慢就不能集中精神，因而也就喪失了理解力，由于感到枯燥，思想上就會開小差，心不在焉。

切記，閱讀速度太慢只能妨礙你集中注意力。如果你要求你的思路能與你的閱讀速度保持同步，那你是能做到的。一貫用你所能達到的最快的速度來閱讀，向你的理解力挑戰，那么把你的思想全神貫注到所閱讀的材料上就是很容易做到的了。

積累詞匯--對于一個養成了良好閱讀習慣的人來說，每一頁文字資料里不只是包含一些詞句，還飲食有一些觀點、行動、思想和感情。但是，這一切都是通過詞匯表達出來的。你所認識的詞匯越多，你越會覺得你不是在閱讀一個一個的孤立的單詞，你越會更加去體會文章的內容和作者的意思。擴大了詞匯量將會幫助你讀得效率更高更快。

很多人干脆把他們所不認識的詞跳過去不管它。當然，這樣會妨礙你對文章的整體理解。還有些人一遇到生詞就停下來查詞典，這種做法也會減慢你的閱讀速度，會影響你不能全神貫注不能全面理解。

每遇到生詞，你可以不用去查詞典，就能擴大你的詞匯量。這里教給你兩手絕活：

一是每遇到一個生詞，你稍稍停留片刻，把這個生詞先存貯到腦海里；

二是從上下文所提供的線索，從這句話的語言環境來試著猜一猜這個詞的意思。

使用這種方法就會出現這樣的情況：在下文中你會一遍又一遍地見到這個詞。每再見到一次你就會對該詞的意義有更強烈的印象。不久，這個生詞就會變成熟詞，那么它的意義也就清楚明白了。

使用這種方法的關鍵是要處處留心那些生詞。不要對這些生詞置之不理。這樣，你就會發現你的詞匯量每天都在擴大。有了很豐富的詞匯量才能極大地提高你快速閱讀的速度，才能使佻理解得更深刻。

像上述這些良好的閱讀習慣能幫助學生們和在職的成年人取得更大的成熟。由于養成了這些良好的閱讀習慣，增強了這些簡單易行的重要的生存技巧，在校讀書的特殊環境，學生和日常生活的真實環境，就會變得更舒適，你就會取得更大的成就并從中獲得更大的益處。