The Art of Reading

Some people think that reading is something you can pick up
in primary school and carry on into adulthood. Others know better
when they consider that reading.like listening to music is an art.
When one listens to symphony there are so many variables to recognize
appart from the different movements of the piece and what makes them
different from one another.

I discovered the need to improve the quality of my reading through a
a speed reading course. What it did was make me aware of what elements
of the sentence were more important to notice and remember than the words
that held them together.All that I thought was that the information on the reading
process would come in handy one day,especially if I were to get into law or medicine
where there would be reams of notes to pour over and one had to use a discerning eye to
recognise vital information and leave out the extraneous stuff.

One would also learn how one could then be able to distinguish between main ideas
supporting material, much as you would if you were to analyse a story.
It was all about putting cognitive abilities into practice.

Later I learned that reading was not just about what words are going to stand out
of a text as much as I learned through teaching literature,that it meant learning to
read between the lines, learning the mood of the story from the description the author
uses to introduce events and learning to read through the myriad of metaphors and
other literary tools. I also learned that a more factual pragmatic approach
would be better applied to reading scientific material.
Today literacy has become a big issue especially with poorer homes and with new
immigrants who were at one time selected without their knowledge, or with limited knowledge
of either official language.

There are government funded programs to help those
people get integrated into society and community groups to address the issues involved
but people still fall through the cracks.With the help of volunteers, an organization
may exercise a mandate that each person has the right to read and it may also address the
issues of certain learning disabilities which effect reading.

Reading can be encouraged by giving and if there is an effort being done it is through
fundraisers that get new books to less fortunate readers. An organization
may opt for a drive that invites companies to collect funds for the literacy campaign
or it may propose the purchasing of a new book through familiar bookstores. Those books
would be destined for the new reader.
There is no shame in not knowing how to read by the way, some of the greatest minds had
learning disabilities which may have included the ability to read the sentence the way it is written.
( Not all the reading disabilities means being dyslexic.)