Slow Down: Enjoy Fine Food and Enjoy Reading

            Our abilities to read seem to be divided into two groups: literate and illiterate. The literate group may have levels assigned; for example, it may be said that someone reads at about a sixth grade level –but the levels seem nebulous at best. There are countless options of majors for undergraduate college students and graduate school programs in literature, languages, and writing –creative writing, professional writing, and journalism- but there seems to be very little discussion on how to read well. It seems to be assumed, that after high school and plenty of standardized tests, that any adult in the literate group is a good reader.

            It would seem that reading is reading, but when do we skim? When do we read slowly? Are there any benefits to “speed reading” and do we understand the sentences on the page?

Do we read every punctuation mark? Every apostrophe and comma? If we are proof-reading, certainly -but what if we are reading a novel? Those who develop speed reading programs could tell us that we do not need to read every word; rapidly skip –blast- across the pages and try to have some sense as to what it is about. There may be times when that may very well be a good approach, but Nabokov, Hemmingway, and Shakespeare crafted sentences out of words that we can take time to appreciate.

While discussing this with my father recently, he stated that reading can be like eating a fine meal -savoring every bite. That will likely not happen if we just fly across the pages.

On one side of us, we have speed reading programs pitched to us. On the other side, as writer Patrick Kingsley explores in his article, “The Art of Slow Reading,” on The Guardian.com, we have the argument that much is to be gained from slowing down. Kingsley and others offer a body of evidence to suggest that we are reading (skimming) too quickly and that is dramatically affecting our attention spans. The article touches on digital formats -reading online and Kindle-style editions of books- compared with traditional print.

Kingsley makes a point that we are distracted while we read our digital formats: email notifications, text messages, and pop-up advertisements among other side-trackers can tempt us away from our reading. In addition, he raises concerns that in this information age we are growing accustomed to consuming short bits and bites… our tolerance for sitting down and focusing on words may be diminishing.

How to read well is a discussion that we should be engaging in now more than ever. I believe there is much to be gained from turning off the cell phone, laptop, and tablet, turn on a soft light, open up a printed edition of a book, and enjoy the reading experience. Like my father was saying, we can treat our reading like a fine meal rather than a fast snack.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jul/15/slow-reading