Main focus of this article: the purpose and attitude of reading. What is successful reading.
Two Reading Mentalities#
Different mentalities yield different results from reading.
The first is to acquire information. Wanting to know more things, or simply for entertainment.
The second is to enhance comprehension. Enhancing understanding of things, enhancing understanding of certain knowledge, deeper understanding, understanding the connections between different things... in order to "understand" the world better.
Good reading requires more than just reading#
If the goal is to pursue comprehension, then one should know that reading is not an easy task.
Simply put, when we read a book, we are learning from someone who is "higher up".
Reading is like this: the author puts a lot of effort into writing a book, and the reader also puts in some effort to actively capture what the author has put in and wants to express.
The reader should not just be a receiver of information, simply accepting without actively doing anything.
Using the example of a baseball game: the author is the pitcher, the reader is the catcher, the author throws the ball with intention, and the reader must also catch the ball with intention - if either party is not proactive, this action is a failure.
In other words, for the reader, if they do not actively learn and think about the knowledge in the book, then it cannot be considered as learning through reading. Things that can greatly enhance comprehension are not easily obtained, and simply reading is not enough.
For reading that is purely for browsing information, the reader can only obtain information from it, just knowing it in memory, but cannot learn anything from the author.
It cannot be denied that reading information and news can also enhance understanding to a certain extent, but it is not the kind of understanding that can elevate a person's level, a deeper level of understanding.
Reading is not simple, it is a complex activity just like writing, involving a lot of actions. The success of reading a book depends entirely on how much of the core content the reader "receives", not on how many books they have read.
The difference between remembering something and explaining something clearly is very different. Someone who reads extensively but does not understand is an ignorant bookworm (reader). Reading a lot does not necessarily mean reading well.
About learning, what is active? What is passive?#
Whether it is through being taught by a teacher or self-discovery learning, only those who truly learn something are active learners.
"Being taught by a teacher" is not equivalent to passive learning. In a sense, reading a book is also "being taught by a teacher", except that this teacher is the author, a teacher who is not physically present with the reader. "Being taught by a teacher" and "being taught by a book" are actually guided learning processes. If one only stops at being guided and does not learn and understand the meaning of the words through their own deep thinking, then it is passive learning.
It is like learning mathematics, only knowing how to use formulas but not knowing how they were developed or derived. This kind of learning is difficult to understand thoroughly and apply proficiently.
Active learning refers to learners basing their understanding of the world or things on their own observations or experiences. Reading and listening to a teacher are just ways for them to understand the world/things, and they will think about the connections between what they have learned and the world/things, striving to enhance their understanding of the world/things.
In other words, the difference between active and passive lies not in the external factors, but in the reader's standpoint and behavior while reading.
Seeking Knowledge#
Having a real teacher in real life is a great thing. If we ask a teacher a question, they may answer it. If we still don't understand, we can continue to ask questions, saving ourselves from thinking and avoiding useless efforts.
This is like how modern people know that calculus has already been invented, and everyone can learn the correct calculus directly from a teacher or reference books, without having to derive it from scratch - you should know that calculus is the culmination of thousands of years of wisdom (summarizing mistakes), something that one person cannot come up with.
If I can see further than others, it is because I am standing on the shoulders of giants.
Therefore, in order to understand the world/things more deeply and more accurately, we should seek out teachers. For those who are no longer in school, books become their teachers, except that this teacher (the author) is absent. But many of the teacher's answers are already in the book, it's just that the reader cannot ask questions in person to get the answers. In this situation, the learner should be even more proactive in thinking about the meaning of the sentences in the book in order to correctly understand the author's intentions.
Useful books are also difficult books#
If a book is difficult to read, it means that it surpasses the reader's current understanding. The author of such books has a greater idealization of the world than the reader, and these are the books that can enhance the reader's comprehension, which are the books that should be read the most.
Without relying on any external help (tutoring, interpretation), repeatedly challenging this book is the process of improving brain comprehension.
Among those who read books using the WeChat Reading app, many hurriedly finish reading a book, quickly write a book review, and show off to anyone who sees the review that "I was here", and then never look at the book again. Many book reviews mostly consist of summarizing and quoting excerpts, which is a formalistic form of "thinking". There are quite a few people like this.
If a book can enhance the reader's comprehension, then it should not be read only once. There are two reasons for this:
- A book that can be understood by reading it once means that the author and the reader are at the same level.
- If a good book can be understood by reading it only once, it means it is not that good.
The way to exercise comprehension: read a book a hundred times, and its meaning will become clear. This is the most basic and important technique, and there may be more techniques that will be organized in the future, or maybe not~