by Jennifer Wilks

Shaun Roundy,

Seized with Rapture

Golden volumes! richest treasures!
Objects of delicious pleasures!
You my eyes rejoicing please,
You my hands in rapture seize!
Brilliant wits, and musing sages,
Lights who beamed through many ages,
Left to your conscious leaves their story,
And dared to trust you with their glory;
And now their hope of fame achieved!
Dear volumes! you have not deceived!
–Isaac Disraeli

Sam was 17 when his parents first heard of Attention Deficit Disorder. Throughout his life, Sam had been tortured by reading assignments. It was hard for him to stay focused on what he was reading. Noises in the room around him distracted his attention. People walking by would catch his eye. He couldn’t remember things he had read very well. It was just too hard for him to concentrate on a book.

Sam’s teachers, parents, and classmates encouraged him to try harder. Sound each word out individually. Read more slowly. Concentrate. He had to read his school assignments. He had to read books for book reports. He had to read the instructions to tests. Almost everywhere he turned, there was something else being forced on Sam to read. Concentrate, he was told. Why can’t you just concentrate? After getting through Elementary school, Junior High, and most of High School, reading had become something Sam hated. He did poorly in school because he refused to read anything.

Literacy is a problem for many of today’s young people. The problem... extends to many, many kids who aren’t reading well–or aren’t reading much. (Kropp, xiii) There are a lot of reasons people don’t like to read. Sam’s story is just one of countless scenarios in which people progressively dislike reading more and more. In time, avoiding reading becomes a habit for people. They forget - or perhaps they never did learn, as was the case in Sam’s life - how much fun reading can be, how much entertainment, excitement, and satisfaction can come from reading a good book. Many people see reading only as a painful, difficult chore; they are not able to read well enough to truly enjoy it. They never discover the fun of reading, and so they don’t get the practice that might help them read more easily. (Bodart, 1)

Though most young people are learning the rudiments of reading in primary school, many of them stop developing as readers in grades four and five. Another group stops bothering to read in grades eight and nine. Among our top students, many have failed to develop the range of sophisticated reading skills they’ll need in college and later in life. Worst of all, too many young people today are growing up with attitudes that will always keep them apart from books and the joy that reading can be. (Kropp, xiii)

The following statistics will help you understand just how much of a problem America has with reading (Smith, Fay, 1-2):

• 1,443,000 Americans cannot read and write at all.
• Over 20,000,000 Americans age 16 and over are unable to read at least 10 percent of the questions on standard application forms such as those for a driver’s licence, a personal bank loan, or Medicaid.
• 1 in 20 children are held back a grade each year, usually because of reading problems.
• 8,000 schoolchildren need special help in learning to read.
• Teachers estimate that 43 percent of elementary school children are in critical need of help.
• There are at least 2.7 million high school students who cannot keep up with their classmates because of reading difficulties.
• In junior colleges, 30 to 50 percent of entering students require remedial help in reading.
• 5,000 job seekers are functionally illiterate.
• 1/3 of all job holders are denied advancement because of reading deficiencies.
• The functionally illiterate person earns an average of $4,000 less per year than the literate person.

It is also a serious problem that of the Americans who can read, many of them don’t enjoy reading and try to avoid it. That can do a great amount of damage for the future of America. As more and more high tech equipment is being produced, the demand for menial labor is decreasing and the demand for thinking, trained people is mounting. What will happen to the people who dislike reading? What will happen to their children, who will live in an even more highly technical society? People who enjoy reading will read to their children, teaching them a love of reading in turn.

You have to spend some time reading, there’s no way around it. Even though television and radio provide some information about news events, the well informed person gets their information from a newspaper, where detailed information is covered. Even with the increasing influence of television and computers, the ability to read is still essential to functioning adequately in society. Reading is a source of entertainment and, for students particularly, it is a source of information and knowledge. If reading is such a large part of your life, why not learn how to enjoy it?

When faced with the prospect of reading a book, most people in the 90s think it is a chore or something they have to do for school. The fact is that reading can be even more fun and entertaining than watching a movie or playing a video game. Once you learn to enjoy it, it isn’t a chore anymore. The reason most people don’t like to read is because they can’t do it fast enough to keep them entertained for very long. In a movie, you can get the whole story in about two hours. When reading a book, it takes the average reader a lot longer to get to the point of the story. You have to really understand reading and learn how to do it better and faster before you can truly enjoy it. Reading a library book is a lot more economical than going to the movies, too.

In a movie, your imagination is on hold as the flickering screen plays out its drama before your eyes. Many psychologists say that when watching television and movies, peoples’ brains go into a hypnotic mode. The producers of the movie decide what everything will look like so you can just sit back and relax. But is it really a favor they’re doing you? Research has been done that shows there is less brain activity in a person who is watching a movie or TV than there is at any other time, even when that person is doing absolutely nothing.

When reading a book, your imagination is at work. You experience Jane’s fear as a child when "[John] ran headlong at me: I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder: he had closed with a desperate thing. I really saw him as a tyrant, a murderer. I felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickle down my neck, and was sensible of somewhat pungent sufferings." (From Jane Eyre, 9) You stand in the courtroom with Atticus as Mayella stands and cries out, "I got somethin’ to say an’ then I ain’t gonna say no more. That nigger yonder took advantage of me an’ if you fine fancy gentlemen don’t wanna do nothin’ about it then you’re all yellow stinkin’ cowards, the lot of you. Your fancy airs don’t come to nothin’ - your ma’amin’ and Miss Mayellerin’ don’t come to nothin’, Mr. Finch" before bursting into tears. (From To Kill A Mockingbird, 190)

The scene plays itself out in your mind. It’s as if you’re there with the characters. Many people have a hard time "getting into" books, but when you find one with a subject that is interesting, you will find it very easy. Different parts of your brain are at work, deciding what each character looks like, what they sound like. Your brain is working comprehending the text, putting meaning into the words, and drawing out hidden conclusions and parallels to other works you’ve read.

If you enjoy reading, not only will it help in your school work, but you can teach your children to enjoy reading, too. It’s not something that has to be consciously taught, but a love of reading is conveyed by the desire you have to read your children a bedtime story and even by the funny voices you use to portray the different characters. Teaching your children that reading is fun and entertaining will give them a definite advantage as they go through school and even into their adult lives. As you sit down on your child’s bed at night and pull out a familiar book from the little bookshelf in the room, you will feel the satisfaction of knowing that you are doing the best thing possible for your child at that moment.

When you’re reading a book, the grammar techniques, punctuation, spelling, and overall composition are unconsciously being absorbed. If you read books, you will be a better writer, student, and worker. While reading, you’re not just getting the meaning, but your brain is very fast. It can remember how a certain word is spelled, when a hyphen was used and when it wasn’t, and which times a word is capitalized. After reading a lot of books, your brain has developed many skills that will help you in your school work without even a thought. Even if reading isn’t fun to you, it would sure beat studying for a grammar quiz.

A lot of people would like to read more, but don’t know which books to read. One way to find a good book is to go to the public library. Find the fictional section and just start walking down the aisles. When you see a book that catches your attention, pull it out and read the jacket. You’ll strike out a few times, but after a while, the jacket of the book you pick up will be as interesting as the cover is. Just skim through the book at first, don’t try to read it cover to cover all at once. Glance at a few of the pages and read the dialogue. If it still looks intriguing, just sit down and read for a while. Pretty soon, you’ll find a book that engrosses you and you’ll discover what fun reading can be.

Another good way to find an interesting book is to go to the reference section of the library. In the 110 section, you’ll find books about books. One book, titled Good Reading, has lists of books organized into sections so you can find an interesting book. There are also books that list books for certain age groups. This will be helpful in finding a book that is right for you, a book that is on your level. Even though some of the books might sound boring after a glance at the title, give one of them a try. There’s usually a reason a book becomes a classic. If all else fails, find a friend or classmate who has similar interests as you and ask them what good books they’ve read lately. They’re sure to name something that would interest you.

At other times, you will want to read for research and school. When you’re trying to research a topic, it’s important to be able to skim the pages effectively and find the information you need for your assignment. You can’t read ten books to research a paper for an English class, but if you can skim through each one, you can find the most relevant information and concentrate on it.

When you’re reading for pleasure, it’s nice to be able to go over every line and stop and think about it. It’s effective to be able to re-read interesting passages and get the full impact of the dialogue or story that is being portrayed. But after learning to speed read, people increase their effectiveness of reading when they read large blocks of print at a time. They remember more about the story than those who went over each line painstakingly, repeating each word in their mind and thinking about every sentence.

One way to learn to enjoy reading is to learn how to do it better, that is, faster and more efficiently. This society is so rushed that nobody wants to participate in time-consuming activities. They think that anything taking up their time is something to be avoided. There are ways to learn to read faster and still retain all of the information. In fact, people who teach speed reading say that those who practice it can read much faster and, in fact, retain more information from it than the average reader. Arthur, Lord Balfour said, "He has only half learned the art of reading who has not added to it the more refined art of skipping and skimming." (Bettmann, 15)

Several other prominent people from history are sited as having been speed readers. Napoleon Bonaparte was described as "[reading] so fast that a book lasted him scarcely one hour, and at Saint Helena, a servant was kept busy carrying away armfuls of finished books which only a day before had been brought from the shelves." (Bettmann, 16) Thomas Wolfe was also described as "[reading] insanely, by the hundreds, the thousands, the ten thousands... a ravening appetite in him demanded that he read everything that had ever been written." (Bettmann, 16)

While it would be foolish to assume that everyone who learns to read faster will develop this hunger for reading, it is safe to say that reading becomes more pleasurable as you are able to skim through books, find the interesting information you want out of them, and disregard the "decoding" part of reading. Not only will it become more pleasurable, but it will be of immeasurable worth to you in society.

The reason you don’t know how to read fast while still retaining the information in the text is because it is taught that if you don’t understand something while reading, concentrate on the sentence you don’t understand, then the word, and finally the letters in the word if it still doesn’t make sense. The problem with this idea is that the closer you look at something, the less sense it makes.

When putting a puzzle together, the individual pieces will often be meaningless until you put them next to other pieces to make an object. When you step back and look at a whole picture, it gives it meaning. The same thing works with reading. While looking at a word as a complete thing, instead of as a bunch of letters put together, it makes more sense. If your brain had to scan each word, thinking of the individual letters, finding a word that matched that letter sequence, and then matching it with its definition, reading would take a very long time. This reasoning can be expanded further to say that an entire sentence can be comprehended as a whole entity, rather than a bunch of words put together, making reading even easier.

Some problems encountered while learning to speed read are repeating the words to yourself and forcing your eyes along the page. While walking down the street, you don’t consciously think about moving your feet through each step and where to place it on the sidewalk. Your body just goes where it needs to go. Trust your eyes to go along the page as needed to gather the information contained in the book.

Most people repeat each word on the page in their head. Your brain is able to comprehend the word without consciously thinking about it, but you still "read it out loud" in your head. When someone is talking, you don’t repeat each word to yourself, making sure you understand them. When looking at a room, you don’t think to yourself, ‘chair, table, window, picture,’ etc. You just see the room, trust your eyes and brain to collect the information, and remember what you saw. While reading, discipline yourself to stop repeating the words in your head. Trust your mind to comprehend what it sees on its own.

Admittedly, these are two habits that are very hard to break. While I was learning to speed read, the hardest part for me was training myself to stop repeating the words to myself in my head. Part of my job is proofreading things people have said to fix punctuation, spelling, and grammar. While doing that, it’s necessary to concentrate on each word individually. When I’m reading a book, though, I don’t want to be concentrating on the little things, but rather getting the entertainment and information as efficiently as I can. After breaking that habit, it has been easy for me to go through the speed reading lessons.

In order to really enjoy reading and learn how to read faster, it is necessary to understand how your brain comprehends the words on the page. It doesn’t really see the way most people think it does, it simply collects information and combines it with information you’ve previously learned. (in this case, how to read) For example, when your mind sees the word DOG, it combines that with the knowledge you have of what a dog is, different stories you’ve heard about dogs, different kinds of dogs, etc. Reading always involves a combination of visual and non-visual information. It is an interaction between reader and text. (Smith, 67)

If there were random letters on a page, you could only comprehend 4 to 5 of those letters at one time. If you understood the words, but they didn’t make a comprehendible sentence, you could see about 2 words, or 10 to 12 letters. If there was a list of meaningful phrases that didn’t have any connection to each other, you could see 4 to 5 words, which is about 25 letters at a time. Speed readers, who have learned to look at a whole paragraph at a time, can see the complete paragraph at once, which is approximately 4 phrases, equaling about 100 letters. A speed reader could read those 100 words in about 2 seconds and understand them better than the average reader could understand them after going over each word individually.

If your problem is that reading takes too long, learning to read faster is easy. Methods of perceptive speed reading have been developed that are effective in learning to read faster and comprehend more. In fact, through conscientious application of a few simple drills, the average adult may learn to read from 3 to 10 times faster. (Maberly, 7) As if that fact wasn’t staggering enough, before learning speed reading, 33 high school students could read with 45 percent comprehension, while after the course, they understood at 63 percent comprehension with an average increase in speed of 13.25 times what they could read before. (Maberly, 9)

You can learn to speed read by either checking out a book on the subject at the library or by taking a speed reading class at a local college or through a special educational program. Speed reading isn’t something you can just do, though. It takes a lot of eye training and practice. Don’t expect to learn about speed reading and immediately be able to do it. Take it slowly, doing the necessary exercises and drills that will train your eye and break bad habits.

The first lessons in speed reading consist of hand-eye coordination drills to train your eye to travel down the page instead of stopping at each individual word on the page. Other lessons deal with training the eye to see Xs across the entire page while focusing only on one point. These lessons are helping to train your eye to look at the entire page without stopping on each word. They teach you how to see the entire page while your gaze is resting in the same spot.

The lessons

on eye training

have words

running down

the pages to get

your eye

trained to

following the

pages down

instead of across.

Lessons later in the books have longer lines of text going

down the page until you can read entire pages of information

without letting your eye follow the lines across.

You train your eye to follow the information down and not to repeat each word in your head while reading it. You also learn how to skim over a book before "reading" it to get the general idea of the layout. This aids in comprehension of the text.

No matter what you do to learn to enjoy reading more, the fact is that once you learn to enjoy reading and practice doing it more frequently, you will be a better student and worker. A love of reading can’t come all at once, but once you’ve read a few really good books, ones that you just cannot put down, a love of reading will begin to develop. It isn’t important in the beginning to love reading, though. The most important thing you need is a desire to improve yourself. Reading will help you in more ways than you can imagine, so get started and soon you’ll see the change in yourself, your grades, and your job.

Bettmann, Otto L. The Delights Of Reading; David R. Godine, Publisher, Inc., 1987

Smith, Frank. Understanding Reading; Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 1994

1. Bettmann, Otto L. The Delights Of Reading; David R. Godine, Publisher, Inc., 1987. A very amusing book full of quotes and pictures about reading, books, and libraries. Has quotes from many famous people in it.
2. Bodart, Joni. Booktalk!2; H.W. Wilson Company, 1985. A book that teaches how to talk about books in a way that would make children, teenagers, and adults excited about them. Explains how to pick a book, what to talk about, and how to make it seem interesting and exciting.
3. Bond, Guy L., Wasson, Barbara B., Tinker, Miles A., Wasson, John B. Reading Difficulties; Allyn and Bacon, 1994. Teaches about reading difficulties, their diagnosis, and correction. Teaches how to deal with and teach children with reading difficulties.
4. Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre; Modern Library edition, 1997. A 19^th century novel about a girl in England, her life, and her love.
5. Donaldson, Gerald. Books; Ban Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1981. A wonderful book full of poetry and other writing about books, book thieves, and book worms.
6. Fader, Daniel. Hooked On Books; Berkley Publishing Corporation, 1976. A book about learning to read with pleasure. Also teaches how to teach children and teenagers to enjoy reading and writing.
7. Kropp, Paul. Raising A Reader; Doubleday, 1996. Teaches about the importance of reading as a child and what parents can do to encourage and promote reading in their children. Teaches the pitfalls and dangers to avoid and what to do in special cases.
8. Kump, Peter. Breakthrough Rapid Reading; Parker Publishing Company, Inc., 1979. Teaches the eye training involved in speed reading and why speed reading is important. Has lessons on speed reading and comprehension of text.
9. Lee, Harper. To Kill A Mockingbird; Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1978. A novel about a white family after the Civil war. A black man is wrongly accused and put on trial by a white family.
10. Leedy, Paul D. Reading Improvement For Adults; Mc-Graw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1956. This book is not so much learning to speed read as it is to learn to read better, with less wasted time, and to comprehend more. Also includes exercises and lessons.
11. Lewis, Norman. How To Read Better and Faster; Thomas Y. Crowell, Publishers, 1978. Full of timed exercises and passages of text with questions at the end to measure comprehension. The reader does the exercises in each section and then takes the test at the end to measure progress.
12. Maberly, Norman C. Mastering Speed Reading; The New American Library, Inc., 1966. A book that teaches the lessons to go through to learn how to read faster and comprehend more. Has pictures of how to hold the book, etc.
13. Nell, Victor. Lost In A Book; Yale University Press, 1988. Teaches about the psychology of reading for pleasure. Teaches what motivates people to read and why.
14. Smith, Carl B., Fay, Leo C. Getting People To Read; Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1973. Explains different volunteer programs for elementary and high school age groups that encourage them to read. It also explains the need for such programs.
15. Smith, Frank. Understanding Reading; Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 1994. Teaches how the brain works while reading, how it translates words into thoughts, etc. Teaches the psychology and physiology of reading.
16. Waldhorn, Arthur, Weber, Olga S., Zeiger, Arthur. Good Reading; R. R. Bowker Company, 1985. A book that contains different lists of books. An excellent resource if you want something good to read, but don’t know what. Lists books by time period, geographical location, and type of literature.
17. Wilson, Elizabeth. Books Children Love; Crossway Books, 1987. An excellent resource for any parent or teacher. It is organized in an easy to read format with books categorized into groups such as history, crafts, and fantasy.

1. What is the specific purpose of the paper?

My paper is written to get people to read more and to read for enjoyment, not just to read for school work.

2. What is your specific audience?

My audience is High School and College students and young adults. I chose them because I think it’s important for people that age group to be reading and I think they could enjoy it if they just know how.

3. What did you do to create significance in your paper and to apply your purpose to all readers?

I told the readers why reading is important to them specifically and gave them suggestions on how to find books that would interest them. I also taught them how to learn speed reading to help them enjoy reading more.

4. What were your main inherent barriers? Did you successfully overcome them all?

My main inherent barriers were not seeing a need to read, not having enough time to read, finding reading boring, and not being able to read well. I think I successfully overcame them all by telling definite reasons why there is a need for reading. I explained why reading isn’t a waste of time, but I also told them how to learn to read faster so time wouldn’t be a factor. I let them know where to go and how to find books that are interesting to them so they won’t find it boring and I taught them that the more you read, the more your comprehension increases, as well as writing skills, so low comprehension wouldn’t be a factor anymore.

5. What specific writing skills did you use in your paper?

I used metaphors, rhythm, action verbs, sentence variety, and concrete details.

6. How did your usage of research influence your paper’s effectiveness?

A lot of things I wanted to say I found in books that said it better than I could. I think the quotes I used also gave credibility to my paper. I feel that I learned a lot from the books I found and that helped me teach what I wanted to get across better.

7. What grade does your paper deserve and do you hate this question?

I think my paper deserves a B+. Yes, I totally hate this question even though I can see the wisdom of asking it. (I figure a little brown-nosing never hurt anyone.)

8. Will you allow this paper to be used as a good example in the future?

Yes, I will allow my paper to be used in the future as a good example, or a bad example, whichever you see fit. If you use it for a bad example, though, I would appreciate it if you didn’t use my name.

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9. Is this paper your own writing?

Yes, this paper is my own writing. (Well, typing, really.)

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