How To Achieve Efficient Reading

李兵

Efficiency means using least efforts to obtain satisfactory results. We all want our students to use their time and energy to the best effect. As for a student， to achieve efficiency， students need to meet the following requirements.

The first requirement for efficient reading is to know what he/she wants. Then they can judge the success according to how well and fast they achieve it. Therefore， the first thing for the students to do is to decide what exactly he wants to get out of the text. The teacher can help by setting clear purpose or by helping people reading for assignments to define what they need to find out.

When it comes to reading exercise， it means the students are supposed to read the questions in advance before coming to the whole text.

The second requirement is to decide what kind of material he/she is to deal with. An argumentative essay， a story， an advertisement or an expository writing？ Faced with different types of writing， what are the students going to do？ Then comes the third requirement.

The third requirement is to learn some text-attacking skills. When they know what they want and have located the type of the material， the main task is to use it efficiently. One of the characteristics is flexibility.

People who read flexibly are skilled at judging what they need to get out of the text to accomplish their purpose.

Reading flexibly means always keeping in mind how much you need to read to satisfy their purpose. This helps you to decide which part of the text to ignore， which to skim to get the gist， and then which part（s） to study closely.

Reading flexibly means making use of all the resources in the text. Once the text is chosen and reading is started， the titles， subtitles， pictures or illustrations， tables of contents or summaries are all aid to efficient reading.

Last but not least， to achieve efficient reading， the students are supposed to improve their reading speed. A good read reader takes in several words at a time. An efficient reader chunks the text into sense groups， units of meaning each consisting of several words. Each chunk is taken in by one movement of eyes. Besides， several early reading habits are likely to slow down the reader. One of these is subvoocalizing — forming the sound of the words they are reading or even murmuring them aloud. Students are also expected to drop the habit of reading with their fingers pointing word by word.

All in all， to achieve efficient reading， we teachers and the students should both work together on all these aspects. Our effort to achieve efficient reading will be appreciated the moment we start to approach the skills and problems.

（作者單位：安徽省馬鞍山市丹陽中學）