Adult Literacy: Better Reading

Comprehension, How to Speed-Read, and

Some Life-Changing Literature to
Improve Your Life
By Andrianes Pinantoan

“Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to
multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and
interesting.” – Aldous Huxley

According to a survey done by the Jenkins Group, in the USA, 42 percent of college
graduates never read another book after college and 33 percent of high school
graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.

This is quite alarming and it’s definitely something that we all should worry about,
especially when we’re presented with many other studies that link the high likeability of
people ending up in prison if they have literacy problems.

Now, there are many factors that lead to literacy problems in people of all ages, such as
the inadequate education system and school infrastructure, living in countries with high
poverty and unemployment rates, or growing up in places that have a high crime rate…
etc. But, what about the people who are simply not interested, let’s say, in reading books
for pleasure?

Society’s views and taste in reading books has changed a lot in the last decade and the
technological innovations allow us fast access online to the information we want in just a
few clicks. But this kind of behavior has not only damaged the need to read and digest
longer pieces for personal advancement or just for the sole fun of reading something, but
has also shortened our attention span as well. It’s not uncommon for people to buy
books and never finish reading them.

Literacy is not only about reading and writing, but it’s also to help people understand the
complexity of the world and life in general. To improve the way you think, communicate
and act; to make you a better and smarter human being.
 Reading Comprehension Guide
Improving Your Vocabulary
Building up your vocabulary is one of the key things to further improving your general
reading comprehension. The more you read, the better you get at understanding the
context in which the words are used.

And to understand the context is far more important to proper comprehension than going
through the dictionary and memorizing mechanically all the words that you probably will
never use or ever see them written somewhere.

Using big and fancy words wrongly might even destroy your reputation in front of other
people and make you appear like a real clown. Leave that to the writers and the people
who actually know what they’re talking about.

Language is a tool that was invented to communicate clearly with each other, to share
ideas, and to solve problems. There is no point in complicating the way you speak or
write, just to appear that you have a rich vocabulary.

Improving your vocabulary takes a lot of time and a lot of reading. While reading, take
notes of the new words that appear often and don’t just memorize them; study the
context in which they are used deeply. What do they mean? Where and when can we
use these new words? Is it necessary to use this new word instead of an easier
synonym in order to make a clear point?

Here are some general tips on improving your vocabulary:

 Read. As much as you can. Instead of watching that soap opera or talent show, grab
a good book and sit down for a few hours. Put away all the stuff that distracts you
such as your laptop, phone, or the TV. Highlight the words that you don’t understand
so that you can come back at them later on.
 Keep notes. Whenever you find interesting words that are used in order to describe
something more easily, write them down somewhere (have a notebook just for new
words). Writing the words down will help you remember them.
 Write. When you’re put into a position where you have to explain something or
communicate ideas, you’re forced to use new words in order to be clear and help
other people understand you. Start writing about something that you’re passionate
about and use new words that you’ve stumbled upon before.
 Get interested in new things. Many of the new words that you probably don’t know
are related to some specific fields or topics so try and explore different areas that
you don’t know anything about. You will learn lots of new words and, even better,
you’ll gain knowledge on a topic previously unknown to you.
Here are some other great websites that will help you improve your vocabulary:

Vocabulary.com – This website provides an interactive and a very interesting way of

learning new words and improving your vocabulary. Its dictionary consists of thousands
of questions and sentences to help you learn new words. It also tracks your progress so
that you can get better at the topics where you are having difficulties.
Dictionary.com – Online dictionary to help you find out the meaning of the new words
that you encounter. The website also has many word games and great articles that will
surely improve your vocabulary.
How To Improve Your Vocabulary – About.com – The ESL topic of About.com website
has some really good articles about improving your vocabulary. There are a lot of tips
and other resources to help you learn new words properly.
Merriam-Webster Online – This website includes a dictionary, thesaurus, word of the
day, audio pronunciations, word games and many other resources to assist you while
learning new words.
Visual Dictionary – Also a Merriam-Webster website, this is a dictionary with visual
graphics to help you better understand the words that you search for.

Critical Literacy and Enhancing Text Comprehension

Anderson and Irvine in their book called Critical Literacy: Politics, Praxis, and the
Postmodern wrote the definition critical literacy perfectly, “Critical Literacy is learning to
read and write as part of the process of becoming conscious of one’s experience as
historically constructed within specific power relations”.
What we say and do is what really defines us as individuals and what makes us different
from each other. Being able to read, analyze, and then criticize what you just read is an
intelligent activity and a skill that is worth mastering.

We see all those smart people on television that always impress us with their thoughts
and the way they express them in public. Guess what? They weren’t born that way. They
became who they are by slowly building their foundation of knowledge and using their
own judgment to split what’s right and what’s wrong.

People are biased when they write and not everything that is written is good for you, so
without analyzing what you read it’s very easy to be manipulated and get drowned into
ideas of all sorts. You should understand that there is always more than one way to read
text.

Text comprehension is increased by improving your attention span and by being more
focused in your reading activity.
 Find a quiet place where you can read without getting distracted. Your local library is
a great option.
 Turn off all the devices that you have with you, such as your phone or mp3 player.
They will keep distracting you.
 Text comprehension is enhanced by expanding your vocabulary. (Check the
previous section)
 Give your book or paper a quick skim through to understand the topic. Read the
table of contents, the introduction, the chapters and other headings.
 Find out what questions is the book going to answer.
 Highlight or write down some of the main concepts as you read along.
 After you finish the book it’s always good to write your thoughts on a piece of paper
and put it in between the pages, so that you can recall the information when you
come back at it later. Do this, especially, if you read several books on the same
topic, so that you can compare the concepts presented and that way improve your
critical judgment.
Don’t hesitate to read all sorts of book genres and topics, even those that you previously
had no interest in because that’s where you’ll expand your knowledge. It could be a
fiction novel that teleports you into a whole different imaginary world or non-fiction that
tells the successful story of a Fortune 500 entrepreneur.

Speed Reading Tips and

Methods
Is It Really Possible?
You probably have heard about people who read lots of books in a very short time, and
you might have wondered how it is even possible to read books that fast. Theodore
Roosevelt was a real passionate reader. He could read a book or two in a day. John F.
Kennedy was known for his reading speed as well and encouraged all of his cabinet to
take speed reading classes.

Average readers have a speed of around 200 words per minute. Good readers can read
at about 400-500 words per minute while having good comprehension of the material.
There are people who claim to read at 800-1000 wpm but the comprehension
percentage drops and there is no point in speed reading if you don’t know what you just
read.

If, the last time that you grabbed a book to read, it took you a full month to finish it, then
you’re probably a not so good reader. Practice makes perfect, true, but you’ll never
improve your reading speed if you don’t fix some of the usual reading problems that a lot
of people have because of the way we learned to read at school.

So yes, speed reading is a skill that you can master with time and you’ll be able to enjoy
reading all those wonderful books that you never had the time to read before. There are
many methods that speed-readers use, so it’s all up to you to choose the one that works
best for you.

Speed Reading Methods That Work

Stop Subvocalizing
At school, we were taught to read each word one by one aloud, and now even if we don’t
read aloud there is still a voice inside us that sub-vocalizes each word while reading.
This is one of the key problems that make us read not as fast as we want to.

Identify that internal voice and instead of sub-vocalizing, try counting 1, 2, 3…etc. or
humming while reading. Just glide through the words with your eyes. The important thing
here is to keep practicing this as much as you can and whenever you find yourself
subvocalizing just replace it with counting or humming.

It takes time to do this perfectly because you’ll always go back to the old habit, but keep
practicing and you’ll get used to it.

Read Clusters of Words

After you overcome the problem of sub-vocalizing words while you’re reading, you need
to learn how to read clusters of words. Our eyes can focus on 3-4 words at a time, so try
grouping words and focus your eyes on those groups instead of single words.

Avoid focusing on words that don’t give any specific information, such as: and, a, an,
the…etc. Your brain will automatically pick these up and connect everything.

Stop Backtracking
One of the biggest problems that average readers face is going back and re-reading
previous lines. Backtracking will slow your down a lot, so try using your finger to avoid
going back and reading the same words.

They important thing here is to stay focused on what you’re reading, so that you don’t
have to go back and read the same lines again. With time you’ll train your eyes to stop
backtracking without having a need to use the finger all the time.

Skim Through
We pretty much all learned how to skim in the age of internet and online newspapers, so
skimming is not something that is unknown to us, but many speed readers like to skim
through text.

When you grab a book to read, it’s good to do a little bit of pre-reading in order to
understand what each chapter is about so that you can move quickly through the ones
that you’re not interested in and focus on the ones that you are.

When you skim through text your eyes will only pick the most important words in a line
and then your brain does the rest. There is no point in wasting your time reading material
that you won’t get real benefit from. So, avoid the filler text and try to find the main
chapters where the most valuable information is presented.

Read a Lot
Improving your reading speed takes time and a lot of practice, so grab a few books and
just start reading as much as you can. Keep a list of the books that you want to read and
don’t start reading a new book before finishing the last one.

Remember that reading should be an activity that is fun and that you do it for pleasure.
There is no point in speed-reading a good novel that is meant to be enjoyed in every
detail. Also, good comprehension should be your main goal when reading, so keep that
in mind.

ONLINE TOOL: ReadSpeeder – This is a free speed reading course that will help you
read faster and enhance your reading comprehension. Many people claim to have
increased their reading speed by taking this course.