Communication Matters (Part 5)
How do we read?
Reading is essentially done for two purposes:
i. To get some information
ii. To get entertained
For us to achieve these two purposes we actually perform 4 types of reading processes instinctively. Don’t you follow different strategies when you read a newspaper and when you read a message from your girlfriend or boyfriend?😜
Let us glance through the different types of reading and their purposes.
i. Skimming: Skimming is the act of giving a casual glance through reading materials. We typically skim through newspapers, magazines and any material from which we would like to get the basic idea; for example, you will quickly flip through the pages of a novel in a library to see if the book would be interesting to you; to quote a more familiar scenario — you skim through topics before the day of examination.
ii. Scanning: Scanning is reading quickly through a reading material to find specific information. While skimming is to avoid reading line by line but to grasp the idea of a writing, scanning involves reading line by line as quickly as possible to spot a piece of particular information. Precisely, skimming means quick reading while scanning refers to selective reading.
iii. Intensive Reading: As the name implies, this involves in-depth reading. During intensive reading, the reader pays attention to the linguistic or semantic details as well as the structure of the reading material. We are expected to indulge in intensive reading of our textbooks and reference materials! Research will invariably involve intensive reading — reading, concentrating, comprehending, and processing the reading material is intensive reading. We enjoy extensive reading when we read something that we like. Precisely, Intensive Reading is thorough reading.
iv. · Extensive Reading: Extensive Reading means to read substantial amount of texts to understand a particular topic. It involves a lot of reading but is not in-depth or focused. Reading for pleasure would typically fall under Extensive Reading. This type of reading will invariably make you a voracious reader.
Getting to know the different types of reading may not have any direct impact on your communication skills; however, being aware of this would make you a conscious reader who would feel encouraged to read more and more and voracious reading, as you know, improves your communication skills.
