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Reading - "the literature" - Mastering Print Technology

"In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. ... the king cried out to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans and the soothsayers. The king said to the wise men of Babylon, "Whoever shall read this writing, and show me what it means, shall be clothed with scarlet and have a chain of gold about his neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom." Then came in all the king's wise men; but they could not read the writing nor tell what it meant. ... Then Daniel answered and said before the king. "Keep your gifts and give your presents to someone else; yet I will read the writing to the king and make known to him the interpretation." (Daniel 5:1-17)

A frightening set of words supernaturally written on a wall; rulership if someone could read them and understand what they meant. What the wise men couldn't do, Daniel with God's help, did. The man who heard from heaven for a kings' dream, could also read and understand the writing on the wall. Millennia later, the scenario is the same. The man who can read still rules in the kingdom of those who cannot.

READERS ARE LEADERS

"When you come, bring with you the books, especially the parchments." (2 Tim. 4:13)

Print technology will never go away. We will always need the permanence and convenience of hard-copy. Reading develops the structuring, analyzing side of your mind. Good readers also become good writers and speakers. The same disciplines that help you read well also train you to share with others well. Reading for many young people is almost forgotten. Too often we rely on TV for information and enjoyment as a substitute for reading. All useful resources are welcome, but without reading you cut down many vast learning opportunities, including expanding your vocabulary and creativity. If you are a leader you need to read. (I Tim. 4:13)

Readers Are Breeders: CONTINUAL READING is one key way to continued creativity. Your mind needs fresh ideas just like your body needs fresh good food. Read often. Read always. Get into a HABIT of reading. Read widely. Read some hard technical stuff; read cartoons. READ LIKE YOU EAT; mix your diet. Read more than one thing at a time. Read novels and theology books. Read the classics; read the Bible in as many versions as you can find. As you read widely, you get an idea of what is good and bad writing and thinking. It will help you get the sense of what is great and what is a waste of time.

Readers are Weeders: Learn what to read and what to pass over. Francis Shaeffer said most Christians don't READ ENOUGH and they READ TOO MUCH. We either ignore books for visual or auditory input (TV, movies, tapes, CD-s) or read without thought and jam our brains with the useless. Discriminate in your reading. Books and magazines are expensive. My BOOK-BUYING RULE is ten cents for a useable idea; a dollar or more for a great idea. Scout a new book before you buy it. If it doesn't match up, don't spend your lunch money on it. On the other hand, if you see it as significant or important don't pass it up for another time. Bite the bullet. Buy the book. You probably need it.
Readers Are Feeders: What you learn you can pass on to others. MARK BOOKS with this in mind. Ask yourself: Who could I help with this material? To help retain it better, SHARE what you find as soon as you get the chance. Recommend great books to others. Buy extra copies of life-changers to give away to friends. John Wesley would not let you in the Methodist ministry unless you read at least three books a week plus your Bible. His Methodists did more to help England read than any other teachers of their time.

HISTORY

History is the story of Gods creation, from beginning to end. It is the record of His works with individuals and nations that glorified Him or forgot Him. From history we gain knowledge of what once was. We can both learn from others mistakes, and be somewhat enabled to predict that which is to come. The great power of the book is its ability to put you immediately in another time, another place, another world. You can without moving, explore whole different realms and journey not only to the past but to the future. When you tap into this treasure of time, you can think the thoughts of great men and women of God who have gone before you. You can see how they tried to deal with the trials and triumphs of their time. You can learn lessons of life for your own day and your own generation. (Hab. 2:2)

When you read, READ WIDELY. Read not only what is going on today, read what went on before you were born. And you will find something wonderful. Truths that can change a nation and ideas God gave to heal the hurts of a world lie hidden in dusty pages waiting for someone like you to discover again. History holds keys not only to the past but to the future.

That is why C.S. Lewis said you should read at least a couple of OLD BOOKS for every new book. A new book shares the values and mind-sets of your time; an old book, that of another. An old book may not always say what you know to be true, but then again, neither will a new one. What then is the value of this comparison? Read through the eyes of the old book, and you will see clearly not only the weaknesses and fallacies of their age, but the weakness and fallacies of your own. History helps you see not only the past more clearly, but today and tomorrow. Don't despise history. Those who do not learn from it will be compelled to repeat it.

Read the history of the people who have gone before you in God. Read not only about them, but read them; in their own words. Most times you will find that few modern critics can tell what these dreamers thought and believed and dared better than the ones who lived to name their age. Read the stories of men and women who affected their worlds, like Martin Luther, George Washington, William & Catherine Booth, Charles Finney, John Wesley, Mother Teresa. (We give you a good simple biography reading list and some great classic general Christian reading books in the Appendices.)

BUILDING A LIBRARY:

Every Christian needs to build a good library. Choose books that will teach, encourage and equip you to do the task you feel God is calling you to. Some of the sections you might have on your bookshelves:

(1) Biography: the lives of men and women of God. Read these to see what God did through consecrated people. See what God gave them, what they accomplished in their time. Learn from their mistakes and victories. Challenge yourself by what they were doing at your age.

(2) Study: You will need the best books you can afford that will help you understand what God says in His word. Lexicons, dictionaries, a thesaurus, atlases, concordances are all significant investments you will use for the rest of your life. Bibles, translations and paraphrases of different kinds will give you wider insight to God's Word.

(3) Research: Encyclopedias and reference sets. See if you can pick up a second-hand set cheaply. Perhaps you will come across some that are slightly damaged or out-of-date.

(4) Counseling: God calls His Church to do two things in evangelism; win the lost and train them to take over the world for Jesus. Ask older Christian friends who have a great walk with God for any books they recommend you can spend your hard-earned money on without being disappointed. Think of how Gods' law in His Word applies to families, businesses, government, the arts, the sciences and the Church.

(5) Apologetics: Clarify the Gospel or the character of God by "evidence that demands a verdict". You will meet many people who want or need answers to some of the most basic questions they have about God. Build your library with books that meet this need.

(6) Sets: As you grow in Jesus you will come across the writings of some Christians that have particular appeal to you and your ministry. Collect all they wrote whenever you can. We all have our heroes. If you read what they wrote, some of it will rub off on you.

(7) Technical and cultural: You will also collect books and studies particular to the work you do and the world you live in. To learn to be the best you can in a world that needs Jesus, keep your eye out for books that can help in this area. Now, to cover them -

READ WITH MORE SPEED

And that has nothing at all to do with drugs! A novel in 30 minutes flat? Dr. Zhivago or War and Peace in a day? Maybe you won't be that good, but here are some tips to push your reading rate up a few notches:

In your spare time, give yourself a reading-speed test. Use a simple story-type book on something you would like, but with neither too dull or too interesting a subject matter. As a model of simplicity and style, something like The Pearl by John Steinbeck or The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway are good examples. Set a time limit of one minute by either using a kitchen timer or having a friend time you with a sweep-second hand. Read at your normal "pleasure-reading" speed. Stop on time, and count the number of words. Below 300 words poor; 300-349 fair; 350-399-good; over 399 - awesome!

IMPROVING YOUR READING RATE:

If you were a little slow, here's what to do:

(1) DON'T READ ALOUD. Put your finger on your lips while reading; there should be no movement. Break yourself of the unconscious habit of reading aloud under your breath. Hold the book up so your body is upright and more alert, not slumped down.

(2) Be aware of the MEANINGS of GROUPS of words, not the individual words themselves. Just go through, trying to pick up the CONTENT of what is happening. Don't get hung up on admiring the shape of each letter.

(3) Go for ESSENTIALS only. Your eyes do NOT move steadily along the line of print, but "jump" from group to group. If you read looking for a special group of words or a key paragraph, you can sometimes grasp up to three lines in one "jump" just by flicking your eyes from section to section, just touching on essentials. Cut down on back-skipping by increasing your speed. Extra back-skipping helps make your eyes tired.

(4) Read the next passage, but this time PUSH yourself. Don't dwell on words or "chew" them over. Just blaze on rapidly, picking out only the key words in the material.

The simple way to increase your speed and cut down on back-skipping is to use a VISUAL AID as a point of focus under the line you are reading. Use your finger, a pen or pencil. Within the first few hours of using such an aid, most people can nearly double their reading rate, cut back-skipping by 50% and reduce the number of times you stop at a line by 40%. Re-time yourself. Do this often.

The typical reader takes in just over a word with each eye-stop; the best can take in about 2.5. We all actually "see" words faster than our brains can begin to grasp them. Boredom in reading comes when our reading speed is not at the same pace as our minds; like listening to someone speak one ... word... at.. a ... time. By better alertness, we can begin to use our eyes like two fast cameras, "shooting" everything on a page in a very rapid scan. However, if you want to see each word, even the best readers can only take in about 800-900 words a minute.

DYSLEXIA - A GIFT IN DISGUISE

Many people still have a hard time reading that has little to do with not being smart or fast enough to keep up with others. There are many causes of reading disability. One is when you try to learn words by trying to memorize the appearance of them all instead of by the sounds of the parts that make it up (phonics). There are programs you can take to re-learn words this way like Hooked On Phonics and the Writing Way To Reading.

But besides this, one of the most puzzling problems that affects literally hundreds of thousands of people is the inability to see words the way most people are taught to. Ronald Davis, author of The Gift Of Dyslexia and founder of the Reading Research Councils Dyslexia Correction Center believes dyslexia is not a handicap nor a disability but a special gift of perception that utilized properly can be the stuff of genius.

Davis claims many of the worlds' smartest people actually get their creative and intuitive powers from the same perceptual talent that can hinder them in "book learning." Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Walt Disney, Hans Christian Anderson and other talented people in history in the arts, sciences and sports were dyslexic. He calls what others consider a handicap an alternate form of perception many of us are born with but never develop like a dyslexic. He has taught thousands of previous dyslexic people to read, write and study normally. If not suppressed or destroyed, this gift can result in great intelligence and extraordinary creative ability; and ultimately, the greatest gift: the ability of mastery in a subject or chosen area.

People labeled as dyslexic have eight things in common with their key brain ability to alter and create perception. They are more curious than average, deeply aware of what is going on around them. They think more in pictures than words. They are highly intuitive and insightful; they think and see using all of their senses (multi-dimensionally). They have vivid imaginations and can experience thought as reality.

We can think of words as sounds (verbal) or pictures (visual). Verbal thinking is linear, one thought at a time and is about as fast as speech - 150 words a minute, 2.5 a second up to a perception limit of 200-250 words a minute. Visual thinking is holistic, subliminal and much faster; some 32 pictures a second, six to ten times more than verbal. Pictures can show a concept that might take hundreds or thousands of words to describe; visual thought is estimated to be some 400-2,000 times faster than verbal thought and while often subconscious, is deeper, more thorough and comprehensive. The language of the Holy Spirit is often visual. (Job 33:14-17; Dan. 2:19; Acts 16:9; 18:9).

While conditioning is a simple and much-used/abused form of learning, people made in God's image have much more effective incentive to learn in the God-given gift of curiosity. He says "It is a mistake to confuse the memorization of the data with the understanding of the data. And it is an even bigger mistake to confuse the understanding of the data with knowledge. All real knowledge is experiential." Trained and channeled by faith and truth, curiosity is the dynamic behind creativity.

Dyslexia to Davis is a individual conditioning liability not a true learning disability; when learning is linked with real-life experience like on-the-job training, athletics and the arts, people can master many things faster than the average person can comprehend them. "Mastery is more than just fast learning. Mastery is a level of learning where conscious thought is no longer required. It is the ability to own data learned as actual experience. When someone masters something, it becomes a part of that person. It becomes a part of the individuals thought and creative process. It adds the quality of its essence to all subsequent thought and creativity of the individual" (p.107)

Davis, himself a previous dyslexic offers a way in which others can train themselves to re-orient their learning process. His method of symbol mastery involves (a) teaching the dyslexic to build their own visual 3-D representations of the 200+ letters words and numbers that have no real-life picture equivalent (like a, the, can. been etc.) and (b) learning to turn off or re-orientate their ability to see things in all perspectives at once. Books, video and audio are available. (Ability Workshop Press Burlingham CA. 1-800 897-9001)


SCOUTING A BOOK

Sometimes you aren't going to seriously study any book at all; you are either just trying to learn what it's generally about, or you are looking for some important or needed point in the text. "Scanning" (fast skimming) and "scouting" (pre-reading) will help.

To SCAN a book for its general content, first read any index or chapters it has by titles only. Then just flip through it, letting your eyes drift from section to section, pausing only on brief opening paragraphs and ends of chapters. Push on quickly; don't dawdle. If you're looking for a key word or paragraph; FIX CLEARLY in our mind the exact word you are looking for; then "sweep" down the center of the lines as quickly as you possibly can, concentrating ONLY for that word. Your eyes will hit it, and because your mind is carrying a picture of the word it will "home in" the second your eyes cut past it. In this way, you can sometimes scan" a page every three seconds!

Speed-reading is never the best for solid material that takes a lot of attentive thought or for memory work; but by practice, you can even speed up somewhat your ability to comprehend what you are reading faster. Don't you DARE use this idea on your Bible readings for personal worship and devotion! Here you want to take the time to meditate on God's Word. But faster reading will save you a lot of time in outlining material, getting rough ideas of plots, and increasing your knowledge of different subjects.

When your aim is to get a quick take on what a book is all about, you can combine scanning with scouting, a method that can save you a great deal of time if you take a little extra time when you first pick up a book.

To SCOUT: Do a quick CHECK FIRST on books, texts or articles to see if it has what you are looking for. You've seen the test that reads: "First read the whole paper through". Scattered right through are directions like "Call out "I'm at stage one!" and "Yell - 'I'm getting near the end!". Right at the last paragraph it reads: "Ignore all the middle stages; do only the last two questions."

Save time before you study or read new material. Scout it first. Do it in this order:
(1) Read the title, subtitles and jacket summary. Is this what you really want?
(2) Check copyright date, author or source. Is it up-to-date? Is this writer qualified?
(3) Read any Table of Contents. Look for summaries. Check one out. Is it complete?
(4) Glance over the Index at the back of the book. Look for words you need. How much space is given to those ideas, people or events that are important to you?
(5) Read the Preface, Foreword and the Introduction. How does the writer treat his subject? Who does he think his audience is? What is his attitude towards it and you?
(6) Check out illustrations, maps, graphics, bold headings, study questions. Useful?
(7) Pick a paragraph or two and read it. Difficult? Good, clear communication?
(8) Review this survey. Now decide: are you going to use this or not?

Used rightly, scouting new material will save you hundreds of hours a year of otherwise wasted time or money. SCOUT FIRST. It takes far less time to do than tell.
Learn Incorporated offers an excellent home study course with this as introduction in Speed Learning Mount Laurel Plaza 113 Gaither Dr. Mount Laurel NJ 08054-9987.


USING A DICTIONARY, THESAURUS AND CONCORDANCE:

Dictionaries are simply alphabetical arrangements of words and their meanings. Each word is arranged alphabetically by letter. You look up a word by the place of its letters. Dictionaries give you not only how to SPELL a word, but also its range of MEANING. Many words mean different things depending on how they are used in sentences. Len Ravenhill had a great mastery of the English language, As a young evangelist he made it a practice to learn a new page of the Oxford dictionary every day. It enabled him not only to write powerfully but to preach for hours at a time and hold audiences spellbound with his command of the Word. You can buy other-language dictionaries and even rhyming dictionaries that put together all the words that sound or end the same.

A thesaurus is a book that gives you arrangements of words that have similar meanings; words arranged by IDEAS, not just by alphabetical order. Use a thesaurus to get a bigger collection of words to say something in a way that may be more exact or powerful than the word you began with. Instead of small, you might have little, tiny, short, miniature, diminutive, petite and so on. Use a thesaurus when you are writing imaginatively; browse through these word-sets to help give you more images and word pictures to better describe or capture an idea you are trying to communicate. A thesaurus can TRIGGER YOUR IMAGINATION and help get you started when you are composing a poem, a song or any kind of writing where you want to move peoples hearts and emotions.

A concordance is an index of words from a particular book, usually the Bible. It tells you where a particular Scripture word or phrase you can partly remember is found in the text of the book. It often is combined with a lexicon that will tell you the original range of meanings of that word you know in English as it was used in the original language like Hebrew or Greek. (See How to Study the Bible in Perception) All these study tools are also available as computer add-ons or helps in a good word-processor program, They can save you much time and check your writing more accurately than you might do by hand.