Technical Reading and Writing Practices: Effective Reading

Effective Technical Reading Practices

Importance of Reading

• Reading is a crucial skill for success in both academic and professional life.
• Good readers are good communicators, and reading skills cannot be ignored.

Benefits of Effective Reading

• Provides comprehensible input from the text.
• Enhances the ability to use other language skills like listening, speaking, and writing.
• Expands vocabulary.
• Helps maintain focus and prevents distractions.
• Enables efficient extraction of useful information.
• Builds confidence in reading longer texts.
• Provides pleasure and relaxation.
• Facilitates the development of skills like making predictions, comparing, and hypothesizing.

Speed of Reading

• Average college students read between 150-250 words per minute.
• "Good" reading speed is around 250-400 words per minute.
• Purpose of reading affects reading speed: memorization (fewer than 100 wpm), learning (100-200 wpm), comprehension (200-400 wpm), and skimming (400-700 wpm).

Efficient Reading vs. Inefficient Reading

• An efficient reader reads for ideas or information, while an inefficient reader tries to read words.
• An efficient reader reads groups of words or multi-phrases, while an inefficient reader reads word by word.
• An efficient reader adjusts speed according to the text, while an inefficient reader reads at a fixed pace.

Four Basic Steps to Effective Reading

• Figure out the purpose of reading a particular text.
• Identify relevant parts of the text and ignore the rest.
• Use background knowledge and selectivity to focus on specific elements of information.
• Continuously improve reading pace and sort out material as critical, interesting, analytical, etc.