Reading comprehension

“ It is easy to say understand. Why can't all comprehend, and yet how many different things may be understood by different persons reading from the same book? The pupil, though he fail to understand two or three words in a sentence, may comprehend the delicate shades of thought or its relation to what went before. You, the teacher, insist on one side of the concept, but the pupil does not require what you wish to explain to him. ”

“ It is doubtless very true, that a man of study and reflection, accustomed deliberately to weigh every expression and analyze every sentence, and to be influenced by nothing which does not bear the test of the severest examination, may be most impressed by the quiet, unpretending reading of a well digested essay or dissertation. To some men the concisest statement of a subject, with nothing to adorn the naked skeleton of thought, is most forcible. They are even impatient of any attempt to assist its effect by fine writing, by emphasis, tone, or gesture. ”

“ In gathering the separate data, it may be said that we have learned how to spell, but not yet how to read and interpret the sense. The reading must be accomplished with broad, sweeping glances, and must enable us to penetrate in thought into the very synthesis of life. ”

“ But if this branch of literature has met with so many obstructions from the ignorant, it has, certainly, been checked in its progress by the learned themselves ; most of whom have confined their study to the minute researches of verbal criticism ; like men who discover a precious mine, but instead of searching for the rich ore, or for gems, amuse themselves with collecting smooth pebbles and pieces of crystal. Others mistook reading for learning, which ought to be carefully distinguished by every man of sense ”

“ For even a moderate proficiency in the art of reading two requirements are essential: (1) A cultivated mind quick to perceive the sequence of thoughts which the words to be read logically express, and equally quick in its power sympathetically to appreciate the sentiment with which the words are informed—the feeling, emotion, passion, which pervades them—but which they suggest rather than actually portray ”

“ The Thinking activity frees itself from all sensuous representations by means of the processes of Conception and Perception. Comprehension, Judgment, and Syllogism, develop for themselves into forms which, as such, have no power of being perceived by the senses. ”

“ Perhaps there is no more severe test of the student’s apprehension of the meaning than his emphasis—using that term in its broadest sense. Determining the central idea is essentially a logical process; the student weighs and determines the value of every word, and by a process of elimination finally fixes upon the exact thought to be conveyed. ”

“ Manifestly the first requisite to reading with expression is the mastery of the thought on the part of the pupil, and this cannot be accomplished without mastery of the words. As has been said in another chapter, children should be trained to study in such a way that they [118] can decide for themselves what words present difficulties to their understanding. ”

“ When you read, then, or speak from memory, if you will let thought create feeling before you speak, you will avoid mechanical reading and speaking, and be effective in conveying the thought and feeling both together. ”

“ We are all aware that the falling inflection marks completed sense, so that this principle will require neither elaboration nor illustration. Attention must be called, however, to the fact that we often assert strongly in the middle of a sentence. This phase of the subject has been so well described by another [3] that we quote as follows:
“Momentary Completeness.—This applies to any clause, phrase, or even word, which has, for any reason, enough separate force to constitute, at the moment, an entire thought, and [62] to call for a separate affirmation of the mind. ”

“ Observation, reading, and writing are the chief means by which thought is stimulated, the mind developed, and the intellect cultivated. The habit of looking and the habit of thinking are closely related. A man thinks as he sees; and for a mind like Shakespeare's, for instance, observation is almost the only thing that is necessary for its development. ”

“ Because experience supplies an abundance of interesting, clear, and definite ideas, which are your own and which may be expressed in familiar language, it furnishes better material for training in expression than does either imagination or reading. ”

“ The primary facts upon which rests intelligibility in reading are emphasis and inflection. Let it be said at the start that no one can read well who has not thoroughly mastered the thought in the selection he is rendering. If he is compelled to search his mind for the meanings of words or to grasp the complete idea of a sentence, he unwittingly pauses and hesitates and confuses the ideas of his hearers. But if the thought of a selection is thoroughly mastered, he places the emphasis almost unerringly and by so doing raises no conflicting ideas in the mind of the listener. ”

“ In a parallel sense, if we once inspire in the children the desire to convey the message of the text, the accessories of inflection and tone will become theirs. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that these lesser phases of good reading will be secured if properly subordinated to one great aim—the desire to communicate thought. ”

“ The chief aim of questions is to arouse vigor and variety of thought as a means of better appreciation and expression. Children read poorly because they do not see the meaning or do not feel the force of the sentiment. ”

“ Yet the very habit of proposing these questions, however they may be answered, will involve the calling of ourselves to account for our reading, and the consideration of it in the light of wisdom and duty.
The distinct consciousness of some object at present before us, imparts a manifoldly greater interest to the contents of any volume. It imparts to the reader an appropriate power, a force of affinity, by which he insensibly and unconsciously attracts to himself all that has a near or even a remote relation to the end for which he reads. ”

“ No doubt every one finds himself at times reading merely words or phrases without understanding them, reflecting about them, or translating them into terms which are intelligible to his understanding. ”

“ In reading literature, pupils are continually meeting instances of false reasoning, which, if passed over without comment, do harm, and, if commented upon, require some little basis of knowledge in the pupil to enable him to understand the explanation. ”

“ If every moment as I lecture I have a clear vision of the degree of its attention and its power of comprehension, it is in my power. The other foe I have to overcome is in myself. It is the infinite variety of forms, phenomena, laws, and the multitude of ideas of my own and other people’s conditioned by them. ”

“ To cultivate mind-reading in a sensitive, the operator should first cultivate in himself the habit of projecting mental pictures, and think of things as seen by the eye, rather than as described by words. ”

“ If every word is carefully chosen, and used in an exact way to convey as much as possible, it requires no less careful reading;—as in some of our Science Primers, where the material for an ordinary chapter is condensed and reduced to the crystal of a single sentence, that demands almost equal exactness in obtaining its solution, if one would absorb all the learning compressed in so small a compass. ”

“ If you wish to become intellectually strong, after reading with the closest attention, form this habit: frequently close your book and sit and think, or stand and walk and think—but think, contemplate, reflect. ”

“ Clues in written language are clues to language first of all, and only afterwards clues to human experience. Accordingly, reading a text requires an elaborate cognitive reconstruction of the experience expressed, and probably a never-ending questioning of the appropriateness of its understanding. When a text is read, there is nobody to be questioned, nobody to actively understand the understanding, to challenge it. ”

“ These can be most readily acquired by noting the meaning of every new word across which one may come in reading, and by constantly consulting a dictionary, preferably one which compares or contrasts words in such a manner as to bring out clearly the finer and nicer distinctions in their meanings—such distinctions as are necessary to the student to put him into possession of the essential differences of the words compared. Learn the meaning of words and your tongue will never slip. ”

“ Two-fold purpose: Thought-getting and thought-giving in the author’s words. General and Special preparation. Exercises in Enunciation, Pronunciation, Articulation, Vocabulary.
[1]
CHAPTER I
READING AND PUBLIC SPEECH
It is the first and last object of education “to teach people how to think.” When we consider the vast wealth of great thoughts felt and expressed by great men of all times and recorded for us in books, should we not give serious reflection upon what we read and how we read? ”

“ The reading which we should desire to cultivate is intelligent reading, that is, it should express the meaning of each passage clearly; sympathetic reading, that is, it should convey the feeling delicately ”

“ To study thought through its outward form, the sentence, and to discover the fitness of the different parts of the expression to the parts of the thought, is to learn to think. It has been noticed that pupils thoroughly trained in the analysis and the construction of sentences come to their other studies with a decided advantage in mental power. ”

“ Reading ought to mean understanding; writing ought to mean knowing something; believing ought to mean comprehending; when you desire a thing, you will have to take it; when you demand it, you will not get it; and when you are experienced, you ought to be useful to others. ”

“ Devices for checking comprehension are suggested in connection with each exercise. The more usual and effective methods of teaching comprehension are dramatization, reproduction, writing of headlines, development of outlines, expression of opinion based upon facts read, topical analysis, the naming of characters and statements of their relationships, and appreciation of ethical or artistic appeal. ”

“ Gradually our objection will become definite, clear, forceful. In short, we shall not only have improved our way of stating our thought; we shall have improved the thought itself. To study clearness of statement or acquisition of vocabulary is to study means of improving thought. ”

“ First; to develop what may be termed the logical side of reading; in other words, the intellectual side. The greatest stress should be laid on getting the sense, which is, of course, the basis of all reading. ”

“ Hence in some cases it becomes a question whether most mental effort will be entailed by the many and long suspensions, or by the correction of successive misconceptions.
§ 28. This question may sometimes be decided by considering the capacity of the persons addressed. A greater grasp of mind is required for the ready comprehension of thoughts expressed in the direct manner, where the sentences are anywise intricate. ”

“ To determine the rôle of this inevitably active, albeit silent, factor is a difficult enterprise, and one that is necessarily inaccurate,—since it amounts to the translation of obscure and enveloped states into the clear and analytical language of consciousness. The simplest procedure is to examine how we arrive at the comprehension of general terms. [86] Set a page of a philosophical work before the eyes of a novice or of a man wholly ignorant of the subject. He understands nothing. ”

“ I am persuaded that nothing, in modern education, tends so much, when properly used, to form exact thinkers, who attach a precise meaning to words and propositions, and are not imposed on by vague, loose, or ambiguous terms. ”

“ Does it not follow, then, that the more accurately we use words the closer definition we shall give to our thoughts? “And by drilling ourselves to write perspicuously we train our minds to clarify our thought, since language is the expression of thought. ”

“ You exhibit a predominance of the reflective intellect over the perceptive, and are characterized for thought, judgment, and the power to comprehend ideas, more than for your knowledge of things, facts, circumstances or conditions of things. ”

“ Now this dependence of the cognitive mind on its organ of language, discursive indeed, but yet almost always figurative—this close and intimate connection between man’s knowledge and his speech—is even the characteristic mark of human intelligence. ”

“ But instead of following up this natural indication, and developing the thought by the exercise of the reason, we proceed as if the being under our charge were incapable of reason; we overload the memory of the child with a multitude of words, whose value he cannot understand until later in life, and perhaps never. The true direction of the mind is to proceed from the thought to the word, and not from the word to the thought. ”

“ Then when a great man delivered a learned lecture upon any subject, we could understand his words, for there would be only one word with the same meaning, instead of a multiplicity of words all meaning the same thing, as is the case now. ”

“ we of this age have discovered a shorter, and more prudent method, to become scholars and wits, without the fatigue of reading or of thinking. ”

“ First, we must form the habit of observing the meanings and values of words, the structure of sentences, of paragraphs, and of entire compositions as we read standard literature―just as we have been trying to form the habit of observing the spelling of words, and the logical relationships of words in sentences. In order that we may know what to look for in our observation we must analyse a little, but we will not imagine that we shall learn to do a thing by endless talk about doing it. ”