BEST ADVICE FOR SLOW READERS

do you consider yourself slow reader do you start off year with resolution to read more books but before long you find yourself straggling behind your goals or maybe book is too large and you begin to wear out trying to get to the end of it wishing you could just read three times the pace you do well in this video I'm going to be giving advice to anyone who considers themselves slow reader or maybe advice for those who want to read larger novels so without further Ado let's get stuck in shall we after the initial excitement of looking at books maybe just standing in Bookshop thinking of all the Delights and we imagine ourselves of having read them if you consider yourself slower reader you probably suddenly get that feeling of intimidation and then almost lassitude you know that that mental and physical drop in energy because you realize that because you're slow reader it's going to take you so long to get through Book Like War and Peace that is it really worth the effort we want to have read it but doing the reading is bit of problem but it doesn't change the fact that we want to read it now if that's you want to tell you straight away that the answer to this problem is not taking speed reading course of course if you learn to read faster okay that could be helpful but it doesn't necessarily make you enjoy the book more in many respects the first bit of advice that I'm going to give you is the most important advice of all and it's this you'll struggle with reading if you feel you're slower reader is not so much your reading pace as it is your impatience and dissatisfaction now just let that sink in the problems not so much our reading Pace as it is our impatience and dissatisfaction now what's so great about this is impatience and dissatisfaction are internal features we can change them and when you do whole new Panorama opens to you in the way that you perceive reading now give you an example just grab pile of books okay so look at all these books here they're all Biggins apart from the top one Wuthering Heights counter Monte Cristo Vanity Fair Ulysses Anna Karenina Martin chuzzle with the December on Middle March and the Magnificent Les Miserables now we all want to have read these books we all want to know what the stories are and and feel that we've been infected by the Brilliance of the writing on the page I'll just put these down minute foreign lies the problem when we're reading book say The Count of Monte Cristo we start off all Pepin Ginger and Vim and it's very enthralling read so we get quite way into it but then because we want to read so many books we start looking to how far have got left to get to the end of the book well reading is not about the end of book reading is about the journey in the book about the pleasure of experiencing it we're going to come on to this in in our second point but do you notice what's happening we're becoming impatient to finish the book why probably because we have so many books we want to have read and notice didn't say we want to read If we're honest it's we have so many books we want to have read we want to get past reading them Now isn't that unusual the pleasure should come from the reading not the having finished and that breeds huge problem particularly if you're slower reader because what happens let's say you have got yourself through 450 pages of the book and then you realize that there's another 450 pages left to go because you want to finish what does impatience make you do it starts to make you try to speed read it tries to it starts to make you try and go faster than you can and what happens then you start skipping bits and then your mind gets to the end of page and you think don't know what I've just read and you have to go back and read it again that makes you more impatient which makes you it makes the book tiresome it makes it laborious no longer are you traveling through beautiful Valley with mountains either side dotted in flowers the blue sky and the Beautiful white clouds and everything's wonderful gods in his heaven and all's well with the world suddenly your experience of the book is you're dragging 10 sacks of potatoes on broken sledge through quagmire of mud back in the 1700s in the pouring rain with sodden fields and your clothes are all ripped you know it's not pleasant and guess what for the majority of people that read book like the count they will get halfway through and stop and they will never finish the book in their whole life and the reason is because they think can't remember what the story fully was now so need to go back and read the first 500 pages again and that's going to take ages and just want to get it read so they don't start do you see how that is what impatience does the other word mentioned was dissatisfaction I'm not going to pick up the well will let me pick some of the books up again just got smaller cluster here dissatisfaction there's proverb that says expectation postponed makes the heart sick in other words when we desire something and it keeps getting put off we eventually wear out we become depressed we give up now imagine you think you're slumber reader and you think want to have read these books by the end of the year now what's that there's five of them there if it takes you long time to just finish one and then you see you've still got all these left but you want to have read them not read them to have read them that's the problem you can become dissatisfied with how far you've got and that does one of two things it either sets you off on the second book rushing and hence you're doomed to fail or you just think well I'm too slow reader it's it's not worth my effort I'll do something else but guarantee you something the following year you'll want to start trying to read again so dissatisfaction is actually the problem in not finishing books not your pace of reading so want you to think about that want you to say this to yourself it's okay how fast read what matters is that just keep reading and enjoying the story okay you don't need to read faster you need to be content just say I'm enjoying this I'm doing this for myself there is no rush be content Insight at your own pace and actually the things that mess up your reading which are impatience and dissatisfaction if you don't have those two things you'll be able to read any book that you like and it won't matter how long it takes you so that's Point number one want you to give yourself permission to read at your own pace without trying to read faster want you to remember that the problem is not how fast you read it is your own impatience and dissatisfaction and maybe two grand Target now the second bit of advice for enjoying reading when you are slower reader is absolutely invaluable want you to know that as slower reader in many respects you have an advantage over quick readers now that's not saying that quick readers can't gather as much information in as slowly does that's that's manifestly untrue it's been demonstrated that the recall of fast readers is just as good even not better than slower readers however we're talking about the classics primarily novels and reading novels is different game altogether when you step into novel you step into world and when you're in that world you can either briskly walk up to the main tourist attractions have look at them and then move on or you can become citizen of the place that you are walking in something happened to me once in in London it was The Portrait Gallery the Royal Portrait Gallery now have you ever been to museum where there's lots of portraits loads of pictures and Art Museum what do most people do now most of us that go in We're Not educated in the Arts we've got no background in that we know that they're supposed to be you know great pieces of civilization somehow so we go in there and we put all through the rooms going from one picture to the next picture quick look round to the next picture another look around and so on and so forth now was in the Royal Portrait Gallery and came across these two chaps who were sat on one of the benches just looking at this big picture which Frank don't know what the picture was frankly didn't look that interested it just looked like group of people and not even famous people and walked around the room and looked at everything and read the little bit underneath all the pictures and went to these guys and they were still looking at this one picture and thought they must be like aren't students or something and said to them can ask you something why have you took all this time to look at that one picture when I've looked at the whole room are you studying that one picture for like course or something and they said no and I'll never forget what they said to me because this applies to reading good literature they said you cannot see picture in just few minutes that want you to let that sink in it's bit like what Sherlock Holmes said to Watson you know you you look but you don't see as you take it in they were saying people that are walking around and just quickly looking at the picture they can never take in what's in that picture they will never notice any specific details about the way the picture may be is divided the way the composition is set the way different facial expressions are being used there may be just the placement of hand the lighting of window in the background cloud some of it may not be particularly important so even the artist who painted it but you have to sit and let the picture come over you into or sort of let you be sucked into it to inhabit the picture and you know started doing this and began without any training any knowledge getting really wrapped up in certain works of art so much so that one time was at the Cardiff there was the Cardiff Art Museum and they had picture of Madonna with pinks by Raphael they had that there and they had it temporarily so stood there thinking of what these guys said and stood looking at that picture for ages and stepped closer to it and moved further away didn't know if this would make difference really didn't and it was interesting because someone came up and said you must be like an art critic because you've been looking at that for ages and said no not at all I've just been told that you can't see picture in few minutes and so I'm trying to let it talk to me but don't know anything about art Now isn't that interesting that's going to apply to our second point on reading when you're reading novel you are entering world you cannot briskly run through that world and actually be part of it you can't see the World by just reading the story that's like just going to see the quick sites that's like just going one painting to the other and the Art Gallery is saying I've looked at them all and had good time and it was lovely you have to slow down take the time to see it and this is where your slow reading pace is actually an advantage for instance if you're reading book say by Charles Dickens Dickens is very much character-driven author he loves his characters he spends so much time developing them he as an author used to practice when writing in front of mirror trying to make mannerisms using his voice because he was very good impersonator and he would put all of that into character now in order to really extract the most out of those characters you have to hear them speak now you can read at 800 words minute if you're super reader but one thing you don't do when you do that is you don't internal monologue you don't literally hear the sounds of the words you take them in as shot on the page but that means you can't hear the nuances as well of the voice you may remember the story you may remember great details but you're not in the world fly on the wall listening to the conversation you don't pick up necessarily all of the strains of what's going on even the great critic Harold Bloom who could read stupendous amount of words per minute he said many book go into and have to force myself to slow down so that can listen so as slower reader you might be reading at the pace that you normally talk which is about 250 words minute okay so at that speed you would read 50 pages in two and half hours now that's good thing because what you're doing when you read book is you want to immerse yourself in the world you don't want to have read the book you want to live in the book breathe the air see the fog the Pea Soup as they called it feel the soot coming down in those industrial cities notice the grime in the walkways behold the vast Corinthian columns of the architecture of great cities and buildings reside for while in the back Alleyways of Jack the Ripper's London feel the the malevolent breath coming along in the wind which may carry murderer or some Darkness with it or behold and feel the sun shining down or the brush of the the breeze upon the face like in words was Prelude you want to be there not race through there and to that end there's way you can read books which will really give you loads out of it at the end of this video would like you to go and watch my other video which is on how to read book properly or how to read book well think I've called it I'll put the link in but go there straight after this video because you'll see how it factors into you if you feel you're slower reader how that's actually to your benefits so that's the second tip if you feel you're slow reader notice have not asked you to learn to read quicker I've actually told you to embrace your speed and allow that speed to let you live in the pages and remember if we've got rid of impatience and dissatisfaction we no longer are rushing to have read the book we're not interested in the Finish we're interested in the experience and one other thing regarding that is being vastly read is not being well read know plenty of people who have read loads and yet far more than me and yet in conversations they've listened to few talking and gone never got that out of the book just remember the story but you see they just went to the tourist sites the quick points of the tale they never stopped to become citizen of its pages so let's move on to brilliant tip now the third tip so this tip is called what 10 pages at bedtime looks like by now you should already realize and hope you're getting sort of bit of an energy bit of an inspiration to just get on with reading and enjoy the reading not trying to finish the book okay it's going to take bit of mental adjustment you'll still find yourself being impatient and Desiring to read more than maybe your speed allows work against that just say am living in the book you will get far more out of it than reading Lots but now I'm going to give you bit of advice if you're slower reader or you're just looking to read more or you're trying to break through the big bugs and it's this get into habit it could be any part of the day but I'm going to give you this one go to bed bit earlier half an hour earlier at night and read just 10 pages of book every single night you don't need to take break because every night you have to go to bed so just make sure you go to bed half an hour early or stay up half an hour later while you're sat in bed reading hen pages now if we get rid of impatience and become satisfied with just 10 pages night something remarkable will happen for you no matter what your pace of reading is let me show you what that is I'm going to pick up book this random one picked up here Vanity Fair so Vanity Fair Thackery phenomenal piece of work very sweeping huge cast of characters one that most people would like to have read but many people have read quarter of or half of then tired out through impatience and never gone back to well let me tell you how many pages it is here okay well what does that tell us if you were to read 10 pages day you would need 74 days to read it now say 10 pages not just because it's round number on average most chapters are around 10 pages sometimes they're 11 sometimes they're 20 but often you'll get ones that are four or five pages so it balances out now 74 days we often when we're feeling impatient or dissatisfied with our amount of reading that we've done in our life we often think right just want to get this behind me wouldn't it be great if read this in week and then what happens instead of that bright Valley and mountains beautiful scenery of book we end up in the potato field with the rain and the wind and the mud and the bleakness okay and it becomes hard and what what actually happened is it can break you for the rest of your years reading spoke to professor once and he said because yeah we were talking he just said how many people go to university because they love reading and they want literature degree and by the end of the degree they no longer want to read because they've had to plow through so much rather than just enjoy the experience so by doing 10 pages day what will happen is in 74 days you will have finished Vanity Fair look at the size of that okay but better than that by only reading 10 pages guess what you're able to do as you read it you you're able to be citizen you can stop now the video mentioned that you must go and watch at the end of this talks about annotating if you only take 10 pages you have time to let those 10 pages sink in to become more familiar with the names maybe to spend bit of time picturing the scene and designing it in your head rather than racing on to get more of the story and of course you can go further if you like but if you just stick to that discipline in less than three months you'll have knocked off book like this but it gets better and remember that's just sitting in bed I'll show you how good it actually gets 10 pages day by the end of the year will have given you that stack of books read just sitting in bed almost as if you've done nothing you'll have read Vanity Fair Wuthering Heights Ulysses by James Joyce Anna Karenina and The Count of Monte Cristo that's what you can get through in one year 10 pages day to put that in other terms if you don't necessarily want to read the big books 10 pages day will allow you in year to read Brides had Revisited perfume by suskind Charlotte bronte's Jane Eyre Great Expectations 1984 Moby Dick Pride and Prejudice Frankenstein 12 Years Slave and dostoevsky's crime and punishment and one's fallen off here which would be the book Don kazmuro by Machado giazis that by doing 10 pages night in bed but those 10 pages are flavorful pages you will roll them around your mouth like sweet chocolate or fine wine you will walk amongst the pages you will hear the voices of the people you'll have time to make your own personal notes in those 10 pages and they will begin to speak to you now begin to inform you to change you to move you to argue with you and even though some may Read 50 books in year 100 books in year the chances are they won't be as conversant or familiar as you are with these 11. now hope that this video has inspired you hope it's made you get excited the hardest of the tips to apply is the first one to change impatience and dissatisfaction rather than say want to read amount of books day want you to say to yourself am going to do tip number three I'm going to make it habit of mine to read 10 pages day now you might be thinking can read more than that great by all means read more than that but make sure you read 10 pages night in bed and something you can mix with this let's say you were reading shorter book so for instance I've got Patrick suskin's perfume here pretty short 250 Pages or so thereabouts you might just want to sit and read that maybe 40 50 pages day but if you go to bed at night say with Martin chuzzlewitt which is about 800 pages and read 10 pages of chiselwick per night you would still knock this off your list during your own reading and then other books through the month but all of sudden on month number three you'll have suddenly also got through Martin chuzzlewitt as bit of bonus so that's another way of how to read big books as well without tiring out is to read little of them every single day I'm Gonna Leave You with an illustration that when you eat good chocolates so if someone's bought you like you you in in Britain you buy Thornton's chocolates for people because they're sort of nice but really good chocolates are like Godiva chocolates you know from London amazing now the Temptation for most people is you want to try all of the flavors and we eat them rather quickly but did you know I've been I've been told on good authority that the right way to eat chocolates is to have one to put it in your mouth to suck it gently not bite it so that your mouth can coat in the chocolate first and then when you bite it the innards will come out and you get this flavor but once you've finished the chocolate you should take around 10 minutes before you eat the next one why because the next one will immediately overpower the first one you will lose the flavor of that amazing chocolate you had first and because it's still quite an intense level it will interfere with the next chocolate in fact most children don't they they guzzle chocolate one after another if you've ever done that because you're watching TV or you just feeling depressed you'll know that you can't really get all the nuances but if you take time between each one you're savoring it it has an aftertaste an Afterglow which is pleasurable and memorable but if you eat chocolate one after another you soon think can't remember what those other ones were like at the beginning what waste when they're such fine chocolates same is true with classic literature never race it never force yourself to get through it because you lose its flavor and then you dash into the next book in order to get through it and you wash away the experience of the bygone book but if you read it slowly if you read it at your comfortable pace and like say watch the other video I've recommended so you know how to get even more give examples on how to annotate and it will excite you with what you can get out of single page when you do that you're left with this permanent Aroma which is linked to your memory so that you'll see the book on shelf one day and you'll remember when you read it you'll remember certain scenes about it where you stood in the streets or in the halls or or in the churches and you'll be there once again but if you're just reading to cover cover reading all those flavors are lost in the next flavor of book and they all merge into one so what do you do if you're slow reader you embrace it by all means if you can learn to read faster as long as it remains comfortable to you do that but don't read fast in order to just whiz through books you will ruin the experience and remember if you do go slowly that has its own value it allows you to spend time in the area to soak up the atmosphere and for me especially as Dickens liver and Shakespeare lover to hear the voices which reveal so much about the characters who at the end of the day are everything in story hope you've enjoyed this video please please please let me know in the comments what you thought your comments help this video get promoted by YouTube so please like it and comment and by all means especially if you're in education share this video with others but please share it with your book groups that you might belong to and share it on your Facebook because so many people could get into reading if they got rid of the idea that they're too slow so do the world of favor share this video until the next time wish you Joy in your reading