5c

CRITICAL THINKING, READING, AND WRITING

5c

What is the reading process?

Reading is an active process—a dynamic, meaning-making interaction
between the page and your brain. Understanding the reading process helps
people become critical thinkers.

Making predictions is a major activity in the reading process. Your mind

is constantly guessing what’s coming next. When it sees what comes next, it
either confirms or revises its prediction and moves on. For example, suppose
you’re glancing through a magazine and come upon the title “The Heart-
beat.” Your mind begins guessing: Is this a love story? Is this about how the
heart pumps blood? Maybe, you say to yourself, it’s a story about someone
who had a heart attack. Then, as you read the first few sentences, your mind
confirms which guess was correct. If you see words like electrical impulse,
muscle fibers, and contraction, you know instantly that you’re in the realm of
physiology. In a few more sentences, you narrow your prediction to either
“the heart as pump” or “the heart suffering an attack.”

To make predictions efficiently, consciously decide your purpose for

reading the material. People generally read for two reasons—for relaxation
or for learning. Reading a popular novel helps you relax. Reading for college
courses calls for you to understand material and remember it. When you
read to learn, you usually have to reread. One encounter with new material
is rarely enough to understand it fully.

The speed at which you read depends on your purpose for reading.

When you’re hunting for a particular fact, you can skim the page until you
come to what you want. When you read about a subject you know well, you
might read somewhat rapidly, slowing down when you come to new material.
When you’re unfamiliar with the subject, you need to work slowly because
your mind needs time to absorb the new material.

The reading process involves your thinking on three levels, which is

another reason why college work calls for much rereading, as described in
Box 5-2.

B OX   5 - 2

S U M M A R Y

Steps in the reading process

1. Reading for literal meaning: Read “on the lines” to see what’s stated

(5c.1).

2. Reading to draw inferences: Read “between the lines” to see what’s

not stated but implied (5c.2).

3. Reading to evaluate: Read “beyond the lines” to form your own

opinion about the material (5c.3).

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