Monday 19 September 2016

Active Reading and active listening....

Active Reading is similar to active listening.

We spend 10% of our  total communication time  as reading.

During reading we  must ensure we are actively reading .

Reading is a dialogue between you and the writer with no physical proximity.


Hence, while reading it's of utmost importance that we involve ourself with the emotions, context and perspective of the author without tampering with your assumptions and thinking.


Thinking is prohibited while reading because  it interferes with the clearity with which the author wants to  communicate with the reader.


For everybody's knowledge it's scientifically proven that we can live without thinking for long time unlike breathing.
Mediators live without thinking for hours and they don't die.


So we must atleast while reading stop the chatter and involve ourselves with the authors thoughts. 


It's a waste of time ,energy and even money spent on purchasing a book or magazine or Internet bill , if  you don't read actively .


And more importantly the basic fundamental reason for the reading activity is to gain insight is diluted and majority of time the communication between the reader and the author ends up as a misinterpretation or miscommunication.
Major reason for majority of people not completing a book which they start reading is a series of inactive reading episodes leading to less understanding and over a period of time loosing the context and interest .
The results are very disastrous.


Every author has a perspective of an subject
If someone has interest in that subject and has  invested time and resources getting an access to it then one  must atleast mandatorily get an insight of the perspective of the author.

Agreeing with the perspective or not is our  choice but atleast understanding it as it was wrote is our responsibility.

But due to lack of active Reading most of us miss the whole communication.

Effective communication is all about understanding different perspectives of different individuals with whom we communicate and exchange ideas resulting into a productivity of all kinds (financial ,emotional  psychological and spiritual)


Hence read as if the author is speaking in person to you and every word sentence and context of the material has something to convey to you which is utmost important to have a fruitful and productive outcome.

Example of reading and active Reading..

A quote from Karl Max 

"Religion is opium of the masses"

Interpretation of just Reading

In this quote
Firstly religion is quoted as opium (addictive narcotic) putting it in poor light
Secondly the masses i.e the public is put down by showing them addicted and deprived of other better things in life by addiction to religion (projected as opium)

Interpretation of Active reading

An Active Reader interprets the actual meaning of the quote with relevant  context as :
Opium relives pain
And Religion is the only saviour who behaves like a pain killer from all adversities that masses face in their day to day life.

Just see the difference and Miscommunication between reading and active Reading.

Happy Active Reading ...


13 comments:

Jogesh Jain said...

Another deep thought on a simple subject call reading. Thanks for sharing. Keep posting.

2611 said...

Thank you Jogesh..

2611 said...

Thank you Jogesh..

Adv Baliram More said...

Nice one. Reading is input of knowledge and thinking is output of knowledge by its reproduction in the form of new thoughts.

Adv Baliram More said...

Nice one. Reading is input of knowledge and thinking is output of knowledge by its reproduction in the form of new thoughts.

2611 said...

Thanks Mr More for reading and sharing your valuable comments

2611 said...

Thanks Mr More for reading and sharing your valuable comments

Dharmesh Patel said...

Wonderfully expressed Avinash and explained too with examplfir e. As a friendly suggestion, just take care of few spelling errors and right punctuations.. which adds beauty to reading !
Once again thank you for sharing !

2611 said...

Thank you dharmesh for actively reading and understanding the context.😊

2611 said...

Thank you dharmesh for actively reading and understanding the context.😊

Unknown said...

I loved the example that you have quoted. Another thing that struck me is the ease with which you explained that active reading isn't about agreeing to what the author is saying. But it is about putting in your time in understanding the author's perspective. I think it is very well written.
Thank you.

2611 said...

Thank you Sanam for highlighting the points you liked. And from the authors perspective I think you have actively read this blog
Congratulations to you.😊

2611 said...

Thank you Sanam for highlighting the points you liked. And from the authors perspective I think you have actively read this blog
Congratulations to you.😊