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One should not have to spend four years in graduate school in order to learn how to read. Four years of graduate school, in addition to twelve years of preparatory education and four years of college-that adds up to twenty full years of schooling. It should not take that long to learn to read. Something is very wrong if it does.

What is wrong can be corrected. Courses could be instituted in many high schools and colleges that are based on the program described in this book. There is nothing arcane or even really new about what we have to propose. It is largely common sense.

Reading and the Democratic Ideal of Edu cation We do not want to seem to be mere carping critics. We know that the thunder of thousands of freshmen feet upon the stairs makes it hard to hear, no matter how reasonable the 30 HOW TO READ A BOOK

message. And as long as a large proportion, even a majority, of these new students cannot read effectively at the elementary level, we are aware that the first task to be faced must be to teach them to read in the lowest, the largest common-denominator, sense of the term.

Nor, for the moment, would we want it any other way. We are on record as holding that unlimited educational opportunity-or, speaking practically, educational opportunity that is limited only by individual desire, ability, and need-is the most valuable service that society can provide for its members.

That we do not yet know how to provide that kind of opportunity is no reason to give up the attempt.

But we must also realize-students, teachers, and laymen alike-that even when we have accomplished the task that lies before us, we will not have accomplished the whole task.

We must be more than a nation of functional literates. We must become a nation of truly competent readers, recognizing all that the word competent implies. Nothing less will satisfy the needs of the world that is coming.

4

THE S ECOND LEVEL OF READI NG :

INSPECTIONAL READ I N G

Inspectional reading is a true level of reading. It is quite distinct from the level that precedes it ( elementary reading ) and from the one that follows it in natural sequence ( analytical reading ) . But, as we noted in Chapter 2, the levels of reading are cumulative. Thus, elementary reading is contained in inspectional reading, as, indeed, inspectional reading is contained in analytical reading, and analytical reading in syntopical reading.

Practically, this means that you cannot read on the inspectional level unless you can read effectively on the elementary level. You must be able to read an author's text more or less steadily, without having to stop to look up the meaning of many words, and without stumbling over the grammar and syntax. You must be able to make sense of a majority of the sentences and paragraphs, although not necessarily the best sense of all of them.

What, then, is involved in inspectional reading? How do you go about doing it?

The first thing to realize is that there are two types of inspectional reading. They are aspects of a single skill, but the beginning reader is well-advised to consider them as two different steps or activities. The experienced reader learns to 31

32 HOW TO READ A BOOK

perform both steps simultaneously, but for the moment we will treat them as if they were quite distinct.

lnspectional Reading I :

Sys tematic Skim m ing or Pre-reading

Let us return to the basic situation to which we have referred before. There is a book or other reading matter, and here is your mind. What is the first thing that you do?

Let us assume two further elements in the situation, elements that are quite common. First, you do not know whether you want to read the book. You do not know whether it deserves an analytical reading. But you suspect that it does, or at least that it contains both information and insights that would be valuable to you if you could dig them out.

Second, let us assume-and this is very often the casethat you have only a limited