How to Read a Book #2
Continuing our discussion of Mortimer Adler's classic guide to intelligent reading
Exploring the intersection of life and literature to understand how our life experiences influence what we read and how what we read influences our lives.
“The goal a reader seeks - be it entertainment, information, or understanding - determines the way he reads.” - Mortimer Adler
This is the second in a series exploring the classic How to Read A Book by Mortimer Adler. While some of the material is dated, its guidance maintains its value. All quoted material is taken directly from the text.1 It is essential to remember from the first chapter that Adler’s lessons in this book apply primarily to those books that increase our understanding. Reading for entertainment does not necessarily utilize all these tools. The first article is linked below if you are new to this series.
Part 1 - The Dimensions of Reading - Chapter 2 - The Levels of Reading
A general rule of thumb when reading is the more effort you apply to the text, the more effective your reading will be. This primarily refers to texts which increase our understanding. Adler describes the four reading levels, explaining how each builds upon the previous, allowing us to make the most of our reading experience.
Elementary Reading is the essential reading level, passing from illiteracy into literacy. This reading level is typically obtained in childhood, focusing on acquiring basic understanding. Our goal is the ability to recognize and combine words in sentences rather than deep understanding. “What do the marks on the page mean?” Problems we encounter at this reading level are primarily mechanical. Most of us pass through this level as we enter adulthood. However, accomplished readers may regress to this reading level when encountering a foreign language.
Inspectional Reading focuses on getting information from our reading in a short time. Also referred to as skimming, this is a systematic process done to obtain information about the book. Good questions to ask are: “What is the book about? What is the structure of the book? What are its parts?” The value of this process is often overlooked. Advanced readers understand the importance of having an informational awareness of the book before reading deeply.
Analytical Reading is the most active and thorough form of reading focused on an individual text. Here, we have as much time as we desire to engage with the material actively. We must give our best effort and ask much of the text to increase understanding. Francis Bacon referred to this form of reading when he spoke of chewing and digesting.
“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” - Francis Bacon
Syntopical Reading or Comparative Reading is the final reading level and also the most difficult to master as it requires significant effort on our part. We must read many texts simultaneously, focusing on how they relate to one another and how they relate to a specific topic they are all discussing. We independently analyze the reading material and subject matter through this comparative process.
Most countries have established a goal of obtaining universal literacy, and many have achieved levels very near that. However, large parts of the world, primarily in Africa and Asia, cannot read at even an elementary level. Unfortunately, this also includes a concerning and growing number of people in the United States.
Part 1 - The Dimensions of Reading - Chapter 3 - The First Level of Reading
Different methods were used, with varying degrees of success throughout history, to establish an elementary reading ability. The ABC method, used for centuries to instruct students in reading, required students to sound out individual letters and combine them into synthetically created syllables. This methodology was removed from most school systems in the mid-1800s in favor of a variant known as the phonic method. This required students to learn words by sounds rather than by letters. For a brief period in the 1920s and 30s, another system focusing on visual recognition of words and sentences was used. This quickly went out of fashion, and the phonic method returned to schools. In the United States, there is a strong emphasis on every child graduating high school and going to college*. Since each student learns differently, this burdens teachers and researchers to find methods that will work for more and more students.
The first reading level involves four stages, the first of which is called reading readiness. This includes a child being physically (hearing and vision), intellectually (visual perception and memory), linguistically (clear speech), and personally (follows directions and attention span) ready. Each individual learns at a different pace, so this guidance is not age-specific. It is best to wait until the student has met the readiness criteria rather than trying to push them to “keep up with their peers.”
The second stage is magical, where symbols on a page suddenly contain meaning the student can interpret. Sight words, simple sentences, and context are all discovered here. Adler states, “This discovery of meaning in symbols may be the most astounding intellectual feat that any human being ever performs…”
Stage three is vocabulary building and the ability to discover meaning through context. This is also where reading branches out from something done at school to being included in other aspects of the student's life.
Stage four is a student’s refinement and enhancement of previously learned skills and the ability to retain information from book to book, utilizing it in myriad ways throughout their lives. This stage is generally reached by the early teenage years.
The U.S. public education system needs more high school and college reading instruction as almost all reading instruction is focused on the elementary reading level. Any instruction in higher education is ordinarily remedial. While this emphasis on basic reading skills is laudable, it presents unique challenges in the university environment when students don’t have the advanced reading skills required by higher education.
*Since this book was revised in the 1970s, many changes have occurred in the U.S. educational system. Programs such as standardized testing and “No Child Left Behind” were implemented to ensure maximum throughput in pursuing the American Dream. Historians will better assess the pros and cons of these programs. What is almost universally agreed upon is standards in the public school system have been lowered to give a false representation of success and to prevent the loss of precious federal funding. This is not a criticism of teachers but the political environment that created the system.
Part 1 - The Dimensions of Reading - Chapter 4 - The Second Level of Reading
Since Adler’s reading levels are cumulative and rely heavily on the skills acquired during the preceding levels, Inspectional Reading will only be possible after Elementary Reading is mastered.
There are two parts to inspectional reading, which may need to be done separately, but with practice, they can be combined into one simultaneous activity. The first part, Systematic Skimming, can used independently to assess whether a book requires a more in-depth reading when we have limited time to discern the book’s importance.
Systematic Skimming is a checklist of steps that can be done quickly in a bookstore, library, or any other location where we must judge a book’s value to our reading regimen. The steps include:
Review the Title Page and Preface
Review the Table of Contents
Review the Index
Read the publisher’s blurb on the dust jacket.
Quickly look at those chapters that seem pivotal to the book’s discussion.
Quickly skim the book, dipping in occasionally to read a paragraph or two.
If done correctly, these steps allow us to determine the need for a deeper read by providing a good overview of the book within a short period.
The second part, Superficial Reading, involves reading through the text without stopping. This doesn’t need to be in one sitting but should be accomplished without looking up any additional references or researching parts of the text we do not understand. The importance of this step is to avoid the frustration that can occur when too much time is spent on the initial reading of a book, causing us to get bogged down in minutiae and often stop reading the text altogether. Even if you only understand half of what you read, this process will prove especially beneficial on a second reading when you go back through for a more detailed and analytical approach.
“Reading a book should be a conversation between you and the author.” - Mortimer Adler
Part 1 - The Dimensions of Reading - Chapter 5 - How to be a Demanding Reader
When we pursue reading for entertainment, minimal effort is required to pick up a book and enjoy a story. We must be demanding readers when we desire to profit from reading by gaining new understanding or growth.
To be a demanding reader requires us to keep our minds actively engaged with the text. This is done by asking questions about the text, which we must then answer from that exact text. Those questions are:
What is the book about as a whole? (Theme)
What is being said in detail, and how? (Main ideas, assertions, arguments)
Is the book factual, in whole or part?
Don’t take the author’s word for it. Decide for yourself.
What do you think about it? What is the significance of this work? Why is it essential to the author? To me?
Does a book become our own simply through the act of purchasing it? Adler believed that the book becomes a part of us through interaction with the text. As we ask ourselves the questions above, we should also physically interact with the book through underlining, circling words, using asterisks, and writing notes in the margin. These physical interactions enable us to advance further with the text and proceed to note-taking.
Structural note-taking happens at the inspectional reading level and is a basic outline of the text. We take conceptual notes at the analytical reading level, comparing the author’s viewpoint with ours. Finally, we learn dialectical note-taking at the most advanced stage of reading, the syntopical level. This final stage incorporates reading multiple texts by multiple authors and keeping notes that frame the “shape of the discussion” across this diverse landscape of ideas.
In closing this chapter and part 1 of the book, Adler addresses the habit of reading. As with any skill, improvement comes through repetition, and reading is no different. We must read frequently to develop the habit of reading that allows us to advance through the different reading levels and be a demanding and advanced reader. At the analytical and syntopical levels, the skills involved are significantly complex, a form of deep thinking that consists of thinking about our thoughts.
I would love to know your thoughts in the comments as we critically examine this text. Until next time…
This past week, I enjoyed reading:
- is a private chef who writes and shares recipes.
- wrote a compelling essay on The Battle Between The Inner Life and The Outer Life
- writes a thoughtful piece on not writing.
How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer J. Adler & Charles Van Doren. Published 1972 by Simon & Schuster.
Wow. Thank you. From someone like yourself who writes so elegantly, I am inspired that you connect with my words. Thank you again for the mention.
This was really interesting to read, Matthew, thanks. (And thank you for linking my own post.) I've often thought about the different ways I approach reading dependent upon the task/type of book. Even with my reading for leisure I find myself now increasing the depth at which read, compared to a more relaxed and gobbling-up of the page; for work, reading academic articles etc, it is much more in the synoptical level.
Loved the quotes in here, the one from Francis Bacon and also this:
"The second stage is magical, where symbols on a page suddenly contain meaning the student can interpret"