Learning (again) How to Read to Learn

Remembering How We Once Learned is More Satisfying the Second Time Around

Photo by Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash

Remember when we were young, and we read things to learn things? Before we knew what a “beach read” was and before we skimmed Harvard Business Review articles and our daily news feed?

Back then, it was important to take more than just a broad view of what we were reading, allowing our eyes to dance across the page, or permitting the distractions of phones, cats, unfolded laundry, or other intrusions into our time.

Now that for us, the adults of the world, much of our learning has moved to digital formats, it seems we’ve lost track of what it feels like to “read-to-learn,” but we don’t have to keep it that way.

In her later years, my mother was losing her eyesight to macular degeneration. But before that, she had been a talented English teacher. Well-read and skilled in the classroom, she knew the value of close reading. She gathered knowledge the way some people collect dolls or spoons or other knickknacks. As she aged, I tried to help her turn to the sorts of books on tape (CD) that would keep her mind sharp, her synapses firing. But she resisted, turning instead to potboiler novels with predictable arcs.

Her brother, on the other hand, while not losing his sight, did travel annually by car from upstate New York to the Florida coast with his wife, and consumed CDs like “The Great Courses” and a variety of philosophers, nonfiction authors and more, all as part of a concerted effort to continue learning.

It’s key to remember that time spent working toward a goal is never time wasted.

I don’t necessarily fault my mother for listening to predictable crime novels.

I do, though, recognize that she wasn’t learning anything.

There is a vast difference between entertaining and learning, and we should consider which ways we spend our time. My hours spent watching Downton Abbey were not, no matter how I wish they were, hours of historical research. Alas.

The primary difference in entertaining and learning is the dedication of time.

Not the number of hours, the quality of hours. Or even minutes.

I have a reading and writing intensive job (and the writing you are looking at currently is not even a part of my job-job; it’s just my side gig). So finding time for reading, let alone quality reading, is often tough for me.

Despite the difficulty, I’ve latched on to some ways to incorporate learning into my otherwise leisurely reading, and so far, these really work for me. Hence, I am sharing with you:

1. Slow. Down. Reading isn’t a race. It wasn’t when we were younger, and it isn’t now. Those teachers who tried to get you to read x number of books in order to win a personal pan pizza or whatever were way off the mark. Cool it and take your time.
2. Set your purpose when choosing what to read. Do you want to gain a new skill? Learn about a period in time? Discover a new travel destination? Reading with purpose can make a big difference.
3. Make an appointment to read. Seriously. Put it on your calendar like everything else and really strive not to move it. When you prioritize it, it becomes more real and valuable. I have a friend who is a realtor, and she books her son’s soccer games as appointments that are every bit as important as home showings.
4. Read with a pencil in hand. Books are not indestructible volumes never to be tampered with. Many of my most cherished volumes have the notes of my grandfather, or a former mentor, or pretty much anyone who thought it was important enough to make a note in the margin, or to underline a phrase. Do that for yourself, and for whoever else reads after you.
5. Write a quick summary when you finish the book, or even when you finish a chapter. Put it on an index card in the book, or on a simple page tucked inside. It helps the information you gained stick with you a bit more.
6. Keep a book upstairs and one downstairs. Don’t limit yourself to one. When you were in school, you were busy learning science, history, geography, and literature all at the same time. You can do that now, too.
7. Quit reading a book you are not enjoying. Not everything is well-written, and now that you’re an adult, you don’t have to deal with that. Isn’t that liberating? Replace it with a book about the same topic or area, but by a different author. Get a fresh view.
8. Make a list of topics you want to know more about, then seek out books written in a variety of ways about those things. Want to know about Greece? There’s history, language, geography, politics, cuisine. A veritable feast of ideas just about one tiny corner of the world. Thinking maybe you want to know more about Supreme Court Justices? Heck, you could read a biography about each of them (that’d take a while) or the history of the court, or landmark decisions, or the presidents who have appointed justices, and on and on…

I tend to challenge myself to a new topic and an old topic, and that keeps me going. That is to say, I try to learn about something modern — say, how cryptocurrency works, and then alternate with a learning experience about Greek gods or a biography of a historical figure. I really enjoy memoir and consider each of them a learning experience. I’ve picked up information about sex reassignment surgery, homelessness, addiction and recovery, childbirth, marriage, hiking, single parenting, international travel, technology, and more all from reading about other people’s lives.

All of this is just to say, if you can slow down, read not just because there’s a nifty looking cover and it has easy language, you can remember how to learn. You can fill up your mind (and your spirit) with so much new information, you’ll feel like it’s overflowing. And in the spaces where you can’t read, when you can’t concentrate, fire up your phone, plug in your airpods, and listen to someone else’s wisdom.

And the best part is — this time, there’s no pop quiz.