Reading With A Purpose - Introduction

Have you ever tried to keep water contained with a strainer? When you pour the water onto the strainer, you won't retain much water. The same concept is applied with purposeful reading. If you use the wrong method for reading that doesn't work for you, you won't remember or retain any information you try to. That's why it's so important to read with purpose.

Most people write or get published because they feel they have a story worth telling. It's important to know what you are talking about when you write, so others can understand it too. There are many purposes to many things, such as reading for entertainment, for study, for academics, for criticism – the list goes on and on. It’s important to figure out why you are reading what you are reading. If it’s for entertainment, you want it to grab your interest. That is your purpose. If you are reading for a class, you may put forth an extra effort to truly understand what you are reading. If you are reading to find out personal knowledge, you are needing to search out just the information you are looking for. 

The hardest time you have when you are trying to read with purpose is when you are reading something you don’t choose to read. This situation runs rampant with students. For example, my least favorite subject is history, primarily because I never had an effective history teacher. So, when the history teacher made me read a chapter out of the book for an exam, it felt like it took forever to drag through every line, and I forgot the first half when I got done with the second half. It was a nightmare! However, English was my favorite subject. So, reading a novel for college was a breeze!  

One thing I’ve learned through my years in school is your approach to the task at hand. Your perspective on it makes all the difference. If you whine and complain about it and moan after every page, it’s not going to get you anything but a headache without knowledge in the end.  Keeping a constantly positive perspective is almost like a trick you play on your brain. But, you’ve got to have one key component in order to be effective at it – you guessed it! Purpose! With a good purpose and perspective, you will accomplish even the most mundane subjects. And, reading a novel or textbook through to the end won’t seem as hard a task. Purpose makes all the difference – not just in reading, but in life!