Topic: Boredom and Difficulty in Reading (3).

10-second review: RayS.’s ideas for helping students deal with boredom and difficulty in reading books and other reading materials.

Previews will stimulate interest and reduce the difficulty of material.

Previewing Novels: Sampling.

Probably you are going to be interested and want to read everything when you first open a novel. However, if you have some doubts about whether the novel is worth your time, try sampling. Read for five minutes near the beginning of the novel. Then read for five minute in the middle of the novel. Next, read for five minutes about three-fourths through the novel. Finally, read for five minutes near the end. This sampling should raise a number of questions in your mind and you will want to go back and read.

Knowing the plot will give the novel away? I think you will find the opposite. The sampling will usually raise questions about what is going on, giving you a reason for wanting to read it. If the sampling does give away the plot entirely, then you won’t want to spend time reading it because you will already know all you want to know about it.

Previewing Novels: What To Do About the Boring Parts?

Novels are usually long. They tend to become less interesting in certain parts. They have highs in which you are absorbed by the scenes and lows in which you start turning pages to see how much you have to read before reaching the end of the chapter.

Try an experiment. Start reading one paragraph a page. You won’t lose your sense of the plot; you will find that you are moving rapidly to the next scene that captures your interest. And then you are back to reading everything. Try it. It works.

To be continued: Previewing Short Stories.