The Importance of Superficial Reading the First Time Through

Mortimer Adler:

Any book intended for the general reader can be understood if you approach it in the right way. What is the right approach? The answer lies in one important–and paradoxical–rule of reading. You should read a book through superficially before you try to master it.

Most of us were taught in school to go to a dictionary when we met an unfamiliar word. We were told to consult an encyclopedia, scholarly commentaries, or other secondary sources to get help with statements we couldn't understand. The rule to follow on tackling a difficult book calls for exactly the opposite procedure.

Look first for the things you can understand, and refuse to get bogged down in the difficult passages. Read right on past paragraphs, footnotes, arguments, and references that escape you. There will be enough material which you can immediately grasp, and soon it will add up to a substantial foothold from which to climb further. The amount you understand by a quick reading–even if it is only 50 percent or less–will help you to carry some light back to the places which left you in the dark.

The tremendous pleasure that comes from reading Shakespeare was spoiled for generations of high school students who were forced to go through Julius Caesar, Hamlet, or Macbeth scene by scene, looking up all the new words and studying all the scholarly footnotes. As a result, they never really read the play. By the time they got to the end, they had forgotten the beginning and lost sight of the whole.

Instead of being forced to take this pedantic approach, they should have been encouraged to read the play in one sitting and discuss what they got out of that first quick reading. Then they would have been ready to study the play carefully, for they would have understood enough of it to be able to learn more.

Adapted from How to Read a Book, p. 37.