Role of reading

Reading is the most enriching learning process

Surprising as it may sound, reading is the most extensive as well as intensive thinking process known to humans, far more than brainstorming sessions on a topic or the toughest intellectual problem-solving.
Reading requires the automatic integration of several ‘deep-thinking’ processes. Here is a sample of such processes to the extent we could list (neuroscientists can easily add a few new categories of processes as well as new sub-processes in the process list presented by us):

Expert readers ‘converse’ with the author as they read a text; expert readers juxtaposition their views, knowledge and expectations with the authors’ presentation of the same. For expert readers it is less about gaining ‘new’ knowledge from reading and more about fine tuning their existing frame of reference about several things. Expert readers draw a whole world of ‘meaning and perspectives’ from each book they read.
Obviously, it takes years to reach a level of great integration of the aforementioned processes. And training the brain to ready itself to integrate all these is the skill that reading is all about (irrespective of the language of reading).

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