Reading
Comprehension: What is it and why it is rated so high?
Four most salient requisites of Reading Comprehension (RC) are speed, understanding,
retention & application for problem solving or ability to derive
conclusions while reading various types of reading materials. Let us call it quadrangle of reading
comprehension, which has its sides as Understanding or accuracy, Speed, Application & Retention (USAR). If you are aiming to increase RC abilities you can aim at any one or all of them. Believe me for increasing it you have to really stretch yourself in many dimensions.
Based on the practice of reading,
type of reading experience, interest, style or reading techniques, analytical
skill and other factors, these four salient factors vary and accordingly you
are a good or bad reader.
The big question is: Why reading comprehension is acknowledged as one of
the most critical part for many top exams like SAT, GRE, GMAT, etc? It is because
people with higher reading comprehension are found to rank higher in life than
their counterparts. They are found as people high in the ranks of management,
engineers, doctors, great authors and bureaucrats. But the question is why? Why
reading comprehension is so important?
One of few reasons of why higher RC ability is crucial are enumerated as under:
Fixed Hours and so higher rate of
comprehension is key:
Hours to work are
almost fixed and not stretchable after a certain extent. Hence, if a 36 hour
worker is expected to excel better than his peers, he should provide more input
both in quality and quantity. Performance is most of the case, now, is
dependent on the assimilation of facts, correlating them, finding facts,
figures and creating a model of understanding in real time, which is not
exactly same as the real then at least very close to it. Person with better
reading comprehension will thus read more with same accuracy or have more
accuracy at same spped w.r.t. peers and accordingly outperform them. So,
Reading comprehension is one of the key skills for effectiveness in most of the
careers. At higher level of management, you are expected to go through so many
reports, facts, figures, happenings and are expected to give right set of
decision in minimum possible time, again for this to happen, you are expected
to have higher reading comprehension abilities.
Many
critical decisions are to be made in a short time, a quick yes or no for which
higher RC is required:
People with fast comprehension
are believed to be fast thinkers. Higher RC with higher accuracy can make a
person capable of making decisions on most counts in a limited time allotted to
him by opportunity. Buy or sell at the crash of market, Acquisition of
companies are relatively higher rates, saying yes or no to strategic partnership are all dependent on
whether the person in the hot seat is capable of making fast and accurate
decisions and that is possible only when he can process much of information and
get the real big picture of the situation. That may be the reason, management
colleges put high weightage on RC abilities of a candidate.
More time for activities other than job:
People who read fast find time for a lot many other activities than their work.
Their life becomes more balanced and accordingly they remain stress free
Big picture reading and depth study
capabilities:
People with good RC have both skills- big picture reading and
hence they see the application potential of the whole idea in the work place
easily and secondly they can dive deeper if required to find the secret
advantages also.
5.
Solution
centric approach:
Fast RC leads to fast decision making based on calculated
risk taking, which is beneficial for firms.
Ability
to find more opportunity of sales, profit, etc.:
The more pages you
traverse, more are the chances that you find an opportunity that is really
exciting and which gives much profit, sales, etc
High
RC means generally better communication skill:
In today’s world the better
is communication skill, the better is your effectiveness in your profession.
So, high RC abilities generally would mean better verbal and written
communications.
Better
Emotional Intelligence:
Reading passages and people are many a time
similar. Emotions of people can also be read faster by people processing higher
words per minute of comprehension.
These are some key advantages with
people with high Reading Comprehension capability. Don’t you think you should
also be one of them? Have you checked you reading speed at least or have you
compared your comprehension skills with your peers?
Now, we have known that RC is key to employ-ability in many cases, let us hope we find better avenues
for increasing RC abilities. Please share your views here!
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