Michael DiLeonardo’s Reviews > How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading > Status Update

Chapter 7 • The First stages of analytical reading are 1. Classify the subject matter, 2. What is the whole book about, 3. Enumerate it’s major parts and outline, 4. Find the problems that are trying to be solved.

Chapter 5 • Being a demanding reader involves asking questions of the text. The questions to ask are what is the book about as a whole, what is being said in detail and how, is the book true in whole or part, what of it. To truly own a book it to mark key phrases and write out questions and answers.

Practice reading a book by reading through the entire thing even if you don’t understand parts and come back to it when you read it again. Know what speed the book you are reading needs to be read at.

Chapter 4 • Inspectional reading is used to understand the structure of a book or to see if it is worth reading. To practice Inspectional reading do the following read the title and preface, look at the table of contents, review the index for topics covered, read the publishers blurb, understand which chapter are vital to the book, and read a paragraph to a few pages throughout the book.

Chapter 2• There are four levels of reading Elementary, Inspectional, Analytical, Synoptical. Most people never make it past the first elementary stage.
Chapter 3 • There are also four stages of reading within the elementary level which are reading readiness, simple materials, progress in vocabulary, refinement and enhancement.