Who is the ideal reader to you?
It is a widely accepted observation that each of us is possessing of his own range and depth of comprehension in regards to understanding what he reads. Often times we witness how certain individuals seem to be overly-proficient in grasping the essence of a particular reading, while others find it extremely difficult to relate to the same reading material. While identifying the reasons may not be easy, detailing the characteristics of a good reader, particularly on who they are, poses a less complicated task.
For this purpose alone, several variations are thus presented. For the students, a good or ideal reader is one who possesses a wide range of vocabulary that enables him to precisely identify what specific theme is being offered by the material. His reading skills enable him the sensitivity to the tacit shifts in mood, or the detailed technicalities embedded in academic readings, as one of the major benefits of the said advantage.
On the other hand, for the general populace, students included, the ideal readers are those who can feel what emotion a particular genre suggests, particularly on novels, autobiographies, and other theme-dominated reading materials. They are able to clearly define if the accumulated words were designed to cause a sad, aroused, happy, or even a combination of these emotions. As such, they are not limited by the technicalities of what they read; they are not dogmatic, doctrinaire, and unbending. Persons such as these can be distinguished on how they enjoy reading, in general.
He learns from the lessons presented in the readings, and he attempts to practice them in practical terms. Additionally, the ideal reader is the one who, after reading, knows how to discern and dissect the arguments presented to him and judge accordingly on the importance of the knowledge he was able to attain. What does it mean by ideal reader? Primarily because of our varying capabilities in optimally comprehending what we read, a certain level of reading skills is naturally aspired to be acquired by almost everybody.
The benefits to be gained for acquiring this admirable level of reading comprehension are virtually limitless, as this may encompass a wide range of interests, such as in academics, social awareness, political governance, and other fields that are as important. Primarily, by being a well-rounded and wide-read individual and more so by being an ideal reader, the advantages that are to be gained far outweighs the debilitating effects when one is considered as a poor reader, hence, the need to learn the difference between the two categories must be clearly identified.
Firstly, an ideal reader, when trying to understand what is presented in the reading materials, does not try to restructure the story being told, but he recreates them to fit accordingly into his very own practical experiences. This technique allows him added benefits to fully understand the message being implied, and it gives him the reason to appreciate what he is reading. Thus, he simply does not read in a mechanical manner, but incorporates his own set knowledge with the one that is inherent in the material.
Another virtue of an ideal reader is the ability to actively involve himself in the story line. In this respect, he is not merely an external audience to the plot, but an active participant who belongs to, and becomes a part of the story being conveyed. With this particular precept in mind, an ideal reader then is someone who does not constrain his mental, emotional, and intellectual properties to the limits of the presented material, but has the capability to partake in the story in ways that makes him among the characters in the material that he is reading.
Thus, the texts that are printed cease to be mere letters, but become the very words that the ideal reader had portrayed himself as having said. Perhaps this is the meaning of the popular adage, for the ideal reader, every book reads, to a certain degree, as his own autobiography. Clearly, what differentiates an ideal reader from the average reader is the reality that he can in fact co-exist in a parallel plane, so to speak, to wherever place and time the characters may have existed.
He can bridge the differences in time and space and live out another life, as suggested by the story he is reading. He is, in a manner of speaking, able to transform himself from being the audience into one of the individuals that he chooses to be, thus not only delving on the material on an intellectual level, but also on the emotional. Lastly, an ideal reader learns through all of the readings that he had endeavored. He accumulates this set knowledge and supplements them by the additional readings that he is able to acquire as his life progresses.
He then is able to support the new lessons that he is able to garner by the existing knowledge gained from his past readings, resulting in a broader scope of data, awareness, and understanding that he can employ in his everyday existence. Conclusion In most certainty, this is where the true importance of ideal readership comes into play. It allows a person to be possessing of a broader sense of wisdom and experiences, both real and those gained through reading, that serves as an advantage in his dealings with the challenges of his life.
Through this methodology, he is able to exceed the wisdom of his actual age, surpassing it by living through the lives of different people in various fields of expertise, nationalities, gender, creeds, and even of epochs. In effect, he becomes the personification of the several scores of people whose lives he had learned to live through his readings, making him a single yet highly diversified and complex individual whose experiences and expertise exceed what others may unwittingly confer on him.
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