I do this pretty often, though usually it’s a sentence or line here and there. of course sometimes books are just written that way and the meaning comes later.
It’s a bit of an ADHD thing and you get better at reading with purpose as you go. I used to barely take anything in and I can see books in my list that I’ve read but remember almost nothing about, try to read with conviction, take it in, imagine it as it happens, your comprehension will improve as you go.
Yeah, definitely an ADD/Attention-Processing issue. I used to read a lot as a kid, and after a head injury that aggravated my ADD and years of reading and talking in short-form messages (SMS, twitter, etc), it took me FOREVER to re-learn the skill of reading long-form text.
Luckily, with practice comes mastery, I was able to regain my abilities to read, and I’m currently working on a few textbooks and two casual books. It’s still a struggle in distracting environments (loud children, hospitals, etc), but it’s getting better the more I read.
I struggle in distracting environments due to ASD pretty much forcing brain to take in everything it hears and tries to process it as it would when someone was talking to me directly. I always read with noise cancelling headphones and ambient music.
When I was getting back into reading as an adult (used to read a lot as a kid but stopped for 20 years) I would read along with audiobooks, that worked wonders for getting into a book that I was struggling with.
Oh that’s a really great method! I used to know a guy with ASD who did kind-of the inverse, he was super familiar with reading (specifically the bible), but he had a hard time with conversations. So he learned how to use the bible as a medium to conduct conversation.
Really, really cool discussions were born from that, and by the time I met him, he was almost independently conducting conversation, only going back to certain bible references when he got stuck or he needed to borrow a story or metaphor.
It’s a TNG episode, the commonly memed “Darmok and Jilad, at Tenagra” quote comes from that one. the crew try to talk to aliens that speak almost entirely in historical metaphors so their universal translator gets the words right but cant translate the meaning.
Honestly a great episode on communication and understanding and I actually see it referenced a lot in neurodivergent communities, people (nerds) have written dissertations on that one.
Thanks for the recommendation, I just finished watching it–and yeah that speaks volumes (quite literally, haha!). I love how they started off the episode with a very fluent mixture of non-English and a few English phrases.
I should really go back and revisit TNG! I remember watching it as a kid, but now that I have a few decades under my belt, I’ve gone back and watched a few episodes: and it really is packed with amazing philosophy and social commentary.
I do this pretty often, though usually it’s a sentence or line here and there. of course sometimes books are just written that way and the meaning comes later.
It’s a bit of an ADHD thing and you get better at reading with purpose as you go. I used to barely take anything in and I can see books in my list that I’ve read but remember almost nothing about, try to read with conviction, take it in, imagine it as it happens, your comprehension will improve as you go.
Yeah, definitely an ADD/Attention-Processing issue. I used to read a lot as a kid, and after a head injury that aggravated my ADD and years of reading and talking in short-form messages (SMS, twitter, etc), it took me FOREVER to re-learn the skill of reading long-form text.
Luckily, with practice comes mastery, I was able to regain my abilities to read, and I’m currently working on a few textbooks and two casual books. It’s still a struggle in distracting environments (loud children, hospitals, etc), but it’s getting better the more I read.
I struggle in distracting environments due to ASD pretty much forcing brain to take in everything it hears and tries to process it as it would when someone was talking to me directly. I always read with noise cancelling headphones and ambient music.
When I was getting back into reading as an adult (used to read a lot as a kid but stopped for 20 years) I would read along with audiobooks, that worked wonders for getting into a book that I was struggling with.
Oh that’s a really great method! I used to know a guy with ASD who did kind-of the inverse, he was super familiar with reading (specifically the bible), but he had a hard time with conversations. So he learned how to use the bible as a medium to conduct conversation.
Really, really cool discussions were born from that, and by the time I met him, he was almost independently conducting conversation, only going back to certain bible references when he got stuck or he needed to borrow a story or metaphor.
The brain is at its coolest when it’s just a bit different.
Your bible memorising friend makes me think of the Star Trek episode “Darmok”
Indeed, indeed! Diversity is one of the strongest traits of human life (and life in-general).
I don’t recall that episode, I’ll have to go watch it!
It’s a TNG episode, the commonly memed “Darmok and Jilad, at Tenagra” quote comes from that one. the crew try to talk to aliens that speak almost entirely in historical metaphors so their universal translator gets the words right but cant translate the meaning.
Honestly a great episode on communication and understanding and I actually see it referenced a lot in neurodivergent communities, people (nerds) have written dissertations on that one.
Thanks for the recommendation, I just finished watching it–and yeah that speaks volumes (quite literally, haha!). I love how they started off the episode with a very fluent mixture of non-English and a few English phrases.
I should really go back and revisit TNG! I remember watching it as a kid, but now that I have a few decades under my belt, I’ve gone back and watched a few episodes: and it really is packed with amazing philosophy and social commentary.