4 Tips to Cultivating Good Reading Habits

Sit up in a comfortable chair; don’t lie down which could encourage you to fall asleep. If you lack a comfortable chair which offers your back good support, sit at a table.

• Make sure you have excellent lighting. Dim lighting places unnecessary strain on your eyes and language processing modules in your brain.  This is especially important as you get older. I of course am assuming you are seeing 20/20 with corrective lenses if necessary.

• Eliminate distractions–laptops, telephones, radios (with talking)etc. Pick your location intelligently. Reading at the kitchen table in an 8-person household requires real discipline.

• If you need to play psychological games with yourself to get you to concentrate, sit amongst other readers.  Many students who have trouble concentrating in their dorm rooms/apartments go to libraries to read and study. That way, when you take a break between chapters and look up, you see 3 others diligently reading away or writing instead of your roommate watching the ballgame and eating potato chips. so many of us have trained ourselves to have very short attention spans with modern technology. If that is your problem, make it a matter of discipline and training to stay focused on your book. Don’t let yourself give in.