Nonfiction · Level 2 · 137 words
Two Kinds of Reading
Original passage © Studio AM, written for Fluency.
Not all reading is the same. Shallow reading scans for a single fact: a price, a time, a yes or no. It is fast and useful, and we do it dozens of times a day.
Deep reading is different. It asks you to build a model in your head of what the writer is saying, to test it against what you already know, and to carry an idea from one paragraph into the next. Both kinds matter, but only one of them grows with practice.
You can scan your whole life and never get better at scanning. Deep reading, by contrast, rewards effort: the more demanding texts you finish, the more easily you finish the next one. A good daily habit is small but deep: one short passage read with full attention beats an hour of skimming.
Source: Written for Fluency. Original passage © Studio AM, written for Fluency.