I'm bad at reading and with words.

[CoolStuff]

It's weird because I've been reading since I was 3, which I understand is earlier than most people. They wanted to advance me two years in school, but I thought it would make me lose friends and put me back socially. I should have done it. I don't know if I dumbed myself down or what, I was always ahead then kinda evened out by 5th/6th grade.

But anyway my problems with reading and words is this:
I can read stuff but I have a really hard time understanding it, even when I really try to soak it in. It's weird because I'm mostly a technical person, and finally started developing my creativity now. Also I'll say basic things like "that's deep" but I can never really express it, so I guess I don't really know if I understood it or not. Writing things down tends to help, but not all that much. I can still read articles and kinda get the gist of it and stuff.

I think it's partially a problem of getting immersed, because at school I kinda slipped into this thing where I'm really good at reading or doing something without actually understanding it or caring about it. I'm pretty sure this is exactly what they want with the school system, but I'm trying to break out of it.

Sometimes I'll kinda mumble and trail off, which I think leads people. I don't like words too much I guess. But I do appreciate great songs with deep meanings and stuff, I don't know why. However I tried to read a poem today (I was interested) but it didn't help. Also when I heard poems aloud it was better, but I still have trouble concentrating (again I think this happened at school). However I watched a video on youtube of someone's poem and there was a lot of energy, and I really liked it and felt like I had a great understanding of it and even appreciated the words.

So I think the problems lie in:
- getting immersed
- expressing myself with words (though I am in groups which allow me to do this more often, so I'm developing it, but I still feel I'm not too good at it)
- energy from where the words are coming from

[NotesMaeve]

Read literary criticism books by folks like Foucault, Eco, whoever wrote The Meme Machine. Not because any interpretation is correct, but it will allow you insight into seeing how others perceive lit.

[tylerlloyd]

I know very much where you are coming from. But as I have come to learn, using words and expressing them in a way that they convey a message based on data assimilated from multiple sources is a skill that is learned. Very much in the way that you need to practice the guitar a lot for you to be any good at it. Give it the time and effort it needs if you are serious about getting better at it.

[Swede]

This is a wild guess from me: It interested me that you found that intensity (when someone read a poem on youtube) made it easier to comprehend.

Maybe you could put yourself into a focused state if you listen to music while reading? I would suggest any type of music that doesn't uproar your senses but rather puts them to comfort.

[Andrew Brunelle]

Sometimes it is hard for me to express myself verbally and with body language, due to residual effects from brain cancer. I worked really hard on developing my speaking skills and am now moving towards getting my confidence back in my body. Expressing myself through writing helps me cope with the fact I am not the most eloquent speaker, although I am pretty good at stand-up comedy.

If you have trouble reading, I have to recommend a product called ReadPlease2003. Due to my eye movements being impaired to some degree, reading would often cause me to get a headache, but this program highlights each individual word as well as reads it out loud to you. It has several speed adjustments and I couldn't live without it now. Look it up on Google.

P.S. It is how I read all of Steve's articles and all of these forum posts. It is like a Notepad document with play, pause, and stop features.

[CoolStuff]

^ Interesting. And this works even when you're not on a computer?

Originally Posted by Swede

This is a wild guess from me: It interested me that you found that intensity (when someone read a poem on youtube) made it easier to comprehend.

Maybe you could put yourself into a focused state if you listen to music while reading? I would suggest any type of music that doesn't uproar your senses but rather puts them to comfort.

Yeah and songs too, although still some songs are too deep and metaphorical for me to appreciate yet. I've gone back though, and some things that were previously too deep, I can now understand and appreciate them better.



Literary criticism? Isn't that what we try to do in school? I only find it interesting when there's a good teacher.


Yeah time and effort true. There are 3 groups I'm involved in that let me practice expressing myself better. Only one of them is largely based on words though.