This article is from Yu Xiaobing, a Chinese teacher at the Experimental Middle School Affiliated to Beijing Normal University
Teacher, our child often swallows dates and looks at flowers when he reads, I see that he has turned many pages in a short time, do you think this is good? Teacher, our child is the opposite of theirs, she reads very slowly, I see that she doesn't turn a page for half a day, how can you make her read faster? Teacher, I often tell our children to read the book several times before they can remember it. But he always said: "There's no need, just read it and understand it." "What do you say I should do? Teacher, our children hold a book and don't let go, "Harry Potter" has been turned over by her, and she often holds it and reads it over and over again. What do you think about such a question? Is there any good way to improve? These are the most common and typical problems I encounter when talking about children's reading in the process of contacting parents. In fact, although these questions seem to be different, they are actually not different in nature, and they all reveal the anxiety and doubts of parents about their children's reading, and they are all full of utilitarian colors. The subtext of these questions is that they want to know how to make the child more out of reading. I have a uniform answer to these questions, and that is"Fast or slow, it's not a problem to read it a few times, the key is to be able to read it, and reading it is much better than not reading at all." How to read, whether you should read it quickly or slowly, whether you can read it once or read it several times, is closely related to what type of book it is, and cannot be generalized. ”Although the chickens in the chicken farm that give KFC or McDonald's ** raw materials grow extremely fast and are slaughtered in dozens of days, they are not fed a pound of feed to grow a pound of meat. No matter how fast it is, there is always a process of digestion and growth, and it is impossible to eat a fat person in one bite. The same is true for reading, the effect or harvest shown by reading is obviously lagging behind, and it is not an immediate thing. 
Those chickens first need to be fed feed to grow meat, and they can't grow meat just by drinking the northwest wind. In the same way, books must be read in order to be gained, and it is impossible to gain without reading, so reading is better than not reading. Reading and not reading is a qualitative difference; And how much you gain after reading it, that's just a difference in quantity. The above principles are relatively easy to understand, and a few sentences can be explained by analogy. However, when it comes to the specific problems of speed and passes, it is relatively more complicated, although it can be summarized in one sentence, but more examples are needed to be able to explain it more clearly and thoroughly. In a nutshell: the classics are meant to be read more slowly, more than a few times, or even more for the better, but for other books, you can read them faster, and one or two readings are enough. Let's take some examples:We read general newspapers and magazines, news and information, with the aim of obtaining information. Reading this, it is more suitable for quick and efficient understanding. For example, a "Beijing Youth Daily" often has dozens of editions, how can there be hundreds of thousands of words, equivalent to a long **, if you want to read slowly, word by word, it will take a long time, there is no need for that. We usually look at the main news headlines, follow the news guide to find the news that interests us the most, and then pass by the others. This is true for print reading, and the same is true for online reading. Reading something like this, of course, is better faster than slower. But if it is a classic, you need to read it slowly and savor it slowly to appreciate more. There are many aspects that can be savored, from the theme of the article to the way the article is written, from the content to the language, and even to the specifics of each sentence, all of which are worth savoring. Let's take a small example. Lu Xun's "From the Hundred Herb Garden to the Three Flavors Study" is a recognized classic. In junior high school, it is a text that needs to be focused and intensive, and everyone may still remember how the teacher broke it and crumpled it to explain, and the most common explanation and appreciation is this paragraph: not to mention the green vegetable bed, the smooth stone well fence, the tall honey locust tree, and the purple and red mulberry; Needless to say, the cicadas are singing in the leaves, the fat wasps are crouching on the cauliflowers, and the sky larks are suddenly rushing from the grass to the clouds. The short mud walls around it alone are infinitely interesting. Lacewings sing here, and crickets play their harps here. When you open the broken bricks, you will sometimes encounter centipedes; There is also a cantharid, which, if you press your finger down on its spine, will snap and emit a puff of smoke from its hind orifices. He Shou Wu vine and Mulian vine are entangled, Mu Lian has lotus-like fruits, and He Shou Wu has bloated roots. Some people say that He Shou Wugen has a humanoid shape, and if you eat it, you can become an immortal, so I often pull it up, implicated and constantly pulled it up, and I also broke the mud wall because of this, but I have never seen a piece of root like a human. If you are not afraid of thorns, you can also pick raspberries, like small balls of coral beads, sour and sweet, and the color and taste are far better than mulberries.
Many teachers will analyze "needless to say...... to their classmates with great interestNeedless to say, ............ alone"How to be hierarchical, organized, lively and colorful, how to write the wonderful imagination and unique feelings in the children's minds. What I'm going to savor today is not this paragraph, but another sentence, let's do a multiple-choice question first. Which of the following four options is the original sentence in "From the Garden of Herbs to the Three Flavors Study"? a.The winter in the herb garden is relatively tasteless; But when it snows, it's different.
b.The winter in the herb garden is relatively tasteless; When it snows, it's just two things.
c.The herb garden in winter is relatively tasteless; But when it snows, it's different.
d.The herb garden in winter is relatively tasteless; When it snows, it's just two things.
Which of the above sentences is the original sentence in the article and is Lu Xun's expression? The correct answer is d. Let's look at the previous clause first, whether it is "the winter of the Baicao Garden" or "the winter of the Baicao Garden", which actually involves a question of whether "Baicao Garden" is used as the central language or "winter" as the central language, and the first half of the whole text is mainly written in the Baicao Garden, so, of course, the Baicao Garden is the central language. Moreover, the article until the part of writing about the beautiful snake is writing about the herb garden in summer, and from this sentence, I began to write about the herb garden in winter. The contrast between the "garden of herbs in summer" and the "garden of herbs in winter" is a contrast between the herb gardens of different seasons, not the seasons themselves. Next, look at the following clauses, which sentence is better, "But when it snows, it will be two" or "When it snows, it will be two"? There is no difference between the two in fact, both of which are saying that the herb garden after the snow is very different from the herb garden without snow. But the sentence "but the snow is two" is just a dry statement of such a fact, and "the snow is two", when the three words "snow" in advance, you read slowly, take your time to taste, you will feel as if there are really snowflakes falling in front of you, you can also feel the excitement of Lu Xun in his childhood after the snow, because "snow" means an extremely interesting activity "bird hunting" can begin. You see, even if the order of the language is only slightly adjusted, the emphasis and effect of the expression are completely different. Such a classic, if you don't savor it, figure it out slowly, look at the flowers, and swallow the dates, then how can you appreciate the wonders? 
Morning Flowers and Sunset Picks" (Recommended Reading Series for Chinese Classes).
Let's talk about the question of how many times to read, if it is general knowledge information, it is enough to read it once or twice, because these objective contents, no matter how many times you read them, are still the same thing, and nothing will change. For example, when you read the "Shenzhou Flying Project", you will read this sentence: In 2003, at 9 o'clock Beijing time on October 15, Yang Liwei took the Shenzhou-5 spacecraft carried by the Long March-2F rocket into space for the first time.
No matter how many times you read this sentence, the information contained in it will not change much, and it will not become "Ma Liwei" or "Niu Liwei" because you have read it ten or twenty times, and it will not become "Ma Liwei" or "Niu Liwei" because you have read it ten or twenty times, and it will not be "Shenzhou 5 spacecraft", but will become an ox cart or a four-wheeled tractor. Of course, there must be people who will say that this exam is going to be examined, and I have to read it several times to memorize it so that I can ensure that I don't lose marks on the exam. Of course, there is some truth to this, but if we detach ourselves from the practical need of exams, we must still know that remembering this information is far less important than improving the ability to understand and appreciate. In order to illustrate this issue more vividly and vividly, I will give an example. In order to prepare for the college entrance examination, I couldn't wait to memorize the entire history book, and I didn't let go of every specific era. Once, a classmate asked me about the time of some important events in history, and found that no matter which one I asked, I could tell it accurately. She dug a pit and didn't ask me when the "Tumubao Change" of the Ming Dynasty was, but I asked me about the rise of the Mongolian tribe of "Wara", which captured Ming Yingzong in Tumubao, and I told her with great certainty that the history textbook did not say a specific time, and the word used in the book was "later". In order to memorize these trivial contents, it has become a little demonic. Set an alarm clock to wake up at 6:18 in the morning, because in 618 AD, the Tang Dynasty was established. On weekends, I really don't want to wake up early, I have to sleep in, and when the alarm clock is called at 6:18 as usual, I have to press it down. If you want to sleep for another two or three hours, but you are afraid of being too indulgent, it will be a waste of time to sleep until noon to eat. So I set a time again, this time at 9:07. Because in 907 AD, the once powerful Tang Dynasty fell. The Tang Dynasty has perished, how can it not rise? Do you want to get good results in the college entrance examination? Not only reciting the specific time of these historical events, but even the rise of the United States in world history, I remember the figures of steel production, coal production, cement production and so on in the United States in the nineteenth century. But ten or twenty years later, those numbers have long been forgotten. It really doesn't mean much to remember these things and not to remember. To paraphrase a classic movie line"If God can give me a chance to do it again, I will definitely not waste the most precious youth time, the most ** memory age, on memorizing the information that is of little value and can be found at any time when needed, I will use this time to read and recite the classics, because it is something that will be useful to me all my life, and it determines what kind of person I will become in this life." ”
Therefore, some information, unless it is necessary to read and remember it several times for the exam, if it is just for understanding, it is good to read it once or twice, and those classics that help to enrich the emotional experience and improve the cognitive ability are worth reading again and again until they become familiar with it and become a part of our blood. Dong Zhongshu of the Han Dynasty said that "poetry has no reach", which means that there is no accessible or immutable interpretation of the Book of Songs, and there is ambiguity from time to time and from person to person. He is talking about aesthetic differences in art appreciation. In fact, it can be extended from this, and the same is true for reading classics, the biggest feature of classics is that they are often read and often new, and often read and often deep. In the book "Why Read the Classics", the famous Italian writer Calvino made 14 definitions of classics, two of which I think are particularly worth sharing with you. A classic is a book that brings discovery every time it is reread as if it were the first time.
A classic is a book that even if we first read it, it seems like we are revisiting something we have read before.
In this sense, the classics deserve to be read and savored over and over again. When I was talking about whether you should read fast or slowly, I cited the example of "From the Garden of Herbs to the Three Flavors Study" to prove this. That example is tasted in terms of language. In order to deepen the experience, we might as well give another example, and in order to compress the space, we might as well take two seven-character quatrains as examples. Title: West Forest Wall Northern Song Dynasty Su Shi looked horizontally into a peak on the side of the ridge, and the height was different from far and near. I don't know the true face of Lushan, only because I am in this mountain. When I first read this poem when I was a child, even if I memorized it, I just knew that it was a poem written by Su Shi on the Xilin wall to write about Lushan. But as I grow up, with the enhancement of my understanding, I will realize that Su Shi's focus is not on writing about Lushan, but on writing a kind of life understanding and life thinking. The so-called "I don't know the true face of Lushan, only because I am in this mountain" is exactly what I mean by "the authorities are confused, and the bystanders are clear". In early spring, Zhang 18 members of the water department were outside the Tang Dynasty, and the light rain on Hanyu Tianjie was as moist as a crisp, and the grass color was close but no. It is the most beneficial spring of the year, and it is absolutely better than the smoke and willows all over the imperial capital. When I was a child, when I read this poem for the first time, even if I memorized it, I just knew that this poem was written by Han Yu about the beauty of early spring. Slowly, through the observation of life, I will realize how true the sentence "the grass is close but there is nothing". It was really "little grass sneaking out of the earth, tender and green." In the garden, in the field, behold, there are a lot of them. "It's not okay to look closely, because every little grass is too small, and you can't see it clearly when you look closely, and only when you look at it from a distance can you feel the thick greenery and vitality. Next, maybe one day, as you read more and your life experience continues to be enriched, you will suddenly find that "I don't know the true face of Lushan, only because I am in this mountain" and "the grass is close but there is nothing" are actually talking about the same truth. There are many things, many people, if we look too closely, but we can't see clearly, we need to distance ourselves in order to see more realistically, in order to discover the beauty and ugliness, good and evil. Such some life experiences, the continuous sublimation of life thinking. How could we have reached it if it had not been for the repeated recitation and tasting of these classics? 
Three Hundred Recitations of Tang Poems
At this level, I believe that some people will still ask me: "Teacher, how fast or slow is it appropriate for you to read, and how many times is appropriate for you to read more?" If you are still entangled in this question, it means that you have not fully grasped the main purpose of my article, and you are still stuck at the level of utilitarian reading. If someone asks me, how do you get so much knowledge and experience about reading from the aforementioned books? Then I will tell him that in addition to borrowing from some famous writers' discourses on reading, it is more important to continue to read and read extensively. This process of practicing, thinking, thinking, and practicing again cannot be replaced by anyone. After all, the expositions of those famous scholars did not come out of thin air, but were also the result of continuous reading and practical thinking. Don't think so much, start reading, start reading widely! There can be qualitative change with quantitative change, don't be too utilitarian, be patient, wait, and actively accumulate. If a person eats five steamed buns to fill his stomach, but he can't think about not eating the first four and eating the fifth directly, it should save more trouble. Immortals can't do it either!