Historical Research 101: How To Read a Book
- Al Johnson
- 7 minutes ago
- 2 min read
A recent post by Owen Gregorian noted that his students are unable to read, and more importantly, they cannot comprehend even a simple 20 page assignment. This is not an isolated observation. As Gregorian noted, another teacher, Adam Kotsko at Great Books School in North Central College noted in a February 2024 Slate article:
"... that students who once handled 30 pages of reading per class meeting now seem “intimidated by anything over 10 pages and seem to walk away from readings of as little as 20 pages with no real understanding.” Crucially, he added that this is “not a matter of laziness on the part of the students” but of underlying skills they were never given a chance to build."
Last month on our livestream, we discussed this exact crisis in literacy and research comprehension.
We talked about the challenges facing both new investigators and seasoned ones, and I shared practical techniques I’ve used for years to read books efficiently and extract maximum value from them. What I didn’t realize at the time was how closely these methods align with a classic work that’s been guiding serious readers for decades.
In 1943, Mortimer Adler published How to Read a Book; a timeless guide that breaks reading into four distinct stages. Adler considered the final stage, Syntopical Reading, the most important. This is where you don’t just absorb one text, but compare and synthesize ideas across multiple sources to form deeper insights.
We’ve been teaching these exact skills for years in our Think Like a Detective course to both new investigators and children. The results have been consistently strong. Once students internalize the routine, their comprehension improves dramatically relative to their starting baseline. In an age of copy-paste thinking and digital distraction, this structured approach helps rebuild the mental muscles that many educational environments no longer strengthen.
If you’re interested in the course, just let me know and we can schedule a session. An older sample of Think Like a Detective is still available online while my daughter revamps it for kids and young adults. Expect that rebooted edition soon, depending on how much our real world caseload can get whittled down to find time.
Bonus for Kids and ParentsWant to give your “Junior Detectives” a fun head start? Look for games that naturally teach Means, Motive, and Opportunity while they play. My daughter has put together some excellent recommendations on her channel:
Getting them started early makes all the difference.
History DA on Substack: https://historyda.substack.com
What are your thoughts on the current state of reading and comprehension? Have you noticed these shifts in your own work or with students? Drop a comment below
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