Language Learning Methods: Mao Zedong's "Four More" Reading Method]

Mao Zedong's "four more" reading method

This is a method of reading that emphasizes the use of multiple sensory organs to improve efficiency in step-by-step, purposeful thinking.

Comrade Mao Zedong devoted his life to learning and read a wide range of books. Since his youth, he has paid great attention to the method of reading. As early as when he was studying at the First Normal School in Hunan, he once said: The reading method should be "four more" - one read more, write more, think more, and ask more questions. For a long time, he practiced the "four more" reading method and gained tremendous benefits. The specific practices of this reading method are:

Read more.

This not only means that the scope of reading should be extensive and the number should be large, but also that important books or articles should be read several times to reach the point of "profound understanding" and "ripeness". He had read many of Han Yu's prose and many Tang poems and Song poems, and often read them so much that he could blurt them out. Until his old age, he was able to recite more than five hundred ancient poems very fluently. He was particularly fond of the "three Li" in the poetry circle - Li Bai, Li He, and Li Shangyin, and in small talk, he could often pick up their poems, or explain, or use them, or extend them, such as several family treasures, and export them into fun. Comrade Mao Zedong can often recite many important passages in novels in one breath. This often stunned some of the liberal arts students working around him.

In the early fifties, Comrade Mao Zedong bought a set of twenty-four histories in thread-bound, totaling 850 volumes. If he had obtained the most precious treasure, he would turn it over when he had time, and the covers and spines of many books were torn. He read it in the fifties and reread it again in the sixties, until he became seriously ill in 1975, his hands were constantly trembling as he wrote, and he also wrote "1975, 8, re-reading" and "1975" in many volumes of the twenty-fourth history. 9. Read again" records.

More reading is familiar, practice makes perfect, and skill can make flowers. It was in this way that Comrade Mao Zedong repeatedly studied it, which made him deeply understand the essential meaning of these books.

Write more.

For many years, Comrade Mao Zedong developed a habit of reading, that is, he did not read without a pen in his hand. He insisted on writing more: either excerpting witty remarks, or casually circled eyebrows, or written into special reading notes. When he was a student, he read a book written by the German Bauersheng, which was only about 100,000 words, but he wrote more than 12,000 words of criticism in the blank space of the book. Many places add dots, single lines, double lines, triangles, forks and other symbols. Some of the criticisms expressed their approval, some raised questions, some synthesized, summarized, and compared according to the sayings of their predecessors, and some criticized and supplemented. During the war years and the era of socialist construction, Comrade Mao Zedong repeatedly read Marx's "Capital", "Criticism of Political Economy> "Thirteen > of Lenin's Treatises on Political Economy" and "Stalin's < The Economic Problems of Socialism in the Soviet Union". Many books have handwritten notes on his annotations. He has annotated more than a dozen kinds of philosophical works, including < dialectical materialism course> a book, with a brush and a red and blue pencil at the brow of the book written nearly 13,000 words of criticism. The third chapter of the book, "The Fundamental Law of Dialectics," has the largest number of annotated words, and the longest passage is nearly a thousand words.

After Comrade Mao Zedong read a book on dialectics by Aischi during his time in Yan'an, he wrote a long reading note, wrote out the outline of the book, and wrote down his own views.

Write more, including writing eyebrows, compiling summaries, writing impressions and other forms. Writing more can promote reading, promote thinking, hand-eye-brain use, reading effect is naturally extraordinary.

Think about it.

Writing more when reading is actually a kind of "pen talk", that is, reading while using the pen to "talk" out of their own ideas, as if they are discussing with the author. This kind of "pen talk" makes the reading process into a process of repeated thinking and active absorption.

This kind of "thinking more" should be carried out in connection with the reality of life and work. The children of Comrade Mao Zedong recalled: "Knowledge seems to be 'dead' to us, and when we get to our father, it seems to be 'alive'. For example, reading < Romance of the Three Kingdoms," Comrade Mao Zedong thought about the contents of the book in connection with war, diplomacy, and organizational skills. Reading "The Tale of the West Chamber", he said: "The Red Lady is a famous figure. She was a young man, a slave, and in order to perfect others, she was tortured herself, did not yield, and in turn blamed the old lady... Hopefully, people don't underestimate young people of low status. "

Ask more.

Comrade Mao Zedong often said to people: Learning means "learning" and "asking", and it is very interesting that the two words are connected to become a noun. We must not only be studious, but also inquisitive. The starting point of more questions is to think more, think more will inevitably produce problems, and when there is a problem, you must ask yourself, ask others and other ways to get answers. Comrade Mao Zedong was good at asking questions when he was a student. At that time, whenever famous scholars from other provinces came to Changsha to give lectures, he always visited and asked for advice from many sources.

Ask more questions, you can find problems from the understanding, application, evaluation and other aspects of the book, and strive to deepen the understanding of the book in the process of solving the problem.