Four levels of Reading

1. Elementary reading, which centers on the identity of individual terms and sentences.

2. Inspectional reading, which skims a book to discover its basic structure and major ideas.

3. Analytical reading, which studies the book in-depth in order to understand its message as completely as possible.

4. Syntopical reading, which compares the message with other books of a similar nature in order to construct a detailed and original analysis of the subject mater.


[Mortimer Adler & Charles van Doren, 'How to Read a Book' 1972:16-20]