Critical Reading, at its Core, Plain and Simple

Non-critical (or pre-critical) reading is concerned with recognizing what a text says about the topic. The goal is to make sense of the presentation as a sequence of thoughts, to understand the information, ideas, and opinions stated within the text from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph. This is a linear acitivity.

Critical reading is an analytic activity. The reader rereads a text to identify patterns of elements --information, values, assumptions, and language usage-- throughout the discussion. These elements are tied together in an interpretation, an assertion of an underlying meaing of the text as a whole.

Critical thinking involves bringing outside knowledge, biases, and values to bear to evaluate the presentation and decide what ultimately to accept as true.

Checkout the link Critical Reading, at its Core, Plain and Simple

Also checkout a post from arpipatel Read Critically