Tips for Active Reading
One of the most exasperating experiences of many college students is failure to
understand what they read. Many students begin their college work, in fact, with
a great distrust in their own ability to read college-level assignments and to
perform such tasks successfully. Clearly, the ability to master reading is an
essential skill critical to the success of each student.
Tips
for Active Reading is a set of proven strategies for mastering the
content of academic reading (with a bonus at the end!) Students who practice
these tips create a retrieval system of information, but more importantly, they
facilitate both short-term as well as long-term memory that will serve them
well throughout their college career, indeed, throughout their lives in every
arena which requires a thorough mastery of reading. Here, then, are nine Tips
for Active Reading:
1) Make use of your attention span--whatever it is!
All of us have experienced the loss of concentration on what we read and our
mind beginning to drift. Most of us feel guilty when we discover that we're
wandering away from the page. Nevertheless, we can use that frustration to our
benefit as readers. As you prepare to begin a reading assignment, step
back and watch yourself reading the assignment. Make a mental note about where
it was in your text where you caught yourself beginning to drift. Then ask
yourself, "Is this where I interrupt the reading? Is this where I make the
phone call, run the errand, raid the refrigerator?" Go ahead! Give
in to the diversion, whatever it might be, but when you return to the reading,
come back to it with a commitment to reading with attention the same length of
passage before you will give yourself permission to drift again.
What you will find through this conscious effort is your attention span
increasing little by little.
2)
Concentrate on paragraphs.
For many of us, the idea of having to master the content of a whole book is
simply overwhelming. We don't even know where to begin without specific
assignments or study questions. The fact is, however, that most of us can
master such massive amounts of information if we realize that the basic unit of
written communication is not the book, not even a chapter, but a simple
paragraph!
Most books are nothing more than a pile of paragraphs, each one strung together
to the next and so on. If we can master the content of one, we can master the
content of all of them. The problem ceases to be an "issue of the
head" as much as an "issue of the heart"! The real question is,
"Do I really want to do this? Do I really want to master and control
this information?"
3)
Read for the main idea of each paragraph.
As
you read each paragraph of a chapter, pause after each and ask yourself,
"What did I just read? What was this paragraph about?" Then,
fill in the blank: "This paragraph is about ______." What you place
in your mental blank should be a short phrase, preferably framed in your own
words.
4)
Annotate the main idea in the margin beside each paragraph.
Throw away the yellow highlighter! Highlighting is no more than an exercise in
passive rather than active reading. In no more than three or four words at the
most, write or print the main idea beside each paragraph in ink only! In a
textbook of your own, never annotate in pencil! The threat of being wrong will
actually increase your confidence as a reader with every additional permanent
annotation!
5)
Develop a strategy for marking the text.
Create a consistent pattern of markings, underlining only certain kinds of
information, bracketing other, circling only key words or concepts. The
key is to be consistent so that every time you scan a page, the markings
themselves will signal a kind of meaning.
6) Develop a strategy for use of margins.
Practice a systematic use of margins, entering symbols of rhetorical patterns
("df" for "defintion,"
"ex" for "example," etc.) on the interior margins, for
example; content information (main ideas) in the exterior margins; the main
idea of a whole page at the top of the each page.
7)
Transfer each main idea to a note card.
The key to retrieving information for class discussion and for developing both
short-term and long-term memory is the isolation of each important concept to a
separate format. Start at the beginning of a chapter. Write down each important
marginal note on a card, entering the page number each time you come upon the
same or related annotation.
You will find that you will have reduced the key concepts to a set of no more
than a dozen or so cards for an entire book!
8)
Begin your study with the cards.
Review the annotations and page numbers on the cards. Ask yourself, "To
what does this note refer?" If you cannot remember the content from the
annotation and its page references, then return quickly to the noted pages and
scan the markings. Very rarely will you have to reread even a paragraph to
remember the key concepts.
9) Study only with other active readers.
Don't be ripped off by lazy readers! Never study with anyone who hasn't read
actively. You will be wasting your time and won't be helping your colleague to
any significant degree.
BONUS: How to
Memorize a Book!
The idea of memorizing a book may sound preposterous for most readers, but
that's a matter of context or situation only, right? What if it's your
father or spouse or child lying on the gurney being prepared for surgery?
You hope and pray that the doctor who's going to do the job not only memorized
"the book" but preferably wrote the text, no?
Very rarely would memorizing a book be very important, but in the event you
must, here's the process! Here's a tip for memorizing most of the content of
any book of expository--that is to say, explanatory--writing based upon the
steps above:
The key is the creation of paragraph flashcards!
1)
Identify the topic sentence--stated or implied--in a paragraph.
2)
Identify the primary sentence or two that answer one or more of the critical
questions about the main idea in the topic sentence (who? what? where? when?
why? and how?).
3)
Reframe the topic sentence as a question form beginning with the appropriate interogative pronoun. Type this question form on one side
of the card.
4)
On the reverse side of the card, type only the one or two sentences that answer
the question.
This page was last modified on February 10, 2006,
and is maintained by Dr. Geoffrey Grimes.
