6.6 Effective Reading Strategies
Questions to consider:
- What is active reading?
- What are some strategies to use to help with active reading?
- What are the steps in the SQ3R reading strategy?
No universal law exists for how much reading instructors and institutions expect college students to undertake for various disciplines. Suffice it to say, it is a LOT. For most students, it is the volume of reading that catches them most off guard when they begin their college careers. A full course load might require 10–15 hours of reading per week, some of that covering content that will be more difficult than the reading for other courses.
You cannot possibly read word-for-word every single document you need to read for all your classes. That does not mean you give up or decide to only read for your favorite classes or concoct a scheme to read 17 percent for each class and see how that works for you. You need to learn to skim, annotate, and take notes. All of these techniques will help you comprehend more of what you read which is why we read in the first place.
Active Reading Strategies
Active reading differs significantly from skimming or reading for pleasure. You can think of active reading as a sort of conversation between you and the text.
When you sit down to determine what your different classes expect you to read and you create a reading schedule to ensure you complete all the reading, think about when you should read the material strategically, not just how to get it all done. You may also want to consider:
- Reading the textbook chapters and other reading assignments before you go into a lecture about that information. Don’t wait to see how the lecture goes before you read the material, or you may not understand the information in the lecture. Reading before class helps you put ideas together between your reading and the information you hear and discuss in class.
- When scheduling your reading time, take into account that different disciplines have different types of texts. For example, you may look at a poem for your world literature class and assume that it will not take you long to read because it is relatively short compared to the dense textbook you have for your economics class. But reading and understanding a poem can take a considerable amount of time when you realize you may need to stop numerous times to review the separate
The SQ3R Reading Strategy
You may have heard of the SQ3R method for active reading in your early education. This valuable technique is perfect for college reading. The title stands for Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review, and you can use the steps on virtually any assigned passage. Designed by Francis Pleasant Robinson in his 1961 book Effective Study, the active reading strategy gives readers a systematic way to work through any reading material.
Survey
Survey is similar to skimming. You look for clues to meaning by reading the titles, headings, introductions, summary, captions for graphics, and keywords. You can survey almost anything connected to the reading selection. In this step, you decide what the general meaning is for the reading selection.
Question
Question is your creation of questions to seek the main ideas, support, examples, and conclusions of the reading selection. Try to create valid questions about what you are about to read that have come into your mind as you engaged in the Survey step. Try turning the headings of the sections in the chapter into questions. Next, how does what you are reading relate to you, your school, your community, and the world?
Read
Read is when you actually read the passage. Try to find the answers to questions you developed in the previous step. When you finish reading the selection, stop to make notes. Answer the questions by writing a note in the margin, or other white space of the text.
You may also carefully underline or highlight text in addition to your notes. Use caution here that you do not try to rush this step by haphazardly circling terms or the other extreme of underlining huge chunks of text. Do not over-mark. You are not likely to remember what these cryptic marks mean later when you come back to use this active reading session to study. The text is the source of information—your marks and notes are just a way to organize and make sense of that information.
Recite
Recite means to speak out loud. By reciting, you are engaging other senses to remember the material—you read it (visual) and you said it (auditory). Stop reading momentarily to answer your questions or clarify confusing sentences or paragraphs. You can recite a summary of what the text means to you. If you are not in a place where you can verbalize, such as a library or classroom, you can accomplish this step adequately by saying it in your head. You may even want to try explaining the content to a friend. During this step, you can also write down the answers to your questions.
Review
Review is a recap. Go back over what you read and add more notes, ensuring you have captured the main points of the passage, identified the supporting evidence and examples, and understood the overall meaning. You may need to repeat some or all the SQ3R steps during your review depending on the length and complexity of the material. Before you end your active reading session, write a short (no more than one page is optimal) summary of the text you read.
Quick Quiz 6.6
- Why is active reading important in college?
- Explain the SQ3R reading strategy in your own words?