Tips for Active Reading
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
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