Reading Strategies
Most of the material you will encounter in a course will be text-based.
A successful student in any course uses active reading skills. This section
outlines some reading strategies to improve your understanding of course
material. These strategies can be applied to any written material; the
focus of this section is on reading and reviewing academic and technical
materials because that is the kind of text you will most likely encounter
in your courses.
Check your understanding.
How do you know if you have understood something you're read? Here are some questions to ask yourself as you are reading to assess how well you understand the text.
What if you don't understand what you read?
You can certainly ask your instructor and/or other students for help
in understanding any course material. Here are some tips you can use to
improve your understanding of academic and technical texts.
Preview the text
To preview any course material, take a moment before reading to do the
following:
- Assess the difficulty of the material.
- Discover how it is organized.
- Identify the overall subject and how it is approached.
- Establish what type of material it is (for example practical, theoretical,
historical background or a case study).
- Look for logical breaking points where you might divide the reading
into sections, especially if you only have short blocks of time in which
to study.
- Look for connections between the material and previous course content.
Previewing is an important step because course material can often deal
with unfamiliar subject matter about which you have little or no background
knowledge. Previewing is useful because it helps you make decisions about
how to approach the material. Previewing gets your mind "in gear,"
gives you a mental outline of the topic, and alerts you to what you already
know.
(Adapted with permission from Study and Thinking Skills in College,
by Kathleen T. McWhorter, 1988).
Establish your purpose for reading.
Why are you reading course texts or recommended websites? Your purpose
for reading affects how you approach the material. Are you reading:
- to learn overall concepts such as background information to help you
understand the next topic?
- to learn detailed information?
- to learn how to do a procedure?
- to evaluate the author's perspective or compare it with another author's
viewpoint?
Once you know why you are reading, you are more likely to know when you
have accomplished your reading goal. When you have accomplished that goal,
you should stop reading.
For overall concepts, you may only need to read headings and introductory
and summary paragraphs and look at diagrams.
If you are reading to learn the parts and functions of a complex system,
like the circulatory system in the body, you will need to read and review
the material several times. You may even need to sketch and label parts
of the system in order to know it well enough to be able to use that information.
Pace yourself for your purpose.
When previewing a chapter, website, or other text, skim quickly over
headings, diagrams, illustrations, and highlighted text. You can read
rapidly if you are reading to learn important ideas or overall concepts.
Be prepared to read detailed information more slowly. You may have to
reread diagrams, graphs, or descriptions of procedures several times.
If you are reading unfamiliar topics, you should skim over the material
once to get a mental outline of the topic and then read it again carefully
so you will gain a better understanding of the material.
Identify what you already know.
You learn more easily if you can connect new information to what you
already know. Search your previous experience and knowledge for ideas
to connect to the new material. You will find you are more likely to remember
new information that is connected to what you already know. This step
can also draw your attention to gaps in what you already know or mismatches
between new information and your existing understanding. Those gaps or
mismatches are an opportunity to ask questions. If you are not sure that
the connection you've made between new and previous knowledge is sound,
check your thinking with your instructor.
Paraphrase in your own words.
If you can express the author's ideas in your own words, you understand
them. If you find yourself using only the author's words, then you need
to do more work to integrate those ideas into your own understanding.
Read the text carefully and focus on the ideas and relationships between
ideas rather than the words used to express them.
Use the graphics in your text.
Graphics such as drawings, tables, charts, or diagrams in academic or
technical material usually contain important information. Refer frequently
to graphics when reading text that discusses or explains the information
that they are representing. Take time to connect the written explanation
to the specific parts of the graphic.
Visualize while you read.
Create mental images of the process, procedure, or topic described in
the text. Imagine yourself performing the procedure and focus on the details
or steps throughout. Imagining a written description can improve your
memory, especially if you prefer to learn about a procedure by seeing
a demonstration of it rather than reading about it.
Apply what you're learning.
As you read, take time to think of examples that illustrate the idea
in the text. Apply the concept to situations you are familiar with, such
as your own work context. Think about how you would explain the idea to
someone else and ways you would link the idea to a knowledge they already
have. Draw a picture to represent the idea and how you understand it.
For more information on reading strategies, refer to the following books:
- How to Study in College, by Walter Pauk (6th ed., 1997).
- Strategies for Studying: A Handbook of Skills, by Distant
Education Services at the University of Victoria (1996).
- College Reading and Study Skills, by Kathleen T. McWhorter
(7th ed. 1997).
These books can be checked out of the Grant
MacEwan College LRC.
 
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