Reading Strategies

• • Identify what you’re reading for - This will give you context for understanding. This will allow you to organize both your reading and how you can use what you read. Ask yourself questions before you begin reading: Are you reading only for general content? For data? For specific information or general?

  • Allow enough time to read, and take your time - Reading critically is not a fast process. Do not read everything too quickly or at the same speed. When you know what you are reading for you can determine what information can be skimmed and other passages that might need to be reread.

  • Remember that re-reading is a part of effective, critical reading - Just like having more than one conversation with another person leads to closer understanding, conducting a number of readings leads to a richer and more meaningful relationship with, and understanding of, a text.

  • Engage with the text to get the most out of it - Read with a pen or pencil, highlighting key statements, parts, or points - even those you find confusing. Make notes of words you do not understand, so you can look them up later. Bracket the main ideas and put an asterisk next to it. Make outlines, flowcharts, or diagrams (Sketchnoting) to help map out your understanding. Make note of concepts or questions that you might have, in other words, have a dialogue with your text, mark it up, and make it your own.

  • Ask yourself if you can explain both “What the text says” and “What it does” - In other words, can you both provide a summary of the key claims and understand its purpose, what this text seeks to do? Keep in mind that all texts filter reality - distort, persuade, and arrive at different conclusions - and all texts are trying to change your view in some way.

  • Attempt to write a test question or teach the concept to someone else - Research clearly shows that teaching is one of the most effective ways to learn. If you try to explain aloud what you have been studying it transfers the information from short term to long term memory and it will allow you to quickly see what you understand or do not understand.

  • Attempt to understand how each writer’s background and purpose influence what they write - Reading a text critically requires that you ask questions about the writer’s authority and agenda. You may need to put yourself in the author’s shoes and recognize that those shoes fit a certain way of thinking.

  • Work to understand your own strategies and to improve them - Ask yourself questions about how you read: Do you read too quickly or slowly? Do you tend to lose your focus? Can you scan for key information or ideas?

Adapted from the University of Minnesota’s Student Writing Guide, 2004 and Active Reading Strategies from The McGraw Center