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Information about Active Reading |
Active Reading
Previewing
Reading the Text
Survey-Question-Read-Recite-Review (SQ3R)
Reading the Text
Brainstorming Questions
Check your Predictions and Ask a New Question
Recite
Review
Deena: Hey, how is everyone doing today?
Brian: Better.
Heather: Great!
Jose: Okay.
Deena: Is everyone getting through the data okay?
Heather: Sage, is something wrong? You haven't said anything.
Sage: There is something I want to ask the group. It seems like the more reading I do, the more difficult it is to remember what I've read, let alone fully understand it. I'm not sure whether it's just me.
Heather: I don't think it's you. In what way does it seem more difficult, Sage?
Brian: Yeah, do you actually have enough time to do all the assigned reading? You know, I can help you with some time management skills I've learned. (see the module on Time Management)
Sage: Well thanks, Brian, but that's not it exactly. You know, I really used to enjoy reading. It always relaxed me. But now I seem to get frustrated and stressed, even when I read a romance novel.
Jose: Reading a romance book would frustrate me too. I'd sooner read a Philosophy text.
Brian: Hey, Jose, some romances are really good books. Have you ever read Gone with the Wind? I think I know what Sage means about a good book being a stress reliever.
Jose: I know, I know. To me it's kind of like an anytime/anywhere movie in my mind.
When you are reading to collect data and retain information, critical thinking skills should be applied in a systematic way. This is different than passively reading something merely for entertainment, in which the story unfolds like a movie in your mind. As you begin to apply active reading skills to reading for entertainment, you may find the movie in your mind becomes more enriched.
Properly applied active reading skills will better enable you to recall and apply information you read.
Activity 2:
Think about a recent reading assignment that was related to an upcoming exam. Describe how you approached this reading assignment by answering the following questions using the "My Notes" tool on the right side of the tool bar at the top of the page.
Jose: Well, applying critical thinking skills to entertainment reading makes it more enjoyable for me.
Brian: You do that even though you are not trying to collect data and memorize a lot of the text materials?
Jose: That's right. I don't see TV and movies as an escape, but as things to interpret. Memorizing for the sake of memorizing - like for an exam - is useless in the long run.
Deena: I always thought that memorizing text was a poor approach to learning.
Heather: It is, but if you can't comprehend the material, it seems like the last resort.
Sage: In high school I had to memorize a lot of lines of text for our drama class. I learned a few tricks about how to do that.
Heather: Really? Do you still remember all of the lines?
Sage: Not really. I would have to study and rehearse them again. I've tried doing this with text materials. I could remember stuff for a while, sometimes, but it doesn't make any sense when the professor asks comprehensive questions involving a summation or an interpretation.
Heather: Any time you seek information through active reading, you are applying critical thinking skills to collect data and process the information for retention. So really, the process used in active reading is similar to conducting an interview. The difference is that you will be conducting the interview with yourself as you interact with the printed materials.
Brian: So reading is not a passive activity?
Heather: Right Brian. You can't expect words to just jump off the page and into your brain to be instantly recalled.
Jose: If you want to understand and retain the material, you have to look for the meanings behind the words. Not just the definitions.
Heather: First, I think we have to look at why we need active reading. Anyone?
Sage: I think we already mentioned looking for the meanings behind the words.
Deena: Yeah.
Jose: And conceptualizing concepts.
Brian: Huh?
Jose: In other words, Brian, find the idea or ideas and determine how they are related to the subject matter you are studying.
Deena: Or in our case, the research we are doing is our context for integrating what we read and what we find.
Heather: Okay. So do you mean that what we are doing is gathering different bits of information as individuals, and then putting them all together?
Deena: That's the way I think about it. We meet, and we conduct, sort of like an interview with each other, to get the information into an idea that means something to all of us and meets our goals.
Sage: So let me see if I follow this. Active reading is like reading the words and then conducting an interview with the book?
Heather: Not really conducting the interview with the book, but rather internally. Just as when you're conducting an interview, you need to follow certain steps to make sure the interview is successful (see the module on Academic Research Interviewing).
Brian: Yeah, that makes sense.
Activity 3:
Think about a time when you were assigned some text to read. How did you preview the assignment? Did you:
Use the "My Notes" tool on the right side of the tool bar at the top of the page to write a couple of sentences about how you preview assignments.
Heather: The method of active learning I know about is called SQ3R. It stands for Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review. The first stage, surveying, involves previewing the text.
Sage: Previewing the text?
Heather: Yes. Learning about the text, but that doesn't just mean checking how many pages there are. Remember, the purpose is to learn and retain the information in the text. There are specific tips you can use to preview the text to make your reading more effective.
Survey-Question-Read-Recite-Review (SQ3R)
Survey, question, read, recite, and review describe the steps in a study/reading method that promotes an active attitude toward learning. When you clear your mind for the task of studying, you are alert and centered. You make yourself ready to learn and remember.
Previewing or Surveying
When reading course materials, can you anticipate what the subject matter of the text might cover? Can you anticipate what might appear on your next exam? Active reading involves specific critical thinking skills that help you examine the meaning behind the words and conceptualize concepts. In essence, you engage in an internal interview about the material.
Think back to when you were a child and you were assigned a book to read. Did you do things like count the number of pages or look at the size of the print? Did you look for pictures and read the captions before you started reading the text? If you did, you were previewing or surveying the material.
Previewing is learning about the text before actually reading it. Looking at the number of pages or the pictures is probably not enough to truly help conquer reading assignments at the college level. Practicing effective previewing techniques will help you to maximize your learning from reading.
The first step in previewing is looking over the reading material as it relates to the class you are taking. Here are some additional tips for previewing a reading assignment:
Previewing TipsSurvey -- in this step you gather the information necessary to focus and formulate goals.
- State your purpose for reading the material. Ask yourself the question, "What is this reading about?" Try to make predictions about the content. Write your prediction down as a reminder as you read.
- Read the title. This helps your mind prepare to receive the subject matter.
- Notice each boldface heading and subheading to organize your mind before you begin to read and build a structure for thoughts and details to come.
- Read captions for the pictures and graphs.
- Skim over graphs, tables, charts, etc. and see how they support and explain the text.
- Read the introduction and summary and pick out the chapter's main points.
Deena: That's fine perhaps for books and articles, but some of our assignments don't involve reading a whole book, and may not even be an entire chapter. So some of what we pre-read may not be necessary.
Brian: There's nothing wrong with reading more than was assigned. Right?
Jose: Right! And even if only a few pages from a chapter are assigned, I think it helps to get the "flavor" of the rest of the book. You know, it helps when you have kind of a perspective on what point of view or the context from which the author or editor is coming.
Sage: Hey guys, it's a free country. We can read what we want. And, they can't make us pay for all that extra learning we might get.
Heather: True, we could read as much as we want and probably should. But however many "flavors" we sample, the reality is that we also want to pay particular attention to what might end up on an exam.
Jose: I think we also need to pay particular attention to the context in which we read the text.
Heather: That brings us to the second stage of active reading, actually reading the text and developing strategies.
Reading the Text
Deena: Okay, so we have the tips for previewing. Are there also tips for when you are actually reading the text?
Sage: I would imagine so. Heather seems to have tips for everything.
Heather: Sure, okay. There are a series of steps for when you are reading a text. If you use each of these techniques, you will get much more out of what you read than if you use just one or two of them. The second step of active reading involves thorough reading of the material and developing strategies to be used while reading.
Deena: So, what do we do after we preview the text?
Heather: Contextualize the text. In other words, think about the text from the author's point of view, position in history, and cultural surroundings. When you do your research it is important to try to have an accurate interpretation of information being presented.
Contextualize -- looking at texts from an historical, biographical, and cultural context. Most readers interpret material based on personal experiences. But if you are reading an English novel written in the 1800's from your 21st century perspective, you may not understand the context - such as the class system in the 1800s. Contextualizing helps you think about the author's point of view as it relates to your reading of the text.
Brian: Like a rental apartment being advertised as having early American décor bathroom facilities.
Jose: That could mean an outhouse!
Sage: Exactly -- and would be pretty inconvenient.
Heather: I doubt that someone would advertise that way, and this is pretty simplistic, but I think you've got the general idea about the contextual setting.
Deena: Well, if you just think about historical context, not too many years ago there were scientists concerned that an ice age was coming and newspapers reported about their concern. If you read one of those articles today, and you didn't know its historical context, you might worry about the coming ice age instead of global warming.
Sage: Or, if you were reading about the reconstruction years in the South after the Civil War, you might want to know whether the author is from the North or the South, or whether he is African American or Caucasian.
Heather: Depending on the author's point of view and culture, there could be extremely different ways to interpret that period of history.
Sage: I'll say....
Take a minute to think about what you do when you read. Why do you think that reading the text in proper context is important? What do you think are some of the advantages and disadvantages? Use the "My Notes" tool to write a couple of sentences to answer these questions.
Question -- helps your mind to engage and concentrate
After you determine the context of the material you are reading, brainstorm questions to which you will expect to find answers in the text. Frame questions -- perhaps variations of the headings, sub-headings, or topic sentences -- which you make into your personal questions. For each chapter or section in the text, ask yourself questions such as: "What questions are likely to be included on an examination about this material?" Write those questions down.
Ask yourself your brainstorming questions as you read. Questions should be clear and concise, relate questions directly to the text rather than asking abstract or general questions. View the text as holding a variety of possibilities and more than one concept or idea. Don't develop questions that can be answered with a simple "yes" or "no" response.
Activity 5:
You can do the following exercise as often as you need to until you automatically ask yourself questions as you actively read a text. Try it with different authors, styles of textbooks, courses, and materials. Newspapers, magazines, journal articles, textbooks, etc. will be constructed in a variety of ways, so you have to be flexible and smart about how you read them. Try reading first with just a paragraph, then gradually expanding your selection to include more paragraphs or whole sections or sub-sections of text.
Select a paragraph, or a group of paragraphs, and read it carefully and thoroughly. Put the material aside and answer the following questions:
• How would you paraphrase the content if you were describing it to someone? This text is about__________________?
• What are the main points, ideas, or theses? What is the author trying to say or prove?
• Did you understand all of the vocabulary and concepts?
• Were any words or phrases printed in bold face or italics? Why?
• How did the author organize/structure the material? Was it fact-based? Theoretical? Problem oriented? Argumentative? Opinionated?
• What were the most important points in the text that supported the main idea? List them.
• What assumptions were made in the text? Do they contradict other material you have read?
• Do you agree or disagree with the content? Why?
Brian: Simple yes or no type questions won't work here?
Sage: Not effectively!
Sage: After writing down our questions, we can then write down the answers.
Sage: Hey, you know this is starting to sound like an interview!
Deena: That's right, interviewing the text.
Heather: Do you remember when I was introducing active reading that we referred to it as conducting an interview?
Sage: I guess I wasn't applying my active notetaking skills (see the Notetaking module).
Brian: I hope there isn't too much more. I'm getting pressed for time.
Deena: There are just three more tips for what to do when reading, then we can wrap this up. And you can go study time management, Brian.
Sage: We already mentioned the next one anyway, checking back on our predictions about the text.
As You Read
The third step of active reading involves developing strategies to be used during reading and then actually reading the text. Here are some active reading tips.
- Set realistic goals for the amount of time and number of pages to be read.
- Divide a chapter into small sections, rather than trying to read the whole chapter non-stop.
- Ask yourself a question before each paragraph or section, and then locate the answer in the text.
- Take breaks when you are unable to concentrate on the material due to daydreaming, drowsiness, boredom, hunger, etc.
- Use your hand and marking pen to guide your eyes down the page, marking only the essential words and phrases.
- Think, interpret, and analyze the first time you read, to avoid unnecessary re-reading.
- Remember to conceptualize the text as you read. Look at texts from a historical, biographical, and cultural context. Most readers interpret material based upon personal experiences. But if you are reading an English novel written in the 1800's from your perspective in the 21st century, you may not understand the context. If you were reading about the reconstruction years in the South after the Civil War, you might want to know whether the author is from the North or the South, or whether they are African American. Depending on the author's point of view and culture, there could be extremely different ways to interpret that period of history. Conceptualizing helps you think about the author's point of view as it relates to your reading of the text.
- Ask yourself your brainstorming questions as you read. Questions should be clear and concise; relate questions directly to the text rather than asking abstract or general questions. View the text as holding a variety of possibilities and more than one concept or idea. Don't develop questions that can be answered with a simple "yes" or "no" response.
- Write the answers to your questions as you find them.
- Check back to see if your predictions about the text were correct.
- Ask yourself new questions and write them down. Examine and re-examine the answers to your questions.
- Revise your predictions as you read. If your first predictions about the text were incorrect, that's okay. In fact, it means you are really getting something out of the process of actively reading. Highlight or mark areas that challenged your attitudes, beliefs, or responses to current issues.
Brian: What if our predictions aren't correct? Does that mean we messed up?
Heather: No. That's why we check ourselves. We can't all be perfect all the time. We check our predictions, and then we form new questions and write them down along with the answers.
Deena: So, we might have to change our predictions because they really didn't match the text?
Sage: I would think so. After all we didn't write the text, and our predictions were conceived before we did the reading.
Sage: Part of learning is adding to or changing what we already know, and modifying our attitudes and points of view.
Sage: Basically, our prior knowledge is what we use to come up with predictions in the first place.
Heather: When we find our predictions are incorrect, it means we are getting something from the process of active reading.
Jose: So, we need to revise our predictions often as we read the text?
Heather: Yes, along with forming new questions and answers.
Jose: If I follow what you have just said, by becoming involved with the text, we will remember it better.
Brian: Right, Jose. We become active learners by reading in this way.
The Second "R" in SQ3R -- Recite
The fourth step as you are reading is the second "R" in SQ3R, Recite. When you recite, you retrain your mind to concentrate and learn as you read
- After each section stop, look away from the book, recall your questions, and see if you can answer them from memory.
- If not, look back again, but do not go on to the next section until you can recite the answers.
- Also, try to visualize what you have just read.
- Make separate notes or outlines of what you have read.
Activity 6:
Take a minute to think about what you do when you read. Using the "My Notes" tool, answer the following questions:
Heather: Well, don't forget we need to review what we read after we finish reading.
Heather: So far we have covered previewing the text, thinking about the information we are reading in context, and activities to do when reading the text.
Brian: So are we closing in on the finish line?
Heather: Yes. What we want to do next is to review the text, especially those areas that challenged us.
Jose: Challenged us in what way?
Heather: Things that challenge our attitude about something, our beliefs, or responses to current issues, and to look for patterns among these things.
Sage: How do we organize this?
Heather: You may want to outline themes and summarize sections.
Jose: We could look for the critical links in the patterns.
Sage: To me, outlining means distinguishing between main ideas and supporting ideas, consolidating examples, and then writing them down.
Deena: Condensing and putting things into your own words and ideas helps accomplish the review process.
Keep in mind that when you summarize, you also want to test the credibility, logic, and emotion of what you have read into it.
Brian: Okay, so if I felt like it wasn't true or valid I should challenge it?
Sage: That's right. The author will make an argument for an opinion or belief, but their conclusions may not be the same as yours. What works for someone else may not be appropriate for you.
Sage: We need to know that "truth" may be different for each of us. That's why it's important to be good notetakers in the lecture setting also. A lecture is just another kind of text, but it's in an oral versus written format.
Jose: So active reading is like having a conversation with the author who could be in front of us in the classroom, or in print.
Heather: Very good, Jose. But don't forget that you are also having a continuous interview with yourself.
Sage: So, I think we've pretty much covered what to do when reviewing. You definitely have the idea about active reading.
Heather: But remember that the important idea is going through the process and getting as much as you can from the written information.
Reviewing Tips
Reviewing will refine your mental organization and begin building memory.
Here are some tips for the "Reviewing," the fifth step in active reading.
- Once you have completed the whole chapter:
- Reread your outline, look away, and recite the outline from memory.
- Look back over all of your questions.
- Continue this process until you feel that you understand and know the material.
- Take a short break and reward your success.
- Decide when you are ready to work again, center your thoughts, take a few minutes to review the information you just learned, and go on to the next chapter or another subject.
- Review areas that challenged your attitudes, beliefs, or responses to current issues. Look for patterns.
- Outline themes and summarize sections.
- Outlining distinguishes between main ideas, supporting ideas, and examples.
- Summarizing begins with an outline, but ends by putting all the ideas together in your own words in condensed form.
- Test the credibility, logic, and emotional impact of what you have read. Do not just accept everything as truth. The author will make an argument for an idea, opinion, and belief, but the author's conclusions do not necessarily have to be the same as yours, and vice versa. As you read, you can have a "conversation" with the author, as well as having a continuous interview with yourself.
Activity 7:
Take a minute to think about your current reviewing techniques. Write a few sentences about how you make sure you have learned the material you are reading using the "My Notes" tool. What can you do to improve your reviewing skills as an active reader?
Activity 8:
Do you understand about good strategies for reading actively? Take this short quiz (ANGEL Quiz) to check yourself.
As you can see from reading about the SQ3R approach to active reading described above, reading for college is not a passive activity. Important facts, information, and concepts will not just jump off the page and into your brain for instant recollection. In order to comprehend and retain the material you read, look for the intent and the meanings behind the words.
Active reading involves specific critical thinking skills that help you examine meaning and put concepts into context. In essence, you engage in an internal interview with yourself about the material.
Activity 9:
Here is a passage on the history of Penn State taken from "The Penn State Experience: A freshman guide to life outside the classroom" (Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1999). Read the passage using the Active Reading skills you have learned in this module, then take the quiz (ANGEL Quiz) to see how you did.
In 1855, the Pennsylvania legislature chartered the Farmer's High School. At the first trustees' meeting, the main order of business was obtaining a location for the school. The board considered proposals from five people who were willing to provide 200 or more acres of land.
Among the offers was that of General James Irvin of Bellefonte, who could provide a 200-acre tract of land from his large holdings. All five locations were visited, and the committee ultimately accepted Irvin's offer after local citizens sweetened the deal pledging an additional $10,000 for the school.
An architect was hired to design the main building, a five-story stone structure composed of three wings, with rooms for up to 400 students, faculty living quarters and classrooms. With $100,000 from various sources, construction began. Tuition and room and board charges were fixed at $100 per year, and on February 16, 1859, 69 students arrived to begin their studies. The school's address was simply, "Farm School."
In 1887, the first student newspaper was published. "Free Lance" was a monthly publication and sold for 15 cents. In 1941, the Nittany Lion Shrine was commissioned with the 1940 Class Gift. Heinz Warnake was selected to sculpt the Lion, and he worked on campus in full view of the students. It was completed in four months, carved from a thirteen-ton block of limestone. In the 1980s, a cast of the lion was made and stored in an undisclosed location after part of an ear was broken off.
In 1947, Henry Varnum Poor finished the first of Old Main's frescoes, depicting the signing of the Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1862 that paved the way for Penn State's land grant mission of outreach to the citizens of Pennsylvania.
In 1982, Penn State won its first NCAA football championship and a second in 1986 to celebrate its 100th anniversary in the sport. Penn State joined the Big Ten Conference in 1992 in all sports and to facilitate academic progress among the Big Ten institutions.
In 1997, Penn State reorganized its Commonwealth Educational System. In its place, it established a "Commonwealth College" with 14 campuses and allowed the formation of three additional colleges: Berks-Lehigh Valley College, Abington College and Altoona College. These new academic colleges can establish a limited number of four-year baccalaureate programs that will benefit their communities.
Take the quiz (ANGEL Quiz).
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