Reading Strategies for Effective Comprehension

Monday, November 21 @ 7 pm ET

Presented by Amy Sexton

Kaplan University Writing Center

Please click here to view this recorded workshop:

http://khe2.adobeconnect.com/p67e88quhwd/

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Our learning objectives for this workshop are to be able to identify effective reading strategies and to consider applying them to your study skills for optimal learning and comprehension. The reading strategies we will review include taking charge of your reading, absorbing the text, constructing a KWL chart, note-taking, and learning how the KUWC can help. Some of these strategies you might know, and I welcome you to share how well they work for you. Some of these strategies might be new, and I encourage you to ask questions and comment in the chat area.

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Take charge of your reading!

Have you ever spent several minutes reading and then realized that you cannot articulate anything that you just read? Probably the best way to read for understanding about what you’ve read is using metacognition, which means thinking about your thinking, what you are thinking about as you are reading, what you are comprehending and what you aren’t.

Another strategy is to minimize distractions before you read. Turn off the TV or your phone. Shut the door, and let the other people in your house know not to disturb you for an hour—and do give yourself a realistic amount of time to do your reading.

You can expect to do two hours of reading and studying for every credit hour you take as an undergrad and double that number of reading hours for every credit hour you take as a grad student. Reading takes time, especially when you’re reading about an unfamiliar topic or a journal article that uses unfamiliar terminology.

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Reading, or absorbing a text for the purpose of comprehending it and learning from it, is a process.

The first step is to scan the text for its organization.

Then next step is to read each section one at a time.

As you’re reading, make sure to pause to look up words and ask questions when necessary. You’re thinking about your thinking as you read, so you will likely have questions. Make notes of these.

Finally, reading out loud also helps you absorb a text, especially if you learn best by listening.

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To scan a text for organization, you are analyzing how it’s organized—most pieces of writing have an introduction, body, and conclusion, and you can expect the main idea to be stated in the intro, broken into supporting ideas and details in the body, and restated with the main points emphasized in the conclusion.

The page on the slide is from the peer review chapter in the Kaplan Guide to Successful Writing. What stands out to you about the way the text is organized and laid out on the page?

This passage begins with an introduction on the goal of peer review. Next, the middle part lists some objectives of peer review. Notice there is a special section set aside that the authors are using to draw our eyes to an important point—the authors want us to know that peer review does not have to fill us with dread.

Scanning a text for its organization helps us to unlock main points in a text before we even start reading. It also helps us digest the information as we are seeing it in chunks instead of one long chapter.

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Read one section at a time.

The sample text on the slide shows that same page from the peer review section of the Kaplan Guide to Successful Writing. The section is titled, “Why Use Peer Review?” The section is four pages long, and it is part of a ten-page chapter called “Effective Peer Reviews.” Reading a section at a time and taking a few minutes between each section to think about what you just read and take note of any questions will help you to assimilate each chunk of information before reading the next. This will help you retain what you’ve read because you can recall it section by section.

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What do you do when you come across unfamiliar words in your readings?

It is a good idea to pause during reading to look up unfamiliar words or phrases in your textbook’s glossary or in a reputable dictionary, like one published by the Merriam-Webster Company that is also available as an electronic version at http://www.merriam-webster.com/. Two words that might feel unfamiliar when it comes to writing and peer review might be “engage” and “collaboration.” By looking up the word “engage” as a verb, we can let go of our common understanding of the word as having to do with being engaged to be married and discover that another meaning of the word is “to become involved in or with”. If we look up the word “collaborate”, we find that it is another word for “to work together”. You may also find the options to look up words in Microsoft Word helpful.

When you have questions about new vocabulary or complex texts, you’re probably not alone, so raising these questions in an appropriate discussion board area, is another great way to start a conversation with your classmates about what you are reading, which will further help you understand it. You can bring your questions about a text to the Academic Support Center too. In addition to our Live Tutoring in the Writing Center, we have tutors available in the Science, Math, Technology, and Business Centers. We’ll talk later in the presentation about how to find these centers.

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Note-taking techniques depend on the purpose of reading.

I’ve already mentioned taking notes between sections as you read, but there are other note-taking strategies, and one might work for you. I’m going to explain how to construct a KWL chart, highlight a text, write notes in the margins, write notes on a separate page, and/or compose a double-entry journal.

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Create a KWL chart.

Creating a KWL chart serves dual purposes as both a pre-reading strategy and a note-taking strategy. KWL stands for KNOW, WANT, and LEARN. We process new information by fitting it in with what we already know about a topic, so many readers find creating a KWL chart helpful.

Before reading, think about the topic. What do you already know about it? How do you think the new information will fit in with what you already know?

The second step in constructing a KWL chart is to record what you want to learn from reading the text. The answers to this question may vary depending on your prior knowledge or the purpose of reading. For example, if you are reading a text chapter to prepare for a an exam, then you will likely be reading for a general overview and key concepts. On the other hand, if you are reading to find outside sources for a research project, then you will mainly be reading for specific information that may support your views or best fit with the other information you have located.

The final step in constructing a KWL chart occurs after reading as you write down what you learned from the reading.

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Highlight for future use.

Highlighting appeals to visual learners. Begin by looking to highlight only the material that you can use in your writing about the text. Which parts of the reading do you want to emphasize as part of your discussion board posts, seminar discussion, or research projects?

Next, you might find that using different colors can help you identify different types of information from the text. You could use yellow for definitions, green for points you agree with, orange for points you disagree with, and blue for information you know you are having trouble understanding.

While highlighting can be creative and even fun, you should consider waiting until later in the reading process to highlight. After you read through a section once, take a mini-break, and then return to the same section with highlighters ready and see what still jumps out at you from the text for different reasons otherwise, you might end up highlighting everything and forget why it was important.

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Annotate in text or on a separate page.

Marginal notes can be very helpful. As you read through, use a pencil or pen (or type comments in bubbles) to write brief notes. Not only does the act of annotating help you absorb the text better, you can also look back at your annotations later to help study for an exam or write a paper, for those annotations in the margin still help me remember and think about the important ideas to consider. It’s especially helpful when you go to write about a topic and you can look through your annotations for areas of the text you may want to quote or paraphrase too.

You can also take notes on a separate page as you read. When you take notes on a

separate page, make sure to always take down the reading’s bibliographic information for

citing it if you use it in your writing later. Most citation styles require the authors’ names, the

year of publication, the title of the article or chapter as well as the journal or book it appears

in, and of course the online retrieval or publisher’s information. If you copy down anything

directly from the text, put quotation marks around it. I cannot emphasize this step enough

because adding quotation marks as soon as you note the quote will help prevent any

accidental plagiarism if you use that information in your writing.

Whether you take notes in the text or on a separate page, It’s also good idea to ask

questions you might have and leave room for answers.

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Use a double-entry journal.

The last note taking strategy I want to mention is the double-entry journal, or DEJ for short. To make a DEJ, begin by drawing a line down the middle of a sheet of paper or make a table in a word processing program with just two columns and plenty of rows. On the left side of the page, put at the top “Quotation, summary, or paraphrase from source” and on the right side, put “My questions, agreements, disagreements, and other comments.” Or, as I learned it when I was in college, the first column was labeled “what” and the second was “so what?”

In the first column you record what you found notable from the text, and in the second column you write why it matters, why you care, who else might care, why it’s relevant, or any other thoughts you have in response to that text. Notice on the slide that there is a quotation with the exact language in quotation marks, cited properly, and on the right side there are thoughts in agreement with the quotation. Below that quotation is a paraphrased idea, cited, and to the right of that paraphrase is a point that the writer is using to explain the study’s results paraphrased on the left. Writers can then use the DEJ to aid in integrating outside source material in their papers and discussion posts.

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Where can I get help with my reading?

Talking about what you’ve read will additionally help you get more from it. Your classmates are every student’s best resource when it comes to furthering learning by engaging in a discussion about what you are learning. A simple, twenty-minute chat together about a reading can help your brain continue to absorb and apply the information. You can also come to the Academic Support Center to speak with tutors from across the disciplines about what you’ve read and to address your questions about everything from Accounting to Zoology! Let’s talk about the Writing Center first and then talk about getting to all of our centers.

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Where can I get help in the Writing Center?

The Writing Center has a number of resources to help you become an effective academic reader. Check out the Information Literacy section of the Writing Reference Library, which is the first link on the slide. Another good resource area is our archived Writing Workshops, which is the second link on the slide. If you want to look up a particular word in a workshop’s title, use your browser’s “Find” function and type in a word like “reading.” The last link on the slide is for our first-term student resources, which have great information about responding to readings on the discussion board and in seminar. Finally, the ELL Resource Library in the Writing Center also has resources on improving literacy skills in English.

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For more writing support, connect with the KUWC’s new public webpage. You can

actually Google and find this page. This is also a great way for you to stay

connected to the KUWC through our blog and Twitter. Many of our resources are

here as well.

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Come visit the Academic Support Center. We can be found under the My

Studies tab, then under Academic Support Center.

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On the main Academic Support Center page, you will see the links to each

center’s services and resources. Please update the text below to reflect your

center’s services.

For the Writing Center, these include Live Tutoring, Paper Review Service,

the Writing Reference Library, Citation Guidelines, Workshops, English

Language Learner, and Fundamental writing help. Notice, you can access

the Kaplan Guide to Successful Writing on the right hand side in both print

and audio form.

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Amy Sexton, Tutor, Workshops

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