Attention/Concentration  |  Foreign Language  |   Math  |   Memory | Note-taking |  Organization |   Reading  | Study and Test Preparation  | Written Assignments

Strategies for Approaching Reading Assignments

1. Identify your goal for each planned study period (e.g., number of pages or chapters to be read).
2. Skim your reading assignment to identify main headings and subject areas covered. Read the assignment from start to finish. Use a marker to highlight important facts, concepts, vocabulary, and summaries as you read.
3. Read the assignment a second time. During your second reading write out the natural outline of the chapter and fill in key words, ideas, and definitions.
4. Compare lectures notes with notes from your textbook. Areas of overlap are especially likely to be covered on exams.
5. If you have a long reading assignment, divide it into several sections and give yourself a study break after you have completed a segment of work. Use breaks to reward yourself for accomplishing parts of your goal. Also plan a small reward for yourself after the completion of the entire assignmnent.
6. If you continue to have difficulty with reading assignments you may benefit from working with an LD specialist on developing additional reading preview techniques. For example, if a summary or questions are presented at the end of a chapter, read that before beginning the chapter, then read all the subheadings to get the main idea about the subject matter. Change the topic headings into questions and read for the specific information that will answer the question posed.

To improve your level of reading awareness consider the following steps.

1. Set up your goal. Determine the goal and purpose of your reading activity (e.g., pleasure, to learn and memorize details, understand new concept).
2. Plan your strategy. If you read for details, you should read every sentence. If the purpose is to get the main idea, you can skim and leave out unimportant sentences. Look for redundancies in the text as an aid to determining important points.
3. Use comprehension strategies. Constantly check yourself as to whether the material you read makes sense. If you do not understand a word, use the words and sentences around it to help you make an educated guess. Write the word down so you can look up its meaning at the end of your reading session (this will help expand your vocabulary). If you do not understand what you are reading, slow down and try to identify the most important sentence in the passage that tells most about the characters and events in the story. Pay special attention to sentences in the beginning of the passage because they usually tell you the main theme. Try to understanding the meaning of more difficult sentences by using the context of other sentences in the paragraph.
4. Monitor your comprehension continuously. As you read, ask yourself the following questions--What is the main idea of the passage? What happened in the passage up to now? Can I tell the main idea of the passage? Do I remember what has happened thus far? Do the sentences I have read fit together?
5. Try to resolve comprehension failures. If you can not answer the above questions satisfactorily, again read over the passage, identify those sentences you find difficult and determine what makes the sentence difficult to comprehend (e.g., difficult vocabulary, confusing sentence structure). Once you identify the problem you can solve it by taking appropriate steps such as rereading, consulting the dictionary, asking for help from the instructor.
6. Evaluate your reading accomplishment. Ask yourself the following questions: Can I talk about the passage in my own words? Can I summarize the passage? Can I identify the main idea?