Effective reading strategies
Morse Code method1
Image Credit: Morse Code Notes Method Image Link
What is it?
- Use Dots and Dashes to assign importance in your class readings.
- Dots = Major ideas.
- Dashes = Examples and explanations that support the main ideas (Dots).
- Review Dots and Dashes and take notes.
When to use
- Reading.
Pros and cons
- Pro: One continuous pass is the fastest, most energy-efficient possible way to get through a reading.
- Con: It can feel laborious at first.
Active reading2
What is it?
- Intentionally engaging with the ideas and information in a text and transforming that information into notes that records the understanding of and response to the text.
- Also referred to as Critical Reading.
What does it look like?
- Generating questions.
- Annotating and summarizing.
- Drawing diagrams and visuals.
- Chunking (breaking text into sections and identifying main ideas).
- Highlighting.
What does it not look like (passive reading)?
- Reading too quickly or slowly.
- Forgetting material right away.
- Falling asleep while reading.
- Multitask while reading.
- Overuse of highlighting.
Strategies for effective reading2
- Ask yourself pre-reading questions.
- Identify and define any unfamiliar terms.
- Bracket the main idea/thesis of the reading, and put an asterisk next to it.
- Make marginal notes or comments in addition to highlighting.
- Write questions in the margins, and then answer the questions on a separate piece of paper.
- Make outlines, flow charts, or diagrams that help you to map and to understand ideas visually.
- Read each paragraph carefully and determine “what it says and does.”2
- Write a summary of an essay or chapter in your own words.
- Write your own exam question based on the reading.
- Teach what you have learned to someone else.
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Sources
2 Active Reading Strategies: Remember and Analyze What You Read