Textbook Reading

Learn and Reflect

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Send this form to yourself and discuss it with your adviser or coach.

In your most difficult class, what is the favoured source for readings? How do you know?

What's one method you could employ to start reading for comprehension?

In your most recent reading, identify the question being posed. What is it?

What to Do

Step 1: Review the goals for the toolkit to see if this matches your interests.
Step 2: Enter your name and email if you want to send this to yourself or your advisers for discussion
Step 3: Advance the slides by clicking the next button under the slide.
Step 4: Reflect and respond to the questions and statements as required if you want to make the most of the toolkit.
Step 5: Click submit when you’ve completed the questions and review your responses.

Review and print the Textbook Reading Tips if you like and be sure to check the Go Further section for some additional resources on the topic!

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Review

Top Five Tips:

Reading for university requires you to move beyond reading for information towards reading for understanding. In order to do your own research and synthesize ideas from several sources, you will need to read critically – asking questions and checking your understanding as you go.

Active Reading

To use your time most effectively, and remember information better, it is important to engage in active reading with your textbooks.
Active reading involves creating an “internal dialogue” with the text by interacting with the text. Commenting on, asking yourself questions about points in the text, and looking for major points and supporting evidence are examples of active reading.
The SQ4R Method is one way to help you read actively.

Reading Speed and Comprehension

It is important that you engage in a reading technique that is appropriate for the task at hand.
The way you read a novel or a newspaper will be different from the way you read a textbook in which are you required to know the information thoroughly.
For critical reading, a slow, careful pace might be time-consuming but it is necessary. It is better to spend one hour on five pages and understand the material, then spend an hour on fifty pages and remember nothing.
It is important to gage beforehand how well you need to know the information; there is no need to spend hours memorizing every detail of a chapter when all that is needed is a general understanding of its concepts.

Concentration

To make efficient use of your time it is important to plan your reading sessions for times when your energy and concentration are high
To see how good your concentration strategies are, and find out ways to improve your concentration, check out Ohio University’s Concentration Study Tips
Learn about how your wellbeing can affect your ability to concentrate by exploring the resources on Live Well, Learn Well.

Working with Difficult Textbooks

Knowing the subject’s terminology.
Review and learn the definitions of the special terms which are important in the discipline or textbook. You may need to consult a specialty dictionary in the reference section of the Library, as a regular dictionary often doesn’t provide more than a basic definition.
Knowing the basics.
If a course or text seems “above your head” it’s possible that you lack the basic understanding that is required to understand the material. If you’re struggling, talk to your instructor to ensure that you have the necessary prerequisites and prior knowledge expected for the course. To increase your knowledge, you may wish to check the library for an introductory book on the subject.
Reading out loud.
For some people, reading out loud helps to improve their comprehension of difficult material. If this works for you, reading out loud with a classmate while taking turns analyzing, explaining, and summarizing the text can also help you to improve your comprehension– another person’s perspective can help to clarify a concept.
Trying multiple texts.
It is possible that the text you are reading is poorly written, or the author’s style is difficult for you. Although you can’t abandon the required text, to make an incomprehensible text more accessible, it may be helpful to find another text on the subject to help you clarify and understand the concepts.

Putting Together Text and Lecture Notes

In classes where it is important that material from the text and lecture are learned together, integrating your notes is an important study strategy.
Mapping and diagramming are ways of putting text and lecture material together.
At the end of a lecture or chapter, draw a diagram or chart that summarizes how the lecture and text material fit together. By re-organizing and integrating information from lectures and textbooks, you’ll improve your retention of material by seeing it in a different format.

Download Textbook Reading Tips

Other Useful Resources:

The University of Victoria has many resources to improve your textbook reading skills. Check out their Reading and Understanding Texts
Hand-outs: Learning from Texts.” Learning from Texts. University of Guelph. n.d. Web. 19 June. 2006.
Critical Thinking Toolkit