Becoming a college-level reader

reading strategies

that’s confusing …

• Our ultimate goal when reading is to understand. If you get it on the first try, great. If not, you need to decide what is confusing in text.

• Then, choose the best strategy to fix your confusion

that’s confusing | vocabulary

• Example: words from the first page of Chapter 6: Budget or Fudge it – National Aid– Tilapia -- Kebab -- Abruptly – Ambassador -- Minister -- Incongruously– Insight -- Diplomatic

• For a book like this, decide which words are part of the lingo (language and vocabulary special to the topic), and which ones are not. Focus on words that are lingo – these will most likely be important again soon.

that’s confusing | vocabulary• Choose words to focus on, make sure you know what

they mean– Skim the text before reading to pick out tricky vocabulary words– Take words apart and sound them out. – Skip the word and read on. Come back and figure out the word.– Connect this word to other ideas you do understand in the text

Remember where you have seen the word before.– Reread.– Use the dictionary to find the sound, spelling and/or the

meaning.– Keep a word list. Keep track of new vocabulary and their

meanings in some way.

that’s confusing | importance

• Not everything in a text is equally important. How do you decide?– Be picky – choose just a few (3-5) quotes, phrases, or

moments. Avoid calling a whole page, section or anecdote (mini-story) important.

– Use the chapter title or section heading. (If there isn’t one, try to make one up)

– Use textual features: changes in font, items that are offset (like in the margins, or in boxes of their own), special images (like maps and charts) are all helpful.

that’s confusing | background knowledge

• Feeling trapped in a book with words, phrases and topics that seem completely foreign? It’s time to build your background knowledge!

Keep in mind, you can work to do this before or during reading.

• Use the title, description on the back, important words, and author’s name to help you determine words that will be helpful in a key word search

that’s confusing | background knowledge

• Visit the library, use the internet, or use class materials to revisit readings that are related, but written in more friendly language

• If on the internet, choose sites that are for students, not experts in this topic! Try– Adding ‘lesson plan’ to the end of your search, which will

help you find things prepared for students– Newspaper articles, which often give good, specific

examples (which might not be in an expository text), and offer the latest updates on the topic

– YouTube.com videos, which often show rather than tell, while still using important vocabulary words.

that’s confusing | sentence structure

• Sentences full of ‘extras’ (often separated by commas or semicolons) can make you feel like you’ve lost the main idea– Work to find the subject (who or what is doing) and

verb (action being done).– Look for conjunctions, or connector words, like but,

and, or, because and however– Look for items in pairs or lists (you can think of them

as one ‘chunk’ in a sentence)– Ignore adjectives that aren’t necessary for meaning– Reword things if you need to simplify

that’s confusing | sentence structure

• Example: “American society can maintain a substantive role in providing for its domestic public social needs because it has a well-functioning state and a welfare safety net” (ADM, 55).

• American society can maintain a substantive role in providing for its domestic public social needs because it has a well-functioning state and a welfare safety net.

• Becomes: American society can afford to help with people’s needs because the state works well and has a safety net called welfare.

I get it | STOP AND …

• So, you identified what’s confusing• Then you fixed your confusion• You’re ready for the next level of reading:

building meaningful connections with what you’ve understood

• Good readers use ‘STOP AND’ strategies to connect with their reading.

STOP AND | ask questions

• Using this strategy, you can ask about almost anything … just be careful that you’re not taking your ‘connections’ too far from the reading– Who is this character? What do they believe in? Is

this character like anyone I know?– What’s the point of this being included? How does

this build, or add to, the text?– What do I know that connects to this idea?

STOP AND | make predictions

• This strategy is especially important at the beginning of your reader. Make some thoughtful guesses about – What will come next– What you’ll learn from the text– What your instructor will ask you to do with this

text

• As you read, correct your predictions if they were incorrect, or make new ones.

STOP AND | create mental pictures

• This strategy works best for literature (especially plays, short stories and novels). But you can also use it with expository texts and poetry. – Can you imagine the characters in motion?– Can you picture the setting of text? What mood does it

suggest?– Can you envision the graphs, tables, charts or maps that

go with the facts and ideas presented?– Could you illustrate this text, and help others picture the

key ideas?

STOP AND | draw conclusions

• As you read, it’s important to stop and connect ideas to one another, especially across sections.

• Think about – The order the writer uses to present information– Repeated ideas, images, words or phrases– Section titles and headings (or anything in the

margins)– Summarizing what you have read so far