Active Reading Strategies
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The document discusses six active reading strategies: visualize, clarify, question, predict, connect, and evaluate. It provides guidance on how to implement each strategy when reading a text. Visualize involves creating mental images of what is described. Clarify aims to firm up understanding by defining unfamiliar terms. Question prompts asking questions about the text. Predict involves guessing what will happen next. Connect relates parts of the text to one's own experiences and other texts. Evaluate forms opinions and reflections on what was read.
Active Reading Strategies
- 2. Six Strategies Visualize Clarify Question Predict Connect Evaluate These strategies can be used to engage with writing of a variety of forms – scientific, persuasive, fictional, technical, etc.
- 3. Visualize Associate the author’s words and descriptions with vivid images. Use the details from the text to create the “movie in your mind.” *Important things to note when visualizing are details. Visualization is associated with improved memory and retention – especially if the mental image that you create is striking and unique.
- 4. Visualization: Charts and Infographics Visualization can also be used to make scientific or theoretical writing more easy to comprehend. Try summarizing ideas or concepts by drawing them as flow charts or other visuals. This can also help clarify your understanding of how various factors or variables are related to one another.
- 5. For example, here is a visual depiction of the Elaboration Likelihood Model, a theory that explains two different methods of engaging in persuasion. The model itself may be a bit complex, but a striking image can help summarize information and concepts after you’ve encountered them.
- 6. Visualization may also include imaging individuals, locations, or experiences described in the text you are reading. In fiction, creative nonfiction, and even some persuasive writing, it may be easy to imagine the people and settings being described. In scientific writing, flow charts and other visuals may be more helpful What do you look for in the text to help you visualize?
- 7. Find Visuals You may also wish to actively seek out visuals to pair with your reading. For example, if a Chemistry text describes alkaline hydrolysis, it may be helpful to conduct an image or video search online, so you can determine what alkaline hydrolysis looks like. It is often easier to comprehend complex topics when you have a visual schema and some familiarity.
- 9. Clarify: Firm Up Your Understanding As you read, underline unfamiliar words or phrases. At the end of every section (or every couple of pages), pause to look up these unfamiliar terms and write their definitions down. Review what you have read. Has your understanding changed or deepened in light of this information?
- 10. Clarify Through Summary At the end of every section (or, every couple of pages), pause to write down a brief summary of what you have read. Make sure to use your own words, not quotes from the text, to summarize your understanding. Gauge how confident you feel in your understanding. What points or ideas are you “muddiest” on?
- 11. Clarify STOP AND PAY ATTENTION. Summarize/explain what you have read. This is a great way to stop and check whether you understand the text. Read on (and sometimes even reread) and your understanding may change and develop. When you find the answers to any questions you have had, note them in the text. *Important things to note when clarifying are sequencing, inferring, and determining vocabulary in context.
- 12. Clarifying by Inferring Making an educated guess about something based on clues you are given. This is sometimes called "reading between the lines.” What can you infer from the author’s writing? What is the author leaving unsaid? And, how confident are you in those assumptions?
- 13. Clarifying by Vocabulary in Context Determine an unfamiliar word's meaning based on the words around it and the way it is used OR Looking up the definition in the dictionary Keep in mind that different disciplines may use words in different ways. How a psychologist defines “passion” in a relationship is very different from how you might conversationally refer to “passion” in a relationship.
- 14. Question Ask questions about the text. What are you confused by? Why is the author discussing a particular topic? How do ideas connect? Don’t just try to remember the questions you have; write them down! When a question is answered later in the text, record your answer. Pause every few pages to reflect on your questions, write down any newfound answers, and consider what is unclear or unconvincing.
- 15. What Questions Do You Have About This Passage? It is obvious to anyone thinking logically that minimum wage should be increased. The current minimum wage is an insult and is unfair to the people who receive it. The fact that the last proposed minimum wage increase was denied is proof that the government of this state is crooked and corrupt. The only way for them to prove otherwise is to raise minimum wage immediately.
- 16. Look carefully at the red phrases for help… It is obvious to anyone thinking logically that minimum wage should be increased. The current minimum wage is an insult and is unfair to the people who receive it. The fact that the last proposed minimum wage increase was denied is proof that the government of this state is crooked and corrupt. The only way for them to prove otherwise is to raise minimum wage immediately.
- 17. Example Questions It is obvious to anyone thinking logically that minimum wage should be increased. The current minimum wage is an insult and is unfair to the people who receive it. The fact that the last proposed minimum wage increase was denied is proof that the government of this state is crooked and corrupt. The only way for them to prove otherwise is to raise minimum wage immediately. 1. Who is anyone and how is it obvious? 2. What is the current minimum wage? 3. Is the fact that the last proposed minimum wage increase was denied the only proof that the government is corrupt? 4. Is raising minimum wage the only way for the government to prove they aren’t corrupt? 5. What should minimum wage be raised to?
- 18. Predict Try to figure out what will happen next and how the selection might end. Then read on to see how accurate your guesses are. This can include: Anticipating plot events before they happen. Asking questions that will be answered in the next section. Guessing at real-world implications of a scientific finding. Inferring what the author’s next point or subsection will be.
- 19. Prediction and Logic When a scientific paper is very well organized and developed, the reader should generally be able to guess at where it’s going and what comes next. This is partly accomplished through a strong introduction: the author should tell the reader what their larger point is This is also accomplished by structuring the paper in a predictable, logical way that helps lead the reader along the author’s train of logic.
- 20. A Well-Organized Paper is Easy to Predict
- 21. Try it Out!! Directions: When the film is stopped write down your predication as to what will happen next. The Black Hole Dangle
- 22. Connect Text to Self: Refers to connections made between the text and the reader’s personal experiences Text to World: Refers to connections made between a text being read and something that occurs in the world. Text to Text: Refers to connections made between a text being read to a text that was previously read.
- 23. How Do You Connect? Line Game! While listening to this song, write down text to self, text to text, and text to world connections to the lyrics. Runaway Love- Ludacris ft. Mary J. Blige
- 24. Evaluate Form opinions about what you’ve read, both while you’re reading and after you’ve finished. Develop your own ideas about characters and events. Make a logical guess (infer) or come to a conclusion based on the story or text. *Important things to remember about evaluating are theme and tone.
- 25. Things to Evaluate: Reflect on the tone of the writing. Is it forceful? Delicate? Bombastic? Humorous? Reflect on the themes of the writing, or the recurring motifs: what topics or ideas come up again and again? Contemplate the author’s position: What do they believe? What are they taking for granted? Find points of disagreement or challenge: what do you wish the author had talked about? What points do you find unconvincing? Consider what’s missing: what information would you like to have seen? What doesn’t make sense in the text?
- 26. Muddiest Point Papers A great way to practice reflecting on your reading is to engage in Muddiest Point Papers. At the end of a reading, take one minute to write down a summary of what you have read, with a specific focus on the topic that is least clear to you. This is your “Muddiest point”. If by the end of the writing the point still does not make sense, it may be time to seek out help from an instructor.