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Intensive English Language Programhttp://www.pdx.edu/esl/PSU_Faculty

Reading Strategies

“To read [is] an act of creation in which no one can do our work for us…” – Proust

This handout can help you read your different college texts more efficiently and productively. Do not start your work by reading at the beginning of a text. You should prep yourself to gather a solid foundation of what you are reading before you start your studying. Reading strategies save you time and effort, and most should be used before and after you actually read the text from top to bottom. A proficient reader will use these strategies across text types.

To Read an Article:

Though reading an article is different from a textbook or book, you can often use the strategies interchangeably. With an article, try to summarize the article before your start actually reading it. Summary writing is a reading skill. Even if you don’t write out the actual summary, these strategies will produce a great understanding of the text. This will help in two ways: 1) help you decide if this article is actually applicable to your research, and 2) ready you for understanding the article in depth.

1. Read any questions your professor has given you, if any. Often you are reading an article for research, so be sure you have a research question before you start researching! These will safe you time and energy.

2. Read the title of the article and any headings. 3. Look at the reference list of your article. Read the titles listed. Do you recognize any

topics – this can prepare you with background information of your author’s knowledge. And it can give you additional sources to review for your own research.

4. If an academic journal article, read the abstract. 5. If a magazine, news or Internet article, read the first and last paragraph.6. Skim the article for key words. If an academic journal article, these will be found at the

beginning of the article or on the library/database search engine. If a different kind of article, you should have an idea of the keywords/concepts from the first and last paragraphs you’ve read. Highlight these quickly in the article. You may miss some but that is ok.

7. Next, highlight or underline a few transition words which show a new idea is being introduced to the sentence, i.e. however, but. This prepares you for the structure of the argument.

8. Use the WH?s to find the basic intent of the article. Skim to find this info:a. Who is the article about?b. What is the “who” doing?c. Where are they doing the “what”?

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d. When are they doing the “what”? e. How are they doing the “what”?f. Why are they doing the “what?”

9. Now read the article.

Steps 1-8 can produce a cohesive summary of just about any text.

To Read a Section of Textbook:

1. Look at the Table of Contents. Where is the assigned chapter in relation to the content around it?

a. Is it the beginning of the textbook where larger concepts and definitions are usually placed?

b. Or, is it at the beginning of a chronological order of events/ideas? c. Is it at the middle of the textbook, which might mean that you need some prior

knowledge of content? d. Is the assigned chapter at the end of a textbook, which might mean that the

reading may be prepping a topic for further investigation?Remember, your professor may not assign chapters in the order the textbook is published because neither research nor learning is necessarily a linear activity.

2. Read the chapter titles and section headings of your assignment to understand the larger content of the text.

3. Read the questions that come with the assigned reading. These questions may come from your professor and/or are part of the textbook chapter.

4. Now, read your assignment. Try this:a. highlight or underline keywords but NOT CONCEPTS OR DEFINITIONS

(keywords/content words are nouns and their synonyms that are used repeatedly)

b. in a different color highlight or circle only the word “IS” (this is the defining verb telling you that you need to understand this noun [person, place, thing, idea or concept] being defined.)

This will help you to not overuse your highlighter and stop you from underlining whole paragraphs that you will not understand later why you highlighted them.

5. Write any questions you have about the text in the margins. 6. At the end of your reading, it may be helpful to look at the back of the textbook at the

Index to see what other chapters use the keywords of the assigned reading. This may help you prep for the next reading before your professor even assigns it. It may also



help you understand how this keyword relates to other parts of your topic. The index is also a great resource to help you locate information when answering specific exam or assignment questions.

Final words on Keywords:

Whether you are reading a textbook, a book or an article, KEYWORDS in the text are important for your reading because these are the words that will be used to extend your research. KEYWORDS are used for library and database search engines. These keywords are also used in the Index of a book to help quickly find information.


· web viewsummary writing is a reading skill. even if you don’t write out the actual summary,...

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