5 Active Reading Strategies for Textbook Assignments - College Info Geek
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- čas přidán 25. 07. 2024
- ...plus three books I'm reading, and how I'm applying said strategies.
My book "10 Steps to Earning Awesome Grades" is now out and it's free! Get it here:
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Companion blog post with notes, resource links, and the HabitRPG guild link:
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5 STEPS FOR ACTIVE READING:
1) Go to the back of the book straight away and look at the keywords, summary, conclusion, questions
2) The longer the text, the more likely they are not so important. So go through the paragraphs and identify which ones are really important.
3) Come up with questions before you begin a new chapter/section, and as you read, answer them.
4) Pay attention to special formats, anything that stands out. They are likely to be important.
5) Take notes, mark while you're reading (you can use post-it notes, pencil to scribble on the book or just take notes in a separate notebook, application after each chapter)
You are awesome.!! 🙇🏻♂️🙇🏻♂️🙇🏻♂️
I don't understand the fourth. What do you / he mean with something that stands out?
smileycat123 He’s referring to the formatting of the text. So anything that’s bolded, italicized, or sitting in lists (like bullet points), it should be given special attention. This information is from his book “10 steps to earning awesome grades (while studying less)”, which is free on his website.
Thank you kind stranger
Yesss reading the objectives helps a lot cause you already know what questions to focus on. Also when active read you spend less time cause you don’t have to reread the paragraphs over and over again. Like as of now I can read 25 pages in 3 hours with notes and everything and actually absorbe the content, it’s taken me sometime and I’m still learning but it saves you so much time. Also, no outside distractions. I get distracted so easily 😩
You are a da*n big enrichment for the college society around the world thomas. I just want to thank you for everything. I wish that you'll never lose the power to help people. Thats a really strong ability of yours.
Thumb up Bro. Greets from Germany
You may want to take a look at Mortimer Alder's "How to read a book" as well as Evelyn Wood's "Reading Dynamics". Some of the points I remember from these books that have been helpful to me are: 1) Study the table of contents (granted, some modern authors make this useless) 2) Read the first paragraph in each chapter and any summary info at the end 3) make another pass through the book and read the first sentence in each paragraph 4) Now as you read the book, have a conversation with the author (e.g. comment or argue in the margins) 5) diagram or mind map chapters and their relationships.
Good comment. Mortimer A.'s book really helped me.
Robert Smith thanks
M Adlers Book is Gold everyone
I'm at a lost for words... I've only watched three of your videos so far and can't believe how much valuable information you've already shared. I been looking for videos like this for many years. I got mad respect for what your doing Thomas. I feel like I found gold!! I truly appreciate your effort, knowledge and hard work in creating these videos! Please keep them coming. Your a hero for those that want to pursue greatness and I mean that! Thanks.
pseudoskimming, read backward (summary first), give attention to things that stand out in the formatting, highlight/take notes in your own words
I really appreciate that you take the time to show us how you implement these tips that you give! It can be confusing at times to understand an advice and implement it before you see someone who is already doing it. Thank you so much!
In my communication seminar, there are a few reading techniques I'd like to add. Number the paragraphs, read the first & last sentences of each paragraph (to weed the filler), and use a "chunk chart" as a summary method; where you group paragraphs by sections/chunks (like paragraphs 1-5) and write the main point of each section. We used this on podcasts too. Hope it helps.
My college doesn't have letter grades, instead you pass or fail based on validations of your own skill sets.
I live in South America, Perú, a country which has the poorest education in the word. If I haven't learned english in some point of my life I would have never found this awesome channel. So all I can say it's: THANKS, thanks a lot man. There are almost no collegue's teachers in my country who gives a damn about this study strategies. Most of my friends are suffering from reading dense and huge law texts. So, thanks again man. Hope we'll meet anytime soon so I can thank you personally. Cheers!
I feel so related to this post, being a law student in Dominican Republic. So RT to this comment!
Especially law...first few weeks of semester 1 here in Vanuatu and i realized i will need to be even more effective when reading large documents!
Same. I study in UTEC... where do you study?
Remain great full for what you have people 🙏🏼
Dwayne k27ism You go to law school in paradise...must be nice.
Thank you for this video. I am a working adult with 2 years left on my bachelor's degree. Being out of school for an extended period of time has proven a huge challenge as reading was never at the top of my list. By far, the most challenging thing is my reading and study time. This video has given me some great tips on how to cut down on the time I spend reading and to narrow in on what I need to focus on as working and hobbies are also a part of my daily life. The videos and content are very relateable and you give some great advice. Thank you so much for the short, but information videos that give some great ideas and different methods and tips to try.
Recently found your channel and I want to say you HUGE thank you for doing what you do - getting people more productive,clever and focused😃
Man I need you in my life! Im loving you so much. Keep up the videos every single one of them makes me enjoy learning even more. Im a pre med student and needed a boots on the format of studying. Ever since I stared watching your videos my way of studying changed forever. Thanks!
Thank you so much! I'm working on a big project for school at the moment for which I had to read 3 books... With you help (not only with this one, but pretty much every single one of your vids) I managed to finish all 3 of them in 10 DAYS! (Your ebook helped a lot too) And I took notes after every chapter, so now I can pretty much throw the books away, since I got what I needed out of them, onto my notebook on evernote:)
Thanks again !
Seb
For Endocrinology, I started drawing what the book was explaining (since there are not any figures for me to reference while I read the chapter). It worked fairly well for reading certain sections of the pituitary gland and hypothalamus. I marked the main points of the section that I saw as relevant to the section title, then drew a picture of the pathways/process.
I actually laughed out loud at 5:49 LMAO. Reviewing one of your old videos to see what you already talked about! I'm about to do a video/blog post on reading textbooks soon
For years I thought I was just "slow" because I was having to do so much more work than everyone else in class, or so it seemed to me. With these techniques my learning has been improved exponentially! Thanks!
All your videos content is such an inspiration !
Thanks a lot for sharing. The information here is absolutely priceless.
Keep up the great job.
Really like your videos/channel man. Thanks for all the helpful tips. In today's age, we are are our own brand, and just going to school and getting a degree isn't enough. Your videos help me to become more efficient and spend less time on my school work, while allowing me to focus more on my personal development and outside studies. Thanks for the great resources, keep it up.
Discovered your channel today. Thank you so much for saving another college student from poor grades! I'm good at reading, but below-par when it comes to retaining the information. Your tips make a lot of sense, and I can't wait to put 'em into practice. Subbed!
I'm so thankful for this video. You inspire me to overcome college challenges. Keep your working. You're doing a great job.
Thomas thanks for the free and useful information and also
for sharing your experience
Thank you Tom, your video really helped me a lot, Active reading strategies! I have my finals coming up in a few days man and I thought I was screwed, but, by pure luck I found your video! :)
I'm gonna apply these! :)
Growing up I was always told, "make sure you study!". I would try and always fail. I didn't know how to study. I just read the books and thought that was enough. Through the years I've learned how to study and what works for me, but I wish I had a channel like this when I was in school. Thanks for all your hard work!
I have ADHD-combined type. I winged all my primary and secondary schooling, relying on the classes that I could 'hyperfocus' on to make up for the classes I borderline or outright failed. This also meant I never learned how to effectively study. My grades were above average so no one picked up on just how far behind I was really falling. I have therapy and medication now that I'm diagnosed but the networks that fuel my executive function, yknow adult life vs child life, will always leave me with a bit of a handicap.
You present your info very well! You get into what detail you need to without waffling on and without a million jumpcuts to distract the viewer. The subtitles are a huge help for me specifically as well. Got yourself a new subscriber man, many thanks!
I'm so glad that I'm not the only one that does the brackets, underlining, and margin notes during my first read through! A tip, though, for anyone wanting to use that method with a dense book: Don't wait until you are done with the book to go back through it. Read it in sections of a few chapters at a time, then go back and take notes based on what you marked up. Otherwise it will just seem really overwhelming.
Looks and brains...hm you're like a rare pokemon, dude! Nice tips, I'll try using them in med school.
thank you for sharing your thoughts on youtube!! I may not be in a secondary education but you have helped me improve my grades by a lot in highschool!
I was taking notes on another great video you produce - That's for sharing your wisdom, hacks and ninja editing skills with us!
Thank you for the video. This was very straight forward and I was able to easily take notes on what you were recommending. Excellent channel. I will follow for more videos.
Thanks a lot, Thomas! This video is really helpful to me :)
Love your channel 💙 🤗
Thank you for these great tips! I'm just getting back into school and these will be very useful.
Thank you for the tips! Being a full time student was hard up until I viewed this video! Now I can study with confidence.
Thank you. I read, ironically, more actively when I was taking Psychology courses. But too much time has past and I want to get back to this type of studying.
Thank you so very much! I tend to 'drift away' to other subjects while I'm studying. This technique will certainly help to ground myself onto what I'm attempting to learn. ...
thanks, it's do much helpful for me now. love your videos, always concrete. down to the point!
The backwards technique is something ive found very helpful when i face mindblocks! Thanks for helping us out!
I'm currently reading Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman as well and I'll be applying the reading backwards as often times they summarize Important pts. of the chapter giving me a chance to ask questions. Thanks for your video.
Really inspiring and motivating. I do intend to use these active reading strategies as I continue my education. Thanks man, much appreciated!
seeing some of ur vids. thanks buddy. really appreciate ur vids! definitely gonna try some of this for my new semester!
these are some awesome tips. I need to try this! thank you SO MUCH !!
Starting college next month, thanks for all the great videos! 😊😊 greetings from SA texas
Very informative. I will definitely be using your tips and watching you more often.
man, those are great tips! with great exemples, which is essential get our head around those tips
Thank you so much!
I really appreciate you for making these videos which are helping students achieve
awesome grades.
Thanks, Thomas. It´s being so useful por my studies here in Brazil!
while i am studying i feel every sentence is important i am unable to decide which is important because i am studying medical books can u make a video how to study medical books
Yes please Thomas, that would be great!
I have a hard time knowing what's important or not!
Hey, fellow medschool student :) It depends on the subject. If I have clinical subject such as Pediatrics, I ask myself questions like What is the definition of this disease? What kinds of this illness exist? How and why this illness arise (etiology)? What the patient looks like? How do I diagnose this? How do I treat this? How can I prevent this?
Hi! As liptak15 alluded to, it can be very helpful to have a standard template in your head. When it comes to specific conditions, I suggest something along the lines of:
1) Definition
2) Epidemiology
3) Aetiology & Pathophysiology (±Risk Factors)
4) Prevention & Screening (where applicable)
5) Clinical Presentation
6) Investigations (Bedside, blood, imaging, etc.)
7) Staging/Classification (where applicable. NB in cancers)
8) Treatment
9) Complications
10) Prognosis
Some components can otherwise be broken down into decision-based flowcharts, if that works for you? For example:
Patient presents with abnormal uterine bleeding? Is she pre-menopausal/post-menopausal? If pre-menopausal, flow into PALMCOEIN or whatever, and follow decisions thereupon.
What they've said, but if you wanna get even more interested in it, use case studies! Come up with your own or ask your teacher very politely if they wouldn't mind giving some.
As an example, one chapter might be all about autoimmune disease. Tie it in with a previous paediatrics unit and you've got a child, 6 years old, presenting to you with a persistent cough that has not responded to treatment from other doctors. Looking back on her file each doctor has simply prescribed a different antibiotic and sent them away and told them to come back within a week. You notice the child also has asthma and has presented multiple times with complaints of severe abdominal pain.
From here you could tell yourself you'd first ask pathology to check out a sputum sample. It comes back with 'x' and the lack of obvious pathogen growth is puzzling even through inflammatory compounds A B and C are all elevated...
You get the idea.
It's easy to get lost in the technicality and sheer amount of jargon in any school of medicine, but you can perk your own interest by applying them to *people* real or imagined. It also helps you as a future health professional exercise empathy :)
I love your positiveness and all of your videos I've watched. Thank you a lot. LOVE, LIVE, LEARN n LAUGH MAC
Another awesome video thanks! The Power of Habit is a great book. I wish I had been a more active reader back when I read it. Those notes would really come in handy. Guess I just have to read it again :)
I'm in 12th grade and this wasn't even an assigned video. But it is the first time someone actually explained active reading to me. Thank you for making this video.
You're amazing! Thank you for your videos, they are extremely helpful:)
Thanks Thomas Frank for help me out for understanding the Active reading an Flashcards
I watched this earlier in my course. Thank you. It has proved very insightful.
Thank you so much for all your videos!!!
Thank you very much for your knowledge, you are helping a lot of people with this
I just wanna thank you your videos are being such a massive help for me
Love your reading techniques...... very helpful!
Dude, what you describe is exactly what SQ3R SAYS to do. You even used the lingo, recall, skimm is a survey. Great advice.
thank you! I'm definitely going to try some of these
Great post, I've been struggling w textbook reading. Really helped. Thanks
I really like your tips... i usually write notes in my text books... now on i m gonna write down questions about volatile concepts and answer it after 24 hrs to plateau the forgetting curve, like u talked about in ur other video...Really like ur video.
I effing love these videos they help so much
Thomas Frank "10 STeps to Earning Aweesome Grades" refered to me here lol. Its a nice book by the way. I am on page 37. We are talking about the 5 Active Reading Strategies. I also liked how he explained to not to read the textbook like its a newsaper. On the different note taking tips I prefer the outline/ cornell notes.
Thank you! I'm studying information literacy and majoring in cognitive studies at Ashford university.
oh my... I am in love, I could listen to him talk about taking notes all day. If my high school English teacher was more like this guy I wouldn't be here right now {heartfaces}
In line of your tips, in modern day reading possibilities, I always try to obtain the digital version and use the reading-app (i.e. kindle / acrobat etc.) to highlite those important parts for me. Those highlites and quotes are easily exported digitally to another document which forms a summary of what I need to know / remember. As additional extra, the export often remembers the source etc. etc. for reviewing.
this saves loads of time and money and it makes it way easier for me to do a search and find for specific words / phrases and in doing so make it easier to connect various different sources with eachother.
This probably only works for visual types, but I've noticed that besides highlighting key words, two things work well when it comes to highlighting. 1) if you have a book that is formated in a way that has more simple tekst, and less titles or other forms of parting tekst, I find it really helps to use a marker such as pink to mark "titles" inside the tekst so that when you look at a page you instantly see the separate sections you'll need to recall 2) using multiple markers, a pen f.e. yellow pen marker to mark sentences with concepts, a green highlighter to mark definitions, a blue highlighter to mark key words, a highlighter pen in an orange to do side notes and stars, exclamation points etc..
Also, I use a shortened bbq stick. I found it enhances my focus and speed, but more importantly focus. It also helps when skimming.
Ana Bulatovic good tips! I like your idea about highlighting headings and section titles. I'm not sure using a ton of different colors would work for me, but others might find it to be effective :)
Thomas Frank Yeah, I have some books which are made by really old profs who don't really get formating, each chapter is a couple dozen pages with no titels, bold, italic, anything, every single page looks the same. And as our questions are usually titles, it can be really hard to remember everything within a 20-30 page chapter. When I get a question I recall the visual of the pages it's on and then I know what I read in each section, so visually differentiating them with colors helps me
Then my textbook will become a coloring book.
I honestly have so much respect for you and what you are sharing. I have been struggling with college ever since I've started but your videos have shown me that I'm not the only person with my problems. Your videos have seriously inspired me and given me real ways to combat my difficulties. Thank you and I hope to see more of your videos. Btw, I love your Nine Tails card, makes me miss my cards.. :)
Hualalai Doroen thanks! And I kinda miss my cards as well - I gave them all away as a kid. I actually went to the comic shop specifically to get that Ninetails to use as a bookmark :)
+Hualalai Doroen - what is Nine Tails?
+DiamondLeda505 Dude you seriously didn't get that.
Hualalai Doroen Same here! 😊
Thank you!! It is helpful to read articles after watching this video. Actually I just start my postgraduate study and being struggling with the large number of reading because I read not very effectively:( yet. Thank you for your advices! Hope to see more valuable reading suggestions from you. =))Good luck!
Hi Tom
Ive only just started watching your videos tonight and straight away i was hooked and now I'm a subscriber plus I've share your site on FB
Finally I can actually gain practical help as the local universities won't help me.
Im almost 50yrs and I have spent my whole life over coming academic challenges due to sever dyslexia as a child. I have continuously applied myself to educating myself but never felt confident to go to university. Im currently studying at Charis Bible College ( CBC) here in the UK and my learning style is restrictive as it takes me such a long time to process and to consolidate, committing what I have learnt to my long term memory but also the way the questions are written which is so ambiguous.
Im up most mornings at 5 am studying and note taking but as for consolidating the what I have learnt I'm finding that I have forgotten key things.
Im trusting that your methods are going to help me.
I've just listened to Reading and note taking. Im very slow as I have to listen carefully and when Im attending live teaching I record everything. I find this crosses over with business meetings
I will start to apply your tips, can you suggest how I can use a dictation method with my Mac Pro, for reports and notes and study.
I will find this most useful in my line of business as the sale and marketing manager.
I think your site is brilliant. Thank you so much, Im looking forward to giving you feed back on the progress, while running a business along side family and a correspondence course (CBC)
I would appreciate any advise from your viewers aswell
Thank you all so much
Esther green UK GB
This guy is an excellent teacher!! keep up the good work!!
summarizing bullet points for each paragraph/section you read is super useful. And i do recommend everyone read the bold print, first and last sentence of each paragraph and the pictures and BOLD vocab, study those and youll bound to be very successfull
Fantastic Information. Thank you!
Thanks sir for making videos like this, i find it so helpful really specially now that ive been quite struggling in my college life but your informative stuff made it much easier! Godbless sir!
Your channel is really great! You've helped me loads :)
I also study Japanese by the way, it's really cool. The flashcards really work ahah
The one problem I have with pseudo skimming, or speed reading in general, is that when I try to skim through paragraphs all the information I see looks equally as important. Then I stop and read through everything slowly and carefully, which then leads me to get bored and procrastinate for long periods of time and when I try to go back to studying, I start feeling too fatigued and exhausted and start procrastinating all over again. I tried writing down what I need to look for in my readings and the other stuff you mentioned in your video on focusing, but that didn't really work either. Do you have any tips or advice on how to find the really important stuff when you're trying to speed read or skim through a textbook?
I get this same problem myself, i pseudo skim and go back re-read the whole thing, making me wonder why did i even skim in the first place,
I felt maybe it was because I didn't understood enough of the paragraph. thus i skim slower, which then again becomes a problem in itself.
Yes same for me! I don't know how to determine what is important and what is not. So I decided not to pseudo skim anymore.
I agree with each of you guys because I also have difficulty with this stuff. I think a smart strategy to embrace to overcome this problem may be to identify keywords in a paragraph. Keywords, in this case, being instruction words like "apply salt and butter to the skillet. Then once you are comfortable with how brown it is, place the bacon in the skillet... yadayada" In this instance "apply" and "place" are your keywords.
Don't be a perfectionist when reading. Only actively read the parts that matter for your notes. You'll make mistakes at first with skimming, because reading is a skill which should be improved as you do it. You can always go back and read the chapter again if you're certain that you missed something. But after you've finished the book.
Çagatay really nailed this one. Perfeccionism is a sin when skimming. You skim for structure and big ideas. The big ideas are the ones which all the other information connect to and/or support in some way. You don't have to fully understand the whole text by skimming, it's a way to start up your brain in the task of trying to categorize (what is this information about?) and connect information (how it relates to one another?). This is akin to building a jigsaw puzzle by spreading all the pieces in front of you and going for what stands out and trying to see how these pieces relate.
Guy Hat used the example: "apply salt and butter to the skillet. Then once you are comfortable with how brown it is, place the bacon in the skillet" and said that keywords would be 'apply' and 'place'. I would approach a text like this from another perspective. I wouldn't worry about keywords here anyway. Why not abstract it and get that there is a preparation phase, a process and an additional step. Now you get a logical framework and this would be your big idea from the skimming. This will breed questions: how to prepare and with what? how will I know it's time for the additional ingredient? why is one ingredient coming first and not last?
The ingredients' names and what you should do, the verbs, are important? Sure. But that will be added later when you read for details. So in essence, to "look for most important" can be a bit misleading. Instead go on to identify the information standing out, abstract what they mean and see how they relate, you want a logical structure so you can hang on the details later.
Really good information! Keep up the good work.
Excellent videos. For a non native english speaker, your diction and accent are superb for a clearly understanding. Thank you and congratulations.
I just wanna say.... your tips have changed my life. thank you
You're amazing! I will be using these tips! Thank you!
Ifedimma Nwankwo no problem! Hope they improve your study sessions :)
I've recently enrolled in Microbiology. These tips will definitely help me effectively absorb my weekly readings.
very useful video. Your channel is just awesome . thanks man
Literally taking out my undergraduate textbooks and my readers from graduate school and OH MY GOD!!! Thomas is right! I wish I had learned these tips when I was actually in school. My method: just spend hours reading the textbook chapters until the info got in my head. Not practical! Not useful! I am kicking myself for not learning what active reading was earlier, or even bothering to ask the question. These ways are so much easier and the time saved by their practicality gives you more time to actually learn the material.
You give the best tips ever!! 👍🏻👍🏻😉😍
Your channel is SO helpful!!!!
A friend recommended this video to me and I watch this while taking a break from reading "Thinking Fast and Slow." What a coincidence! :D I also find the book very interesting and full of useful information. The video is very helpful, thanks!
I'm only in highschool and I find this video helpful for my AP World History. Thanks man.
Arshia - can't reply to your comment directly, but they're just books I decided to read on my own :)
+Darrell Jared Checkout his Ebook for the answer.
Your laugh is so cute haha :3
Is it alright if I read out loud when I read a book?
Anudeep, it depends. If you’re learning that way effectively and not bothering anyone then yeah go ahead.
Super helpful and amazing content. Keep it up!!
I'm very glad I found this channel. Now I have 2.5 years to prepare for collage. :)
Dude, you are the best. You deserve WAY more subscribers
Reading with full understanding is all about the vocab power you have and the language you are reading in counts too.
Very interesting! This is required in my college classes now.
I study bigger books than those in (currently) high school and your videos are too gr8. thank you Thomas Frank
Thanks!! Awesome techniques and references
Thank you sooo much for this video !!
This is very helpful❤️. Thank you!
Thanks for these amazing tips ! Also, great job with the lighting. What was your light source? *curious*
i learn a lot by watching every single video
i love them!
you are too damn cool
thanks a lot
Thanks for the tips, your videos are so helpful. Keep em' coming!
Tiffanie B. glad you're finding them useful - will do :)
This was really helpful! Thanks!
I would like to get a copy of your book when it comes out. I watch your videos when I have time but it is not all the time. College is a lot of hard work and dedication.