English Tutoring Lab Handouts

How to read textbooks

How to preview (survey) your textbook | How to read a textbook | How to read a textbook chapter |Questions to ask when reading paragraphs | Reading across the curriculum | Textbook note-taking | Textbook reading inventory | Use the SQ3R method for textbooks

People say there is one way to read a textbook to really understand it...reading it through four or five times.  Is there a better way?

• Preview or skim the assigned chapter by

• Reading the main title

• Reading all subtitles

• Reading the first sentence of each paragraph

• Reading the introductory paragraph

• Reading the concluding paragraph

• Studying charts, illustrations and photographs.

• Read the entire chapter through, underlining vocabulary
   

• Re-read and take notes.
  Eliminate details and secondary material in each paragraph, and formulate in short sentences or phrases the important facts in each paragraph.  Some paragraphs may be general in nature, or peripheral to the subject; others may contain many concrete facts.  Use your judgment to decide which facts, opinions, and examples to record.
   

• Study your notes. 
  Do not re-read the text unless you have to refer to a particular passage, chart, diagram or the like which you should enter in your note-taking process.  For example: "Study in Delaware---96% of all housewives use Zippo laundry detergent (See chart, p. 37)."
   

Preparing to Read

Many reading problems are caused by lack of concentration, which is in truth often caused by environment.  Reading is an activity requiring great mental effort at first; as understanding and skill increase, the effort lessens.  However, reading should be treated with respect in that it is not an activity that can best be done with other activities.  A divided attention will result in loss of concentration and comprehension and lead to inefficient reading habits.

In reading, the eye and mind work together, Peripheral, visual, audial and physical distractions will interfere with reading. The best environment for reading is:

• a quiet place.

• and isolated place, free of human traffic and interruption.

• a place in which it is easy to sit upright, hold a book or lay the book on a surface.

• a place that is atmospherically comfortable: neither hot, cold, noisy or busy.

The proper functioning of the body is essential to successful reading.  If there is fatigue, a vision problem, illness, lack of interest in the book, inadequate language preparation, there will be subsequent barriers to understanding.

Reading is one process by which we learn and understand.  Respecting that process and making it as free of barriers as possible enables learning and understanding to take place.

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