THEME 9:
LIFELONG LEARNERS READ ACTIVELY, SELECTIVELY AND WITH
UNDERSTANDING
Rationale
… the goal of reading becomes to find and deeply understand the most important ideas and
information in the most efficient way possible (Doyle, 2004)
Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting (Edmund Burke, s.a.)
Intended outcomes:
At the end of this theme, you will be able to
• IDENTIFY your personal reading habits
• SKIM and SCAN a text
• FIND words and define meanings through the use of an electronic thesaurus
• CREATE a personal glossary
• READ and ANNOTATE a text
• CONDENSE information in the form of linear summaries
• CONVERT summaries into a graphic display
9.1 Reading
At university the ability to read well is extremely important because a
great deal of your work consists of writing either from, or about texts
that you have read.
It is important to know that you should use different strategies to read
a novel because you want to relax, as opposed to study-read for
examination purposes.
Reading can help you to write better, because critical engagement
with reading material helps you to … internalise the rules and
conventions of academic writing (Seligman, 2012:217).
Activity 9.1.1 (collective) – diagnostic test; discussion
1. Discuss your personal reading habits with the person sitting next to you by
answering the following questions:
• When you need to read a prescribed text, do you read every word?
• What do you do when you come across unfamiliar words?
• What do you do when you do not understand what you are reading?
• What do you do to remember information you read in a text?
9.2 Do they really expect me to read all of this?
At school, you may have studied from only one or two books per subject. At University,
however, you will be required to access many sources - including books, journal articles and
the Internet - to obtain information. Apart from the large volume of reading, academic texts
are often complex. Therefore, you need to be able to read purposefully and selectively,
keeping in mind that reading every word is not always the point.
There are basically four reading strategies:
Skimming = reading quickly for global comprehension
Scanning = reading quickly for specific information
Study-reading = reading carefully in order to learn
Critical reading = reading to evaluate and compare different
sources or points of view
Skilled readers are able to decide on a suitable reading strategy to use for a particular
purpose. Therefore it is important to familiarise yourself with the details of the following 4-S’s
recipe (adapted from Boddington & Clanchy, 1999) to read effectively:
Strategy Action
Scan Look at the title, index, introduction, conclusion, headings and sub-
headings, chapter summaries, graphs and tables
Skim Get a sense of the main message of the text; read the abstract (if
there is one) and the introduction; then, travel lightly over the text,
section by section or paragraph by paragraph, noting topic
sentences as you go along
Select Mark the sentences/sections that are relevant to the essay you need
to write (also called “mapping”)
Study Take time to read key material that you have mapped, carefully
Also consult Seligman, pp.99-107
9.2.1 Skimming
Skimming is a strategy that you can use to get a general overview of reading material. It
involves running your eyes quickly over certain sections of the text, e.g. the titles, sub-titles,
introductions, first lines of paragraphs, diagrammes and conclusions. In the process you get
a general impression of what the text is all about, how the material is organised, what the
tone or intention of the writer is and whether the material is relevant to the task that you have
to perform. It is important to master the skill of skimming, because, as pointed out by
Seligman (2012:108), [t]time management is an important factor and there is little point in
reading material if it does not help you complete a task.
9.2.2 Scanning
Scanning is the technique you use when you read selectively in order to locate relevant
information for a specific task, such as looking up a word in the dictionary or a telephone
number in a directory. In an academic environment, you should use this technique to search
for a definition or a suitable quotation in a text, or to look up the meaning of a word in the
glossary at the back of a book.
9.3 Reading closely to remember and recall
Studying and learning from textbooks take more than simply reading the assigned chapters.
To remember information for longer periods, you need to condense and restructure the
material to give meaning to it; you need to engage in active processing of information by
mapping the text. This means that you must decide what the most important points are,
underline, make notes in the margin and create study tools in the form of summaries and
graphic organisers.
To evaluate the strategies you are currently using to read and study from your textbooks, take
the following awareness check:
Activity 9.3.1 (individual) – self-assessment
HOW DO YOU STUDY FROM TEXTBOOKS?
(adapted from Kanar, 2014)
The following Awareness Check will help you determine whether you are getting all the
information you can out of your textbooks and using it effectively for studying, reviewing and
retaining what you have learned. Check the statements that apply to you.
1. Part of my textbook study includes making some type of summary to help
me remember important information.
2. I rarely, if ever, underline or annotate a textbook chapter.
3. When I make notes from textbooks, I don’t copy the information directly; I
put it into my own words.
4. If I make notes, I usually copy directly from the textbook.
5. I have used or heard about mapping techniques and other ways of
organising information.
6. I am not aware of ways to organise information. I study by rereading
textbook chapters or reviewing my lecture notes.
7. I underline or annotate key ideas in a chapter, and I study from these
markings
8. I have difficulty deciding what to underline or mark, so I try to study
everything.
9. Overall, I think that my method of studying from textbooks needs
improvement.
If you have checked mostly odd-numbered statements, you are probably already using an
effective method of organizing information from textbooks. If you checked mostly even-
numbered statements, you are probably not using your textbooks effectively.
So how does one go beyond reading and marking a textbook chapter to create summaries
or study tools?
As a starting point, here are some suggestions:
• Underline or annotate the main idea or topic sentence of a paragraph
• Underline or highlight key words or phrases from the sentences that support the main
idea
• Underline or highlight major headings and subheadings
• Turn headings into questions, and write the answers in the margin
• Circle key terms, and write their definitions in the margin or keep a separate list
• Use graphic organisers to organize ideas and show their relationship
Condense your reading by using a graphic organiser
(from Kanar, 2014)
You probably know from experience that studying from a textbook chapter – even if you have
marked if effectively – can be difficult and time consuming. Suppose you have several
chapters to study for a test. By the time you get through reading all your marked parts of the
first chapter or two, you are probably too tired to study the others. As a result, you go to the
test unprepared. Also, it is difficult to remember material that you have underlined or
highlighted. For one thing, the words are the author’s, not your own. Second, you end up
resorting to memorization, which as you should know by now, is not an effective way to study
complex ideas. The trick is to isolate the most important ideas in a chapter and condense
them into a format that is both meaningful and visual. Such formats are called graphic
organisers.
Consult Seligman, pp. 133-135 for examples of graphic organisers.
There are quite a number of graphic displays from which to choose:
• Mind maps
• Branching notes
• Spidergrams
• Clusters
• Tree diagrammes
• Flow charts
• Hierarchy diagrammes
• Comparison charts
9.4. Reading critically to understand
9.4.1. What is critical reading?
When lecturers give assignments and research projects to do, they expect you to understand
what you read by being critical.
To read critically you have to follow 4 steps:
1. Know why and for what purpose you are reading
2. Understand what the writer is saying and why
3. Reflect on and question the evidence the writer presents to support his/her
arguments
4. Make a scholarly and considered judgement about the worth of the writer’s
ideas, particularly in relation to other writers
Fortunately, academic texts (essays, articles, books) are mostly organised in a particular way.
Once you know where and how to look for these particular features you will be able to read
more efficiently.
9.4.2. What is it that I must look for when I read?
The table below contains the critical questions you need to ask if you want to figure out
the key message of academic texts:
Structure of academic Questions that the critical reader should ask
writing
Topic What is this all about?
Why is the writer interested?
Introduction
Context What have other writers said about the topic already?
What contribution does this piece of writing make to the
discipline/field? (theory)
What does the writer hope to achieve? (practice)
Question/problem What question is the writer asking?
Body
Thesis What does he/she think is the answer?
Signposting How will the writer show me this?
Point I(explanation) Why does the writer think the way he/she does?
Evidence/example Based on what?
Reference(s) Where did they learn this?
Point II, Point III, etc. (same questions as for Point I)
Conclusion So what?
Conclusion
How does all of this relate to the question that the writer posed
at the beginning?
THEME 10: