5.2 Effective Reading Strategies Pie Chart

Applying

Inferring and Implying

Accessing Prior Knowledge

Evaluating

Asking Questions

Learning Vocabulary

Applying

When you learn something new, it always connects to other knowledge you already have. One challenge we have is applying new information.

This is a challenge early space explorers faced before space travel was a more regular occurrence. They had to take what they already knew and could study and apply it to an unknown situation. These explorers wrote down their challenges, failures, and successes, and now scientists read those texts as a part of the ever-growing body of text about space travel. Application is a sophisticated level of thinking that helps turn theory into practice and challenges into successes.

Asking Questions

Humans are naturally curious beings. As you read actively, you should be asking questions about the topic you are reading. Don’t just say the questions in your mind; write them down. You may ask:

• Why is this topic important?
• What is the relevance of this topic currently?
• Was this topic important a long time ago but irrelevant now?
• Why did my professor assign this reading?

Leave some room to answer the questions when you begin and again after you read.

Learning Vocabulary

Vocabulary specific to certain disciplines helps practitioners in that field engage and communicate with each other.

• Look up words in a dictionary to ensure you have the exact meaning for your discipline
• Keep a dedicated list of words you see often in your reading. You can list the words with a short definition so you have a quick reference guide to help you learn the vocabulary.

As a potential professional in the field you’re studying, you need to know the lingo.

Strategies for learning vocabulary:

Evaluating

When you evaluate a text, you seek to understand the presented topic. Depending on the length of a text, you will perform several steps to evaluate all the elements the author presents:

• Scan the title and all headings.
• Read through the entire passage fully.
• Question what main point the author is making.
• Decide who the audience is.
• Identify what evidence/support the author uses.
• Consider if the author presents a balanced perspective on the main point.
• Recognize if the author introduced any biases in the text.

Accessing Prior Knowledge

When you read, you naturally think of anything else you may know about the topic. However, when you read deliberately and actively, you are more aware of accessing this prior knowledge.

• Have you ever watched a documentary about this topic?
• Did you study some aspect of it in another class?
• Do you have a hobby that is somehow connected to this material?

Accessing prior knowledge will help you make sense of what you are reading.

Inferring and Implying

When you read, you can take the information on the page and infer, or conclude responses to related challenges from evidence or from your own reasoning. Writers may imply information without directly stating a fact. Sometimes a writer may not want to come out explicitly and state a bias, but may imply or hint at his or her preference for one political party or another.

You have to read carefully to find indirect biases, but watching for them will help you comprehend the whole meaning of a passage.