Reading Strategies
“The ability to read awoke in me some
long dormant craving to be alive."
-Malcolm X
How to Strengthen Your Reading Skills
1. Annotate
2. Question using Cornell Notes method
3. Use graphic organizers
4. Activate schema (prior knowledge)
5. Keep a reading log
6. Keep a vocabulary log
7. Use the Palomar College Reading Lab
8. Build fluency by reading often
9. Read high interest material
10. Join a reading group (online or with your friends/colleagues)
How to annotate - active reading that effectively engages the reader with the text
In order to read effectively, you need to develop a strategy that will work for you. Annotating a reading a passage - writing notes on the pages of the reading selection itself - is one strategy you can use to become actively involved in what you’re reading (whatever the course).
Although annotating may seem to take more time, it will benefit you in at least two ways:
1. If you have to return to the text for example, when studying for a test or writing a paper), you won’t have to re-read the entire
piece. Notes written within the text and in the margins can serve to remind you of important ideas.
2. When you write notes about reading selections, you develop active rather than passive reading skills. In general, when you are
involved with what you read, you will better understand remember, and engage with the texts.
Here are some suggestions for annotating, or glossing, a text:
1. Write notes in the margin or at the top or bottom of the page. For example, jot main ideas, key summary words or phrases next to
their respective paragraphs (This is also the best way to record your own reflections or beliefs about the topic).
2. Underline or highlight key words or phrases. (When in a testing situation, remember that important information helps you answer a
question.)
3. Use stars or asterisks in the margin to emphasize the most important ideas.
4. Pose questions in the margins to express your difference of Opinion about the author’s message, or put a question mark next to
anything you don’t understand (what the teachers mean when they ask, “Any questions about last’s night’s reading?”)
5. Circle unfamiliar vocabulary words, and then go back after you’ve read to see if you can figure out what they mean.
6. Use a personal symbol (! Yes!, Right!) next to anything that seems to target to you.
7. Number, in order, each step if the passage is describing a process, needed to complete the process.
8. Put a check by reasons, cause/effect, or transitions. Theymay help you identify the organization pattern or structure.
9. Put a check mark by a sentence/ sentences that you think state the main idea or repeat it.
10. Put an E by evidence, examples, specific details, quotations, etc. used to support the main idea of the passage
-Other reading strategies will be implemented throughout the semester-
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In order to read effectively, you need to develop a strategy that will work for you. Annotating a reading a passage - writing notes on the pages of the reading selection itself - is one strategy you can use to become actively involved in what you’re reading (whatever the course).
Although annotating may seem to take more time, it will benefit you in at least two ways:
1. If you have to return to the text for example, when studying for a test or writing a paper), you won’t have to re-read the entire
piece. Notes written within the text and in the margins can serve to remind you of important ideas.
2. When you write notes about reading selections, you develop active rather than passive reading skills. In general, when you are
involved with what you read, you will better understand remember, and engage with the texts.
Here are some suggestions for annotating, or glossing, a text:
1. Write notes in the margin or at the top or bottom of the page. For example, jot main ideas, key summary words or phrases next to
their respective paragraphs (This is also the best way to record your own reflections or beliefs about the topic).
2. Underline or highlight key words or phrases. (When in a testing situation, remember that important information helps you answer a
question.)
3. Use stars or asterisks in the margin to emphasize the most important ideas.
4. Pose questions in the margins to express your difference of Opinion about the author’s message, or put a question mark next to
anything you don’t understand (what the teachers mean when they ask, “Any questions about last’s night’s reading?”)
5. Circle unfamiliar vocabulary words, and then go back after you’ve read to see if you can figure out what they mean.
6. Use a personal symbol (! Yes!, Right!) next to anything that seems to target to you.
7. Number, in order, each step if the passage is describing a process, needed to complete the process.
8. Put a check by reasons, cause/effect, or transitions. Theymay help you identify the organization pattern or structure.
9. Put a check mark by a sentence/ sentences that you think state the main idea or repeat it.
10. Put an E by evidence, examples, specific details, quotations, etc. used to support the main idea of the passage
-Other reading strategies will be implemented throughout the semester-
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________