Tips on How to Read Your Textbook

The SQ3R Reading Method

Survey! Question! Read! Recite! Review!

Before you read, Survey the chapter:

• the title, headings, and subheadings
• captions under pictures, charts, graphs or maps
• review questions or teacher-made study guides
• introductory and concluding paragraphs summary

Question while you are surveying:

• Turn the title, headings, and/or subheadings into questions;
• Read questions at the end of the chapters or after each subheading;
• Ask yourself, "What did my instructor say about this chapter or subject when it was assigned?"
• Ask yourself, "What do I already know about this subject?"

When you begin to Read:

• Look for answers to the questions you first raised;
• Answer questions at the beginning or end of chapters or study guides
• Reread captions under pictures, graphs, etc.
• Note all the underlined, italicized, bold printed words or phrases
• Study graphic aids
• Reduce your speed for difficult passages
• Stop and reread parts which are not clear
• Read only a section at a time and recite after each section

Recite after you've read a section:

• Orally ask yourself questions about what you have just read
  or summarize, in your own words, what you read
• Take notes from the text but write the information in your own words
• Underline or highlight important points you've just read
• Use the method of recitation which best suits your particular learning style but remember, the more senses you use the more likely you are to remember what you read

Review:  an ongoing process

Day One

• After you have read and recited the entire chapter,
  write questions in the margins for those points you have highlighted or underlined.
• If you took notes while reciting,
  write questions for the notes you have taken in the left hand margins of your notebook.

Day Two

• Page through the text and/or your notebook to re-acquaint yourself with the important points.
• Cover the right hand column of your text/note-book and orally ask yourself the questions in the left hand margins.
• Orally recite or write the answers from memory.
• Make "flash cards" for those questions which give you difficulty.
• Develop mnemonic devices for material which need to be memorized.

Days Three, Four and Five

• Alternate between your flash cards and notes and test yourself (orally or in writing) on the questions you formulated.
• Make additional flash cards if necessary.

Weekend

• Using the text and notebook, make a Table of Contents - list all the topics and sub-topics you need to know from the chapter.
• From the Table of Contents, make a Study Sheet/ Spatial Map.
• Recite the information orally and in your own words as you put the Study Sheet/Map together.

Now that you have consolidated all the information you need for that chapter, periodically review the Sheet/Map so that at test time you will not have to cram.

Adapted from:  Robinson, Francis Pleasant, (1961, 1970) Effective study (4th ed.), Harper & Row, New York, NY.