18.5: Before Reading

Pre-reading and Previewing

In this stage of the cycle, prepare to “listen” to the author’s ideas; this is move 1 in the conversation described in the opening of this chapter. Preparing to read is necessary to learning something new because your brain needs some logical place to store the new information. The two most important strategies in this stage of the reading cycle are pre-reading and previewing. Additionally, the strategies of chunking the text and asking and answering questions are useful.

Strategy: Pre-Reading

Pre-read by turning your attention to your own thinking (a little metacognition!) by making time to connect with what you already know about the topic. You can do this by purposefully thinking about the topic and your own prior knowledge about it. Also, what do you know about the author? The time period when it was written/published or the time period of the content? Have you had any experiences related to the topic? One method for pre-reading is to do a quick search on credible web sites (like these listed below).

•                Encyclopedia Britannica https://www.britannica.com/

•                Biography  https://www.biography.com/

•                The Smithsonian Museum https://www.si.edu/

•                Scientific American https://www.scientificamerican.com/

•                National Geographic https://www.nationalgeographic.com/

Your professor may also include pre-reading activities in the classroom such as showing a video with background information about the topic and having the class discuss it in small groups.  

Strategy: Previewing

Preview the text by turning your attention to the paragraphs of the text. When you preview a reading selection, you skim, or glance, over it to try to get a sense of the piece’s content and organization. You are not yet closely reading, looking for specific details or information; instead, you are skimming a reading selection to get an idea of the author’s subject, main point, overall focus, or purpose. You can do this quickly, by scanning the title, table of contents, chapter titles and sub-headings, and first sentences of certain paragraphs before you start to read. Then, predict what the reading/chapter/section will be about. You might even jot down your thoughts in your notebook.  Try these strategies for previewing a text: 

•                Read over any introductory material—such as a brief summary paragraph—which may offer clues about the selection’s main point. 

•                To get this sense of the selection’s “big picture,” you should read the title of the selection, which will usually state the subject and sometimes even indicate the main point. 

•                Then try to find the thesis statement, or main point, of the selection. The thesis, which is the idea the author wants you to know or to believe about the topic by the time you have finished reading, usually appears somewhere near the beginning of the selection, often in the first paragraph. Tip: Look also to the title for a hint! Authors use titles to help the reader focus on the overall main point they are trying to make. 

•                Also, glance over the headings in the selection, which function as “mini- titles” for the different sections. If there are no headings to guide you, read the first sentences of the paragraphs to get some idea of the topics they will address. 

•                Read the titles and captions of any visual aids, such as graphs or charts, that are included with the text. Your goal is to figure out what each one means and how it supports the writer’s position.

These steps will build your confidence and interest in reading, especially reading something new that may seem intimidating. 

Strategy: Chunking

Be prepared for your professors to eventually assign a long text to read, which can seem like a daunting task. But you know how to eat an elephant! One bite – or “chunk” --at a time. The reading strategy called "chunking," which is simply breaking the reading down into manageable and meaningful pieces. This strategy can help you find the main ideas more easily.  

If you are assigned a longer, more complex reading, look at all the pages and figure out how to break down the text into parts, or chunks.  Does the author provide natural breaking points with sub-headings or lines that indicate breaks?  If not, are there transition words ("first," "second," "finally," "therefore," etc.) at the beginning of paragraphs that indicate a new section or idea? Once you find these smaller, more manageable pieces of text, you can actively read, working to determine main and supporting ideas within them.

Strategy: Ask and Answer Questions

Another strategy that will help you better comprehend is questioning. When you begin reading a section of text, try to identify two to three questions you should be able to answer after you finish it. Write down your questions in your reading journal or in your Cornell notes, and use them to test yourself on the reading.

If, as you read, you cannot answer a question, try to determine why. Is the answer buried in that section of reading but just not coming across to you? Or do you expect to find the answer in another part of the reading?  Completing this step helps to keep readers focused on finding certain kinds of information in a text, so it often improves concentration and, therefore, comprehension. 

One strategy to formulate questions quickly is simply to turn the title, headings, or topic sentences of a selection into questions before you read the text. For example, if the heading is “Walking versus Jogging," you could turn it into “How are jogging and walking alike and different?" or “Which is better: walking or jogging?" 

Write your questions in the margins (annotate) or take notes in a reading journal, leaving a blank space for each of the answers, which you will fill in later as you read. You can also answer the questions that may follow a text. In textbooks, authors often provide a list of questions that help you focus on the most important information. Even if your professor does not assign these questions, think about how you would answer them.