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2.2: Introduction to Reading Strategies

  • Page ID
    58232
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    What you’ll learn to do: analyze and utilize general reading strategies

    We know intuitively that reading is good for us, though sometimes it can feel like a chore—especially when it’s required for school. The following video emphasizes the benefits that reading can bring, by literally changing the way our brain works. While we won’t necessarily learn how to do Kung Fu just by studying a book, reading about an activity apparently makes the pathway towards acquiring that new skill much easier!

    Watch It

    Watch this video to learn more about the amazing effects of reading on your brain.

    A link to an interactive elements can be found at the bottom of this page.

    You can view the transcript for “Reading Can Change Your Brain!” here (download).

    Reading for education is a bit of a different activity than reading for pleasure. Effective reading for educational purposes doesn’t consist of just looking at a text once and then putting it away. Instead, successful reading in education is a series of interrelated activities that involve interacting with a text several times, in differing ways.

    An open book.

    The recommended amount of time college students should devote to studying outside of class is two-three hours per credit hour each week. In other words, a student enrolled in 15 credit hours should spend 30-45 hours per week studying, and much of that time will be devoted to reading. In fact, the path to a college degree means hundreds and hundreds of hours of reading.

    This section will help you use those hours most productively by introducing strategies for active reading, which will help streamline your learning process. In the next couple of pages, you will learn some tips to maximize your reading efficiency so you have a better sense of what to do before, while, and after you read. These strategies include previewing, skimming, questioning, and annotating.

    Contributors and Attributions

    CC licensed content, Original
    CC licensed content, Shared previously
    • Introduction to Active Reading Strategies. Provided by: University of Mississippi. License: CC BY: Attribution
    • Image of someone reading. Authored by: Free-Photos. Located at: pixabay.com/photos/books-reading-pages-textbooks-1149959/. License: Other. License Terms: pixabay.com/service/terms/#license
    All rights reserved content
    • Reading Can Change Your Brain!. Authored by: DNews. Located at: https://youtu.be/bPTpVRb4R7Y. License: All Rights Reserved. License Terms: Standard YouTube License

    This page titled 2.2: Introduction to Reading Strategies is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Lumen Learning via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.