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| 1 |
The technique for active listening and taking notes is based
on scientific understanding of how the brain works to receive, understand,
store, and retrieve information and concepts. This system adapts readily
to the reading of texts. Make no mistake about it, reading textbook material
is tough. |
| 2 |
First, let's examine what happens when you set out to read those five
chapters
assigned for the next class, two days away. You plan to start reading at 7:00,
but when 7:00 arrives you visit the bathroom (five minutes), make a quick call
to a friend (six minutes), go get an apple (two minutes) and then sit down to
read, but only after clearing your desk, sharpening pencils, and arranging some
notes (five minutes). It is almost 7:30 and you haven't read a word yet! Sound
familiar? Even when you do get started, another problem with attention span occurs.
You know, you read along with your eyes but your mind has gone somewhere else
and when you catch yourself, you have to flip back a page to find where to start
reading again. Studies on the amount of time lapsed from when you first start
to read until your mind wanders have shown that a typical first-year student's
attention span for textbook material is only about five minutes. Not long enough!
You will need at least three times that for academic survival and even more as
you progress. |
| 3 |
But don't despair. You can quickly and dramatically improve a short reading
attention span. It's a lot like jogging. When you first start out it is difficult.
A mile run is an impossibility. But with perseverance and a good plan, a mile
run is soon only a warm-up. The following system for textbook reading helps
to solve the problem of delay/avoidance and attention span. It also promotes
better understanding, increases speed, and most important of all, facilitates
later study for tests and exams. |
| 4 |
The system is divided into
two stages, each having two activities. In the first stage, you plan
to read and to measure the reading assignment.
Planning to read is an undemanding but important activity that can fit
nicely into your delay/avoidance time. The purpose is to create "advance
organizers" by quickly surveying the pages to be read and looking
for headings or key words or sentences that suggest what the subject is
about. Sometimes texts feature questions at the back of the chapter, lists
of main points, or summary paragraphs. These are particularly useful in
creating advance organizers. Understanding comes later. The purpose of
your search is to warm up the mind and to create a map for the actual reading. |
| 5 |
Measuring the reading assignment is an activity based on how long your
attention span is and how many pages you read during your span. For example,
you might divide a forty-page chapter into four ten-page reading assignments,
each to be done in ten minutes. For each, you establish some advance organizers
and read each separately. You then apply the strategies of stage two. |
| 6 |
Stage two is the actual reading followed by recitation. The active reader
must have a pencil in hand and be prepared to underline, circle, draw arrows,
or write brief notes in the margin as material is understood. This helps you
identify and condense important material, and you cannot do this unless you
are concentrating. Once you work over a portion of text in this fashion, use
the markings to cue a brief recitation of what you have understood. Repeat
the procedure until you complete the entire reading assignment. (Gardner, John
N. and A. Jerome Jewler. College Is Only the Beginning, 2nd ed. Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth, 1989, 49-50) |
Copyright © 1995-2010 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Longman.
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