Below are some useful reading and note-taking strategies. However, there are many more! Please refer to the Research and Resources tab for other strategies and helpful information.
Active Reading Checklist
Here is a quick and useful checklist to help students know what to do while they are reading their texts. Also, this will allow you to gage how actively your students are reading.
Annotation
Simply put, annotating means taking notes on a text. It requires the reader to actively engage with the text by writing comments, questions, describing, paraphrasing, summarizing, outlining, underling, highlighting, and even drawing.
Anticipation Guides
This pre-reading strategy will activate students’ prior knowledge, rouse curiosity, and get them to reflect on what they’ve learned and assess how well they understand the material.
Compare and Contrast Organizer
From ReadWriteThink: “This organizer can be used to help students explain similarities and differences between two things or ideas. After this organizer has been completed, it could easily be developed into a classroom discussion or writing topic on the information gathered.”
Concept Maps
Another handy graphical tool, concept maps help students find the relationship between concepts and ideas. Usually concept maps have concepts in circles or boxes with lines joining relating concepts. Words or phrases written on the lines indicate the relationship between the concepts.
Further Explanation and Examples Here
Cornell Notetaking
Cornell note taking is a straight-forward strategy for organizing and reviewing notes. In brief, you will divide your page into three places to write down facts, questions, and to summarize. A favorite among educators, this technique has been proven to make learning more efficient and to make reviewing notes much easier.
Dual Coding
Dual coding combines written material with visuals in order to read and learn more effectively. The idea is that by providing two different representations of the information, verbal and visual, you will better understand the material.
Exit Slips
A favorite among READ faculty, exit slips (or exit tickets) are an informal way to measure what students understood from a lesson. They encourage critical thinking by asking students to reflect on what they’ve learned. Exit slips take different forms, and though they’re often an individual reflection, they can also be used as a group activity. Some instructors use exit slips to check attendance.
Frayer Model
This graphic organizer is a useful tool to help students understand concepts and vocabulary. The strategy asks students to define a word or concept and explain its characteristics (or “ingredients”) and then generate examples and non-examples of the word or concept. It accesses students’ previous knowledge and encourages critical thinking. It can be done as an individual activity, in small groups, or as a whole class.
Note-Making Checklist and Basics of Note-Taking
In the first attachment, students assess what their note-making methods are; in the second, students learn some basic skills and strategies they will need while taking notes.
Retrieving By Retelling
Read, cover, remember, retell! This is a simple method that will help you remember more information and know where the gaps are in your comprehension.
SQ3R
SQ3R or “Survey, Question, Read, Recite, and Review,” is a step-by-step approach to reading and learning from a textbook. Research has shown that this strategy has been very effective in improving comprehension.
Text Preview
Surprisingly, previewing is a big time-saver. This strategy prepares your brain for the information you’re about to read, helps you focus, and enhances comprehension. Previewing involves skimming the text and looking for various features such as headings, subheadings, graphs, vocabulary words and chapter questions.
Textbook Components
It’s surprising that many students don’t know the parts of their textbooks. This PowerPoint will allow you to assess your students’ understanding of textbooks and generate discussion about the parts of a textbook.
