The Power of Active Reading!

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In Part 2 of our Study Techniques series, let’s meet this extremely useful tool; Active Reading

There is always a lot of content involved in learning new things 📚. When it comes to school subjects new content is introduced every week that builds on previous content. It can definitely be overwhelming when you have an entire chapter 😖 to read in one week along with the rest of the term’s information building upon it. 😪

That’s when we can unlock the power of 🌟Active reading!🌟 Active reading is a major topic in study circles, and when talking about study tactics. So what is it? 🤔

💡 Active Reading: reading something with a determination to understand and evaluate it for its relevance to your needs

So what does that mean?

Active reading means conscious sifting through information relayed to you, whilst linking it to information you have already been introduced to you or concepts relevant to your topic of study.

Active Reading looks something like this:

• 📖 A prior skim read of the chapter before review

• 🔑 Identifying key topics and words

• 🔗 Linking information to prior learning (e.g. from previous modules or chapters)

• ❓ Asking follow up questions to teachers/google on areas with vague understanding

• 📝 Testing yourself with your peers to consolidate knowledge and ensure your understanding competes with your peers

👍🏾 Benefits of Active Reading 👍🏾

Once you’ve unlocked the power of Active reading, you’ll find many benefits associated with it:

• Improved Comprehension: Active reading promotes a deeper understanding of the material by encouraging readers to interact with the text and think critically about its content. Active reading has a main goal of ensuring a deep and comprehensive understand of the information you read. This will help you in avoiding having to read the same chapter multiple times.

• Effective Note-Taking: Active reading helps in identifying and summarizing key points which can be used in effective note-taking (see our post on note-taking).

• Better Memory Retention: Actively engaging with the text whilst linking it to prior content enhances your ability to store the information in your long term memory. This can help with information recall and can be used in study skills such as Spaced Repetition (we’ll have a whole post about this later so stay tuned)

• Increased Concentration: When you’re practicing active reading you’ll find yourself concentrating more as you have more to think about! Since your mind is heavily preoccupied by the content, it makes it much harder to get distracted. This can be a really effective way of ensuring engagement with the topic you are studying.

• Increased Reading Speed: As readers become more adept at actively engaging with the text, they often find that their reading speed improves, allowing them to cover more material in a shorter amount of time

• Facilitation of Group/Class Discussions: Active reading ensures a more robust understanding of concept earlier in the term, this allows better engagement in class and group discussions. This in turns allows you to glean more information from those discussions, and opens opportunities to ask relevant questions to solidify your understanding.
  

Active reading can give you a real leg up when it comes to achieving effective study habits and therefore getting through information clearly and quickly💪🏾. It’s a skill that must be built with a lot of practice and time so start today! and make your way to learning success 😎.