Reading Skills

Introduction

Do you love to read? Are you the sort of person who just can't wait to disappear inside a book?

Or are you someone who will find any excuse to avoid words on a page? Maybe wait for the movie...?

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In education, there's no escaping the need to read. It remains one of the best ways to learn - giving you independent study skills, research skills, language skills, and a lot more besides. You are, of course, reading this online book now and probably hoping it will give you some tips on how to make reading easier - especially when you have to read lots of things you may not choose to!

And it will.

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In this course, we will look at:

• • tips on preparing to read,
  • checking the 'readability' of a text and what to do if it's too difficult to understand,
  • metacognitive reading skills - or how to get the most out of everything you read,
  • QS3R - for effective reading,
  • tips for reading aloud, and
  • what to do if you really struggle to read, including how to use Read & Write Gold.

So if any of the above sounds useful to you, keep reading...

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If you're worried about how to read any of the pages of this short course, and you're on a college computer, go straight to the Read & Write Gold instructions and let that program read everything for you!!

Preparing to Read

If you're reading for pleasure, the whole process is very natural - you pick up your book, get comfortable and begin...

But when you have to read something, suddenly reading becomes a bit more forced and difficult. You forget just how easy it is! So it's important to remind yourself how to get in the right situation to read well.

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Step 1:

Gather together everything you need.

As well as the book, you might need to have a relevant worksheet or lesson notes to refer to, pens and paper for note-taking, etc.

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Step 2:

Find the right spot.

If you're reading for pleasure, you probably like a big comfy chair, lying back in bed, or maybe a picnic blanket outside. There's no reason you can't use any of these for academic reading, but it does tend to work better if you're on a comfortable chair at a desk, so that, if you suddenly need to make notes, it's easy to do. This will also avoid bad posture causing a distraction.

Whatever works for you, make sure your spot is well lit and has as few distractions as possible. If you need to use music to help you focus, try to find songs without lyrics such as classical or instrumental music.

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Step 3:

Make sure you keep the text at a suitable distance from your eyes. The recommended distance is 45cm (18 inches) - any closer and you could give yourself eyestrain and possible headaches. A reading stand or prop is a good idea.

If you're reading from the screen, make sure you are not sitting too close for the same reasons - about 50-75cm (20-30 inches) away is recommended. Check the screen brightness and, if possible or needed, try and change the screen colour from bright white to something that feels more comfortable on your eyes.  Be sure to look regularly away and blink. 

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Choosing the Right Book

A lot of the time at college, your teachers will tell you or recommend the texts they want you to read. Teachers have often read these texts themselves, so they know that it's likely to be useful and accessible.

Other times, however, you may have to choose your own books or texts to study. This might be because you are completing a project, a piece of coursework or research, or just because you feel you need to read more about a subject to improve your understanding. 

Picking the right book in a library, or the right text online, can be difficult with so much to choose from. So where do you start?

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Step 1:

Make sure you have narrowed down exactly what you are looking for. There's no point looking for an 'art' book, as there could be hundreds of different ones, but if you look for a book on 'impressionism', then you've narrowed down the choice. And if you look for a book on 'Claude Monet' then you've narrowed it again. It's best, therefore, to think before you search to make sure you don't waste your time or get distracted or discouraged.

The same goes for online research - narrow your parameters to get the best results. Use specific key words and phrases. 

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Step 2: 

When you find a book, read the back cover (or inside flap) to get a general idea of its contents.

Take a look at the table of contents or chapter listing near the front and the index at the back - do any words jump out at you as being useful?

Skim through the book to see the layout of the chapters - any subheadings or margin notes, graphs or illustrations/pictures that might look useful.

If you're working online, skim through the webpage for key words, phrases, images, etc.

Check the author of the webpage (see if it has an 'About' section or an accredited copyright) to make sure that what you are using is a credible and reliable source. If they have used quotes, statistics or graphs/illustrations, have they been labeled or explained thoroughly so that you know where they came from originally or how they were collated?

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Step 3:

If you're ready to proceed with the book, read the beginnings and ends of a few chapters or any chapter summaries or conclusions.

Likewise, if you're ready to proceed with the website, read the beginnings and ends of paragraphs or the introduction and conclusion to the page.

This will help you to decide if the language is accessible to you and if the information is relevant to your needs.

Checking 'Readability'

Readability simply means how easy it is for you to read through a text. Everyone has a different 'reading age', which doesn't always match your chronological age - it might be higher or lower depending on your reading ability and vocabulary knowledge. If you're struggling to read a text, it may be that it is above your readability level.

One way to test a text's readability is right for you is by using the Five-Finger Technique:

• Start reading a text or a page in the book - choose a page with lots of words and no pictures.
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• Each time you come to a word you do not understand or recognise, place a finger on the page, or hold a finger in the air.
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• If you reach five fingers before the end of the page, the text is probably too difficult for you.

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So, if you have used up all five fingers, does this mean you should give up on the book or text and find something simpler?

Of course not! When you were learning to read as a child, you didn't give up on a simple word book and go back to picture books just because you didn't know what 'xylophone' or 'umbrella' meant; you found out what the words meant and added them to your memory banks. That's how you improved your reading skills. You should only give up on the book if it isn't relevant for your needs (see the previous chapter). At college, a lot of books will initially seem difficult to read, but as you increase your vocabulary knowledge and subject understanding, your readability level will also improve.

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Here are a few tips to help you to read and understand a difficult text:

• Consider the metacognitive approach before you begin, to encourage you to engage with the text.
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• Have a dictionary to hand so that you can look up any words you don't know or aren't sure about. It may be a good idea to skim through a page or section of the book/text before you start reading it properly to find these words.
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• Create a 'key words' or 'new vocabulary' list as you work, using either:
  • a notebook to handwrite the words in (one with about 100 pages should do it, split into 26 sections - you can use fewer pages for X and Z unless what you're studying has a lot of unusual words!),

or

• • a Word table or Excel spreadsheet, with one column for the key word and one for the definition. Using a table or spreadsheet format in this way means that you can filter the words and meanings into alphabetical order later.

Try to write the definitions out in your own words, rather than just reciting the dictionary, and use an example or image if you need to as well. 
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• Once you have a better idea of what the words mean, properly re-read the text.

Although this may initially slow down your reading speed, it will improve your reading skills in the long term, as you will learn new vocabulary and have a useful list of key words to use for revision, saving you a lot of time later in the year and making the next book you read on the subject a lot easier to understand.

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Quick Activity

Complete the following worksheet to analyse your own readability level and how you will work to improve your reading. This is an essential activity, so you can upload your answers if you wish.

Try out the Five-Finger Technique on one of your college textbooks or recommended reading books and note how well you did on the worksheet.

You can also check an online text's readability score at this website: Readability Score. Paste in the text and click return to see the feedback scores. This page, for instance, came out at F-K Grade Level 7.6, meaning it is about right for general public reading abilities. Have a go at pasting a webpage - perhaps choose something from a Google Scholar search - and note the results on the worksheet.

Metacognitive Reading Skills

Metacognition means 'big thinking', or the process of thinking about thinking. This is a good skill to begin working on, particularly for your college courses which require you to reach higher levels of evaluation.

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Metacognitive reading allows you to engage with a text so that you learn more about the subject, link the knowledge to other topics and subjects, and develop your ability to evaluate what you're reading and how you are learning through reading. If you know how you positively engage with texts of any kind, then even the most 'boring' topics can become easier to read and learn, and your reading speed and ability will improve.

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Don't worry, it's very easy to do...

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How to be 'metacognitive' about reading:

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Don't just start reading a text!

Before you begin reading, you need to ask yourself a few questions to prepare yourself:-

1. Why am I reading this?
   Hopefully you've followed our earlier steps and chosen an appropriate book/text for your needs. But you can still ask yourself why you're reading it - is it for a general overview of a topic, or to confirm something you've read somewhere else (corroborate facts), or to get a bit more in-depth information, etc.? Is it a recommended book, or an author you know? 
2. What do I need to know?
   Is there something specific you need to find out about?
3. What do I know already?
   If you already know some things about the topic, you can skim over those parts of the book/text!

You might also want to consider how much time you're going to give to reading the book/text, or where you should start your reading (it won't necessarily be page one, chapter one if you've used the contents or index to find what you're specifically looking for). This is all part of the planning stage.

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As you work through your reading, you should also be making relevant notes. Hopefully you've completed the Note-Taking module in the Core Study Skills course, but if not, you may want to take a quick look. Remember, you shouldn't be writing down everything you read! As yourself:

1. Will I use this information?
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2. Does the information answer any of my questions?
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3. Do I know the information is correct? How? What evidence is there?
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4. Can I locate the information again if I had to?
   Tip: always make a note of every book, newspaper article, magazine/journal, website, etc. that you refer to, even if you don't use them for your final project. If you do take notes from a book, it's a good idea to note the chapter/page numbers or the printing edition date to make sure you can easily locate the information again. The same goes for newspapers and journals/magazines (date/edition/article author, etc.). And don't forget that websites can be changed daily, so if you are taking information from the internet, make a note of the date you accessed the site.

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Using the metacognitive approach will help you to focus on what you're reading (ever read a text book page, got to the end, then realised you can't remember a single word you just read...?), which can be really useful if you have to read something you may not have chosen to. It can also improve your evaluation skills, your reading ability, and your general understanding of how knowledge connects across topics and subjects - making you a much more active and engaged learner! All good skills for the future...

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Quick Activity

Use the worksheet to have a go at some metacognitive reading to support your learning or research. You could save this task for a project or piece of coursework in one of your subjects, or you could practice it now by reading around a topic you are studying. This is an essential activity, so you can upload your completed worksheet if you wish.

This worksheet can always be re-used each time you need it. 

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The QS3R Method of Effective Reading

QS3R (a.k.a. SQ3R!) was invented in 1946 by Francis Pleasant Robinson in his book Effective Study. His aim was to help college students remember something after they've read it.

It stands for:

You may already have noticed this combines everything we've been covering in the course so far! You will have covered some techniques to help you with each part of this method in the chapters on Choosing the Right Book,  Checking 'Readability' and Metacognitive Reading Skills. You can also refer to the Note-Taking module to help you with the three Rs.

Following these steps each time you need to read something will ensure you are spending your time reading the most appropriate texts for your needs, that you focus on the right parts of the text with the right amount of detail, you learn to connect what you are learning with what you already know, and you help your brain to remember the important stuff in the long-term.

It might seem like a slow process at first, but the more you practice this method of effective reading, the sooner it will become an easy habit, and you will begin to read this way without having to think about the process.

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This page was adapted from the L6 Core Studies Tutorial Programme Student Guide 2007-2008 by Val Hewitt and http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newISS_02.htm

Reading Aloud

A lot of students are worried about being asked to read aloud in class - even Drama students!

Outside of the performing arts subjects, it's not very common to be asked to read aloud in an A level or BTEC class these days. But that doesn't mean that it won't ever happen, or that reading aloud should be avoided at all costs!

There are some benefits to reading aloud, especially if you are an auditory learner or you struggle with reading. Listening is a different skill to reading; it can help you to process and comprehend a text in a more active way as well as introduce you to new vocabulary.

But listening is one thing; doing the reading yourself can be quite another! So what should you do if you are asked to read out loud in class? Here are our tips:

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• Reading aloud is all about confidence, and confidence only grows as you do. Practice reading aloud to yourself sometimes, particularly with difficult texts you may have to read for homework or revision. If you notice you weren't listening to yourself, then you need to start again - maybe even shout at yourself until you pay attention! Try out different voices or tones for the fun of it.
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• If you know you struggle with reading generally, you may want to mention this to your teachers so that they are aware that you may need more time to read through texts, and that reading aloud might be a difficult process for you. 
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• Before reading anything out loud, you can ask for the time to prepare. Read through the text in your head a few times to familiarise yourself with it. If there are any words you don't know how to pronounce, try asking someone, such as your teacher, before you start reading.
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• Take your time over the reading. Breathe and stay calm. 
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• Don't worry about making mistakes! Mistakes are how we learn and improve. There are a few great mistakes that even changed the world (click the image for a bigger view)! So if you make a mistake on a word, stop, breathe, correct yourself and move on. Ignore any laughter; although if you do make an amusing mistake, don't be afraid to join in on the joke - this stops you from feeling like the target of the laughter and allows you to enjoy it too, just as you would if someone else had been reading. 

• It's important to learn to take feedback in a positive way. If a teacher or fellow student corrects a mispronunciation or points out that you've missed a bit, just take a deep breath, smile, or say thank you, and carry on. If criticism is meant in a positive way, you should take it so.
  If, however, you notice people reacting negatively and unkindly to your reading skills, try not to let them upset you. You will come across some people at college who are not as mature or considerate as you, but you don't need to worry about their opinions so long as you are trying your best.
  If anyone persists in making you feel bad, tell a teacher about it as soon as possible (this is important, as bullying should never be tolerated). 

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Although you may not want to read aloud in class, reading out loud is a transferable skill which links to other class and real-world activities, such as giving presentations, taking part in group work, giving instructions, role-playing, learning a foreign language, etc. It's important to work on reducing your anxiety about standing up in front of others and building your confidence up until you feel you could do it whenever you're asked... 

Read & Write Gold Software

Read & Write Gold is a brilliant piece of software which can help all students with their study skills.

It should be available on all college computers (do let us know if you can’t get it to load on a computer you have used). If you struggle with reading (or if you are an auditory learner, or just fancy resting your eyes and being read to for a bit!) Read & Write Gold can be very useful because:

• it can read texts out loud to you, so if you have a long (or even short!) handout or worksheet from a subject which is a document in Word, PowerPoint or Excel, or even if its a webpage or email, just open Read & Write Gold, click where you want it to start reading and press play.
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• it can also read pdf documents, and it has some success with scanned in pages as well (if you have any problem with this, contact the IT department or visit the Study Centre for advice).
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• it can proofread your work for you - if you’re not sure whether you have phrased something quite right, or you just need to hear it read in someone else’s voice (we often miss errors when we read through work in our head or by ourselves), Read & Write Gold can help.
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• it can read aloud as you type, as well as onscreen options and menus.
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• you can use it to read any of the Study Skills courses out loud to you! Especially the long bits...

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How to use Read & Write Gold:

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To use Read & Write Gold in college, look for this icon on your desktop or by using the 'search programs and files' button under the 'Start' bar and typing in the program name:

This will open the toolbar (be patient, as it may be slow to load depending on the computer you are using and the size of your user profile). The toolbar can be moved to the top or the side of your screen. If it is locked at the top/side, you can move it again by clicking on the anchor icon on the far right and sliding the top of the toolbar to your preferred location.

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The text-to-speech part of the toolbar is very simple to use. Just place your mouse cursor where you want the program to start reading from, or select and highlight a section of text, then click on the Play button (the green arrow):

There is a small selection of voices to choose from, and you can change the pitch (high or low), speed (slow or fast) and volume (loud or soft) to suit your preferences by clicking on the black arrow next to the Play button and opening the Speech Options menu:

No text-to-speech voice is perfect yet, but once you've got used to this one, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it!

To stop any reading, just click on the Stop button (red square).

It's that simple to get started! So why not try it out?

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Quick Activity

This is an optional activity, but it is a very good idea to give it a try. Open the Read & Write Gold toolbar. Once it's loaded, try highlighting a paragraph of text from this page and then press play. Don't forget to alter the voice to make it sound right for you. Now try typing something in a Word document and then getting it to read that out loud.

If you're ready to explore the settings further, including how to correct mispronunciations, how to use Read & Write Gold to read out menus and other on-screen elements, or how to read from a screenshot, then work through this edited version of the official instruction manual (8 pages).

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It is possible to buy Read & Write Gold for use at home or on the iPad. However, if it is a bit pricey for you, but you would like something to use at home, you can find free Text to Speech software online - do a search for ‘free Text to Speech online’ and try them out, e.g. NaturalReader or ReadSpeaker, which just need you to copy and paste text into them.

We've also had a lot of fun playing with From Text To Speech; it has "natural sounding voices" with British and US English accents - recommended are Peter (Brit.) or Ryan (US) - as well as French, German, Spanish, Italian and Arabic. Yes, it's true, it can be amusing to hear your work read out with a French or German accent; but on a more serious note, it might also be useful if you need someone to proofread your French, german, Spanish or Italian coursework...

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If you would like further training on how to use this software or if you have any queries, please contact the Study Centre by emailing us at studysupport@godalming.ac.uk.

There are also instructions on how to use the whole software package (which does a lot more than just reading out loud!) at the links below:

• Instructional Videos 
• Full Training Guide PDF document
• Beginners Guide PDF document

Support for Reading Difficulties

Hopefully this course book has given you a lot of tips on how to improve your reading skills.

However, if you struggle with reading because of a learning difference (a physical or hidden disability) or are worried you may have a more serious problem, here are a few final tips that we hope will help:

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• Make sure you have spoken to the Learning Support department about your issues. If you didn't see them during enrolment, pop up to the Study centre, room 235, to arrange an appointment to discuss your needs. They can also advise you on appropriate assessment of your reading needs (if necessary), in or out of college, to help you understand what might be going on.
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• Take a look at the Learning and Study Support page on Support for Reading, which encourages the use of Read & Write Gold and testing your readability, as well as suggesting tips for visual stress, etc.
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• Use audio books to help you keep up with reading longer texts - this is a particularly good idea for studying English language or literature. Speak to the ILC staff about what audio books are available to borrow from the college library and whether they can get one in for you.
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• Always keep a dictionary nearby, and don't be afraid to use it!
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• Set time limits for reading, so that you don't go beyond your concentration limit. There's no point in pushing yourself to do more than you can, or you'll struggle even more. Choose a reasonable length of time that works for you, then take a short break - make a drink or take the dog for a walk! Don't be tempted to break from reading a book to read social media - this will just continue to tire your eyes. Do something different, look away, and come back refreshed... 

Summary & Review Quiz

To improve your reading skills:

• practice reading little and often.
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• forget about speed - it's skill and comprehension that matters.
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• engage with texts (use metacognition).
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• allow a challenging text to improve your vocabulary, grammar and knowledge.
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• keep a dictionary to hand and use it!
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• make sure what you read is relevant.
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• practice skimming and scanning to increase your reading speed.

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If you really struggle with reading:

• use Read and Write Gold to have online texts, pdfs and computer-based work read aloud.
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• use audiobooks where they are available.
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• use coloured rulers or screen shades if they work for you.
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• get your eyes tested - make sure you wear glasses or lenses if you need them!
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• ask for a reading test to see if you have a learning difference (it may not be possible to complete this in college, but the Learning Support department can advise you on availability or who to contact).
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• set time or amount limits on your reading to avoid burn out or frustration.
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• don't give up!

Review Quiz

Complete the following review quiz to fihisn this course.

You have now successfully completed this course! Don't forget that you can re-use any of the resources from this course whenever you need to.