3 Strategy: Asking Questions before Reading
Asking questions before you begin reading is a great strategy to help your brain retain what you read and save time.
- What is my purpose for reading?
- What will I need to know when I finish?
- What will I be expected to do with the information, such as write a response, summarize, take a quiz, etc.?
- What is the topic of the material?
- What does the title suggest?
- What do the subheading, italics and summaries suggest?
- What do I already know?
- What do I already know about this topic or a related topic?
- Is this new topic a small part of a larger idea or issue that I have thought about before?
- How is the material organized?
- What is the general outline or framework of the material?
- Is the author listing reason, explaining a process, or comparing a trend?
- What will be my plan of attack?
- What parts of the textbook seem most important?
- Do I need to read everything with equal care?
- Can I skim some parts?
- Can I skip some sections completely?
- Turn the headings into questions so you have a plan for finding the main ideas.
- Make sure you have room to annotate for either finding vocabulary or developing a response.
Built-In Practice: Asking questions Before Reading
Using “How the New ‘Aladdin’ Stacks Up Against a Century of Hollywood Stereotyping”, answer each of the previous questions before reading.