Top Reading Techniques

1. The SQ3R Reading Technique

This reading technique involves five different steps, each one with the goal to get you closer to full comprehension of the text.

📎Survey: First survey the piece to get a quick idea of the content and structure of the reading. By doing this, you are preparing your mind.

📎Question: Prepare questions for yourself to go over as you read the material. One trick on how to create questions is to turn paragraph titles into questions. For example, a title such as “Women in the Civil War,” could turn into the question: “Who were the women in the civil war, what did they do and when?”

📎Read: Read with your questions in mind. In this step, you can combine other reading techniques that may work for you such as scanning or active reading.

📎Recite: Now it is time to go back and answer those questions you created. Make sure what you read makes sense, and that you understand how it answers your questions.

📎Review: Make mental notes or say aloud what you have learned. Try doing so without looking at your notes or the text to check what you have or have not retained.

2. Reading Technique: Skimming

Also called getting the ‘gist’ of the text, skimming is a reading technique where you can glance over the material to find what you are looking for. This is best used when you already know the general idea of the text. You can also skim material before going for further reading. Getting a first glance of how a chapter or article is laid out, for example, will help you to know where to look for key information on the second read.

🗝️Use skimming for:

🥉reading service or product reviews

🥉going over a speech last minute

🥉quick research

🥉quick review before an exam

Skimming can save you a lot of time by making you aware of the key points without fully comprehending the entire text. It will also save you time if you need to re-read the material more in-depth at a later time.

3. Reading Technique: Scanning

Scanning is a reading method used when simply running your eyes over a text, usually to find what you are looking for, or to find anything that ‘pops’ out at you. This is a commonly used reading technique for daily, non-academic reading tasks.

🗝️Scan when reading:

🥉list of email subjects

🥉news articles

🥉a food or drink menu

4. Reading Method: Active Reading

Active reading gives you a much more in-depth understanding of the text in front of you. This reading method should be used when you are reading something complex or something that you need to think critically about. In order to read actively, you must ask yourself questions throughout the text, and reflect on those questions. Try to relate what you are reading to previous experience and knowledge, and take notes if it helps as well.

🗝️Read actively with:

🥉new, difficult and unfamiliar material

🥉reading material you will need to know well

5. Reading Method: Detailed Reading

Detailed reading is the most labor-intensive and time consuming reading technique. Readers carefully read, consume, and analyze each word for meaning. Piecing together the meanings of words in a sentence to provide deeper understanding can take time and patience, but in some cases this is the best technique to use.

🗝️Use this method with:

🥉scholarly research articles

🥉medical reports

🥉poetic literature

6. Reading Technique: Structure-Proposition-Evaluation

This reading method, sometimes called the SPE method, was proposed by Mortimer Adler in his 1940 book titled, How to Read a Book. Mortimer suggests that the best way to read a book is to find the structure, author-made propositions, and to create your own evaluations.

To use this reading method, you must first identify the structure of a text and create an organized layout either in your mind or on paper. After you have the layout, you go on to find all of the logical propositions that go into each section of the layout. Then you evaluate the arguments and propositions and make your own conclusion about the reading.