4-Steps To Make Your Textbook Reading Easier
I remember when I was in my first year, I had this Psychology course that was tested heavily based on the textbook. Basically, 50% of the exam consisted of questions from the textbook. [O1]
I was so motivated to study and do well in midterms, I sat down and took notes of everything in the textbook. Man, was it time-consuming and boring. I had to cover five chapters, and each chapter had around 40 pages. It took me 3 hours to complete each chapter. Anyways, I pushed myself and did this whole note-taking the thing on my computer like a good student. I thought to myself all these notes I have taken will come in handy when I am studying for exams.
The week before my exams, I pushed myself and studied as much as possible from these notes. I didn’t really read the textbook again because I had already taken notes on it.
Finally, the exam day came. I felt like all of the multiple choice questions made sense. I was able to answer them without many issues. However, I felt like with some questions I didn’t know the concept enough to pick the correct answer. When I was answering, I felt like I had covered this material but did not know well enough to select the correct answer. I ended up getting a mediocre 68% on the exam. Not very good.
It took me two years to realise that this way of studying the textbook is completely wrong.
After talking to numerous high GPA students, I realised that they had a particular way of studying the textbook. Obviously, each of them had their own style, but certain principles showed up over and over again. Those that got the highest grades followed a specific system to study the material in the textbook.
After months and months of experimentation, I discovered a system that helped me do ridiculously well on exams when textbook materials were heavily tested.
What I am about to show you is extremely effective. It may feel like a lot of work in the beginning, but the system is very strong when it comes to making sure you have a great understanding of the textbook material. It may not work for you right away because you may not have enough time to cover all the steps.
However, I highly recommend that you start your studying early enough to apply the system and to get the grades you want. Over time, you will realize that your studying will become much faster and will need much less time to master the concepts in the textbooks when using this system.
This is a system that helped me to extract the most valuable information out of my textbooks in order to ace my exams. Therefore, I strongly encourage you to pay very close attention to the steps I'm going to mention in this section because it can save you hundreds of pointless hours of studying and unnecessary worrying.
Make sure that you do each of these steps one after the other.
Step 1: Perform a Preview of The Chapter
This is one of the key steps of this system. The first step is about performing a thorough visual inspection of the chapter material.
In this step, pay very careful attention to:
headings
charts,
graphics,
bolded text,
Italicized text,
and most importantly, the summary
The purpose of this step is to warm up your brain for the upcoming reading. This is the perfect way to ease your brain into absorbing large quantities of information, without overloading and exhausting your brain.
Previewing information in this way has shown to create initial neuronal connections for further learning and comprehension. Essentially, it creates the necessary memory slots for more detailed learning during the actual reading process. In addition, it can increase your focus and attention since you have created a state in your brain that will anticipate information in the future. This increased attention can drastically contribute to forming stronger memories.
In plain English, previewing in this way warms up the brain so that you have an easier time learning and storing the material.
Reading the summary (if available) is a very important aspect in this step. You may not understand everything that you read in the summary. But this is expected. But go through the summary anyway. As I mentioned before, it can drastically increase your attention and comprehension which will facilitate future learning.
Also, if your professor has pointed out that you should focus on a specific area of the chapters, you should make a note of that to identify these. You must put extra care to identify these sections and do a quick read through. This is because your professor finds this information very valuable for you to know for your exams. As a result, there is a very high probability that this information will show up in the exam.
Step 2: Take notes TO understand
The second step is about reading and taking notes to understand. In the first two years in university, I took a lot of time taking notes on specific details. By the time I reached my third year, I had realised that this process was rather ineffective and wasteful. I used to depend solely on these notes to study for the exams. This is a big no-no!!!
By the third year, I realised that taking many notes can be rather ineffective and wasteful. Not only is this method very time-consuming and ineffective, but it can also affect your GPA if you rely solely on these notes to study for your exams.
This is because you may have left out important information, as at the time you may have thought it was not important, but actually was important for you to know.
By using the following method, you can ensure that you never miss out on any vital information in the textbook.
There are thee specific situations in which you should take notes.
First situation: Take notes of concepts that you have difficulty understanding
If you come across a concept that you have difficulty understanding, you must rewrite what you are trying to understand in your words in a piece of paper. Attempt to write the concept with multiple but smaller sentences.
Start with writing down aspects of the concepts you understand. Then, move on to the most difficult aspects of the concept. If you still can’t understand some aspects, do a quick google search and see if there are any videos, images or information that can help you understand. Sometimes using difference sources can offer a better perspective on the concept, and help you understand. Make sure that you hand-write this information in your paper.
By using this method, your brain really focuses on understanding the content you are reading. This process helps you gain a high level of comprehension because it digests the concept into smaller pieces that help you understand. The main goal of this process is to break down the concept and make it easier for your brain to understand.
Most cases we do not understand a concept because we take in too much information at once. Our brain becomes overloaded with information which makes it difficult to make connections for a short period.
For example, the amount of information that gets thrown in during the reading process may be too much, or the sentences may be too long. When this happens, you need to digest bits of information at a time. The goal is to make it easier for your brain to understand.
Second Situation: Take notes on concepts you have never come across before.
You should take notes of any concepts, definitions, theories or formulas that you have never come across in your life. Take detailed notes of these concept definitions, theories or formulas. You can write down examples, but this is not always necessary. Examples will make it easier to understand the concept.
If you are just starting out in University, you may feel as though you don’t know or understand what you are reading. That is expected, and it's okay. Myself, along with countless others who have gotten a great GPA went through similar challenges to these.
My recommendation is that you must push through the concepts and be able to identify the concept and give your own examples. Over time, you will become familiar with many of the concepts, and the whole process will become second-nature. I can guarantee you that if you always focus on getting better at what you do, you will become good at this process.
Always remember to write down your notes by hand. It is extremely important. Taking notes by hand as opposed to typing it up on your laptop, contributes to better memory and recall. This has been well documented in research. This is because taking notes by hand requires different types of cognitive processing than taking notes on a laptop, and these different processes have direct consequences for learning.
This type of reading process helps you engage with the material more closely because you are actively thinking about what you are writing as you put words on paper. Therefore, making the process more engaging. This also helps you consolidate the information you learned into your long-term memory.
The primary purpose of your notes should be to increase comprehension and understanding of the material that you are reading. The primary purpose is not storing information. The purpose of a book is to store information. You must never solely rely on these notes to study for an exam. It is very important that you do not forget this advice.
The reason I emphasised this is because when you are studying for an exam, you must use the original source to study. This is because only the original source has the most accurate information that you will need for your exams.
When you were taking your own notes, you may have missed some important information that could be valuable and may likely appear on your exams. This is the reason why you should always resort to the textbook itself when studying.
Third Situation: Write down concepts or ideas that repeats.
If certain concepts are repeating in multiple areas in the book, its good idea to make note of these concepts.
When certain concepts are repeating, that indicates that its fairly important concept in the domain. Take steps to write and review these concepts carefully during your study.
Step 3: Perform the Speed Read Method
The step is about going through the textbook material as fast as possible. During this step, use the Directional Tracking to power through your reading.
What is Directional Tracking?
It is the act of sliding your finger under the words you read. The reason why this method is beneficial to reading faster is that scanning left-to-right in a straight line manner is not a natural process. Instinctively, looking all over the other text is a superior way to gather and process information. However, in the exam, the information that is tested is well detailed and simply gathering high-level information is not enough to answer the questions correctly. Notably, in Multiple Choice Question exams you are tested in identifying small differences between concepts. Therefore, you need to read to learn the details as well.
Through Directional tracking, you help your brain to encode information at a deeper level when you are reading. This, in turn, helps you remember minute differences in the material.
Back to step 3
When you are doing this step, if you come across concepts you do not understand, read again and do your best to understand them. Do not rely on your notes because, as mentioned before, you may have accidentally dropped some valuable material (use your notes as the last resort). It is okay to slow down in order to understand concepts that you have difficulty with, however, speed through concepts that you are familiar with.
The purpose of this step is to make sure that your brain becomes familiar with the concepts discussed in the textbook and in turn, would help develop a deeper understanding of the textbook material.
Step 4: Advance Your Reading Speed
You should perform this step very close to your exam period. This step is very similar to the 3rd step, except you perform this step closer to your exam period. There is no real limit on a number of times you should do this step. You can do the fourth step as many times as you can until you have very strong knowledge of the textbook material.
Go through the textbook material even faster using the finger method. Swift through the concepts you know well, and slow down on difficult concepts that you have difficulty understanding. Use the finger method to operate the speed of which you are reading.
You can perform this step as much as you want. Obviously, the higher the number of times you read, the better your comprehension will be.
The length of the time you take to read a chapter may vary, but aim to read one page every minute. For example, if the chapter is 30 pages long, cover the whole thing within 30 minute period.
You may wonder why I am asking you to repeat the textbooks' readings over and over again. This is because there is a psychological effect known as spacing effect. As humans, we are more likely to remember and learn things when they are studied repeatedly a few times over a time span ("spaced presentation"). This is why I want you to space out each of your steps. Always remember, repetition is the mother of skill.
Bit more guidance for you
It is important you ask the professor how important the textbook readings are for your exams. If he says it's 50-50, obviously you must put equal effort to master the information in the book as well.
It may seem like a lot of work in the beginning, but you will be surprised how fast you will start reading. There may be times you may feel like you don’t understand anything in the book; which is okay. Power through them and take some notes. You will become much faster over time when you start to utilise this method to study.
That’s it for today!
Much love!
