Active Reading: Textbook Chapters

Essays on the Teaching of English
Raymond Stopper
Based on His Book, Teaching English, How To….

Active Reading: Textbook Chapters

10-Second Review: Reading textbook chapters in a shorter time and with better comprehension.

Many students look on reading textbooks as being passive. They begin on the first page of the chapter and plow through, word after word, page after page, to the end, not really sure what is important and what is not, and then they answer the questions at the end of the chapter, questions that, at times, do not seem to have anything to do with what they have read. A boring ritual. Unless they learn the power of questions to quicken their minds, rouse their curiosity and dive into the text with a sense of purpose, reading textbooks will be a deadly chore.

Here’s another way. Look at the title and think about it. What’s involved in the chapter? Read the bold-face headings and the little snippets of text spread throughout the chapter. Study the pictures, charts and maps that accompany the chapter. What have you learned? Probably some of the most important ideas.

Now read the first paragraph of the chapter. Remember your work in composition? You introduce your topic in the first paragraph or two. Read until you find the main idea of the chapter that always concludes the introductory material. Remember the thesis sentence in your work on composition, “Tell them what you are going to tell them” ?

Next, read the first sentence of each intermediate chapter. Won’t take you that long. Topic sentences usually introduce the important ideas in the paragraph or paragraphs to follow. The topic sentences “tell them,” or provide the details of the main ideas of the chapter.

Finally, read the last paragraph, the paragraph that will almost certainly summarize or, “tell them what you told them,” the main ideas of the chapter.

Now, do you have any questions? Can you briefly summarize the main ideas of the chapter? Do you have some questions that you are wondering about? You can easily re-trace your progress through the chapter to find where the questions are answered, either from the bold-face headings or the first sentence of each paragraph that tells you what is to follow.

From this preview of the chapter, you will learn most of the main ideas of the chapter and most of the important details. You will know enough to be able to respond to your teacher’s questions and you will have read the chapter efficiently, finding the main ideas and major details quickly and your curiosity will have been aroused by the questions that you have raised. Very frequently, you will have read all you will need to know. Not many chapter require a complete and thorough reading of every single detail.