Sunday, September 20, 2009

Thinking When Reading (Jayne Royal)

I remember when I was in the seventh grade my history teacher had a whole percentage of the overall grade be how well you could organize your thoughts. She taught us a number of strategies on how to do this. In chapter books and textbooks we would have to either underline or highlight as we read. We were taught that it could be beneficial to circle names and dates within the text. As a seventh grader I found the whole thing to be annoying and tedious. Now though, I always have to highlight my text. I have tweaked the way I highlight but the basic strategy is the same.

When it comes to reading (especially when I read something not by choice) I have to do it in little chunks. That’s much easier to manage for me. When reading a textbook or an article I have to highlight as I go through it. When I read a novel or story I do not feel like have to underline as much. But one thing that I like to do is get books on tape and listen to it while I read, That way I could concentrate more on looking for themes or things that are important within the text. I then write random notes in the margins. When reading it is pretty easy for me to remember what I read for about a week or two. When it comes to remembering something for a test or a paper I need to go over the text again. I often then write notes out in a bullet point type of organization.

Reading for me is not something I love to do when it comes to assignments or something of that sort. I find it to be overwhelming and I would much rather be doing something that makes me feel like I am doing something that makes me feel like I am getting something done. For lack of a better word, I like busy work to some degree. When I am forced to write something down I seem to remember it much better.

I think when I think about concepts when I read things that make me relate something to previous knowledge. Really I will only think the important parts of the texts are ones that make me think of something else. I think schemas are what I use most often in my thinking. To learn new knowledge I have to relate it something previous.

1 comment:

  1. I like your idea of listening to the story to get a better idea of the themes and such!

    I also think it is great that your history teacher took the time and made you do a startgie, althought I too would have thought it was pointless at the time, it would be great to know now.

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