Verbal Connections: Active Reading

There are several great websites with strategies on active reading. Why would we want to actively read anyways? Besides, isn’t the teacher supposed to tell me what I need to know? Well, let’s nip those ideas in the bud right now. Active reading strategies are tools that you will use for the rest of your life. There will be times where you are required to read material and make a proposal or present a solution to the company that you are working for. You must do research in order to accomplish this. No one can memorize whole books and pages and quotes of things that happen, well almost no one and those people are extremely rare. Here are some guidelines to make your reading times more fun and productive.

§  Find a quiet room and read aloud. That’s right. Aloud. Especially if your musical intelligence is high, this is a great strategy for those of us who like to listen.

§  Write in the margins, unless you don’t own the book. That’s right. Tell the author how you feel. Ask the author questions. This will lead to further exploration outside the material you are working with. It will also lead to a really strong paper because you won’t be chasing after the ideas you just read!

§  Shy about writing in the margins? Create an active reading journal.

§  Explore the author online. Use your interests. I read authors who are very lyrical or I try to connect my subjects back to music a lot. I love Langston Hughes and I discovered how I could tie Jazz Poetry, which he created, back to what he was listening to at the time, Bebop Jazz. For my classes in History and Humanities, I discovered that the Cherokee tribes were influenced by the settlers and were trying to increase cooperation and trade with the Europeans by accepting Christianity. That lead me to learn how reed flutes were made and learn how much the flute is an extension of the tribe’s voice. If there is something you really like, try to find a way to use it in your research.

§  If you are a highly visual person, you may want to use thinking maps instead. Think of writing as a form of art and the words are your media. Create a drawing, picture, or mixed media piece. It will deepen your understanding of how you feel about what you read.

§  If you can’t sit still, act it out! Repeating the action that takes place can tell you what your perspective on that character is. Just don’t do anything illegal or anything that will cause bodily harm, ok?

Strategies like these are used in your child’s classroom. Quietclassrooms don’t exist and, in our opinion, should not exist anymore. So don’t just sit there! Actively read!