How to Read a Textbook

Getting To Know Your Textbook

Look at the cover. Are there pictures or art that can give you a clue on the topics you may be studying? What about the title? Is this a book for beginners or for someone with more skill? Use the title for a more specific idea on the course. If it's a history book, will you be studying World History or Early American History? What do you already know about this subject? What about the authors, publisher and publishing date? Is this an old book or is it pretty current?

Review the table of contents, index, and glossary. How many chapters does the textbook have, and about how long are they? What about sub-chapters? What are the titles of the chapters and sub-chapters? Is there a glossary or a series of appendices? What about a bibliography? What types of words does the index have in it?

Skim the textbook for headlines and visuals. Quickly flip through the pages. What immediately catches your attention? Take note of the chapter titles, bold words and vocabulary, photos, drawings, charts and diagrams. What do they tell you about things you'll be learning in the book? You can also skim to evaluate the difficulty of reading level for the text. Select one random page that is mostly text (not many visuals) and read it for comprehension. Time how long it takes you to read it.

Reading Actively

Read the end of the chapter first. That's right. Go to the end of the chapter, and read the summary and the questions that are there. This is the perfect way to for you to get an idea of what you're about to read in the chapter. It will prep your brain and help it to sift through and make sense of all the more detailed information that's in the actual chapter. Next, read the introduction to the chapter. This also helps your brain get ready for the onslaught of information and helps it with processing.

Divide your assignment into 10 page chunks. After each chunk, go back and look at your highlights, your margin notes, and your notebook notes. This will help you with longer term memory of what was read. Complete the next steps in this section using the 10 page chunk recommendation. When you've finished 10 pages and briefly reviewed them, begin the next 10 pages. Or, take a quick break and then resume working on the next 10 pages.

Highlight your own textbook. If you purchased the book (and you're not borrowing it from a person, library, or school), you should highlight. There is a specific way to do this correctly, so keep the following in mind: Don't stop to highlight or take notes during the first reading. This disrupts your flow of comprehension, and you may end up highlighting things that you shouldn't. Wait until you have read an entire paragraph or a whole short section (depending on how the sections are broken up) to go back and highlight. This way, you will know what is important enough to highlight. Don't highlight single words (too little) or entire sentences (too much). Keep it down to one or two highlighted phrases per paragraph. The idea of highlighting is that you should be able to glance at the highlighted phrases a month later and get the gist of what you read without having to re-read the whole thing.

Write questions in the margins. In your margins, (or on a post-it note if it is not your book that you bought), jot down one or two questions per paragraph or section that you should be able to answer from reading that paragraph or section. This could be “What years were considered the Renaissance?” or “What is the meaning of metamorphosis?” After you have read the whole assignment, you should go back and try to answer these questions without re-reading.

Take notes. In a notebook for the class, jot down the main ideas of what you read for each section, IN YOUR OWN WORDS. It is extremely important to write your notes in your own words. Writing your notes in your own words helps you avoid plagiarism if you have to write a paper, and you will be confident that you really comprehended something if your notes are not directly copied from the textbook.

Bring your notes and questions to class. This will help you feel prepared for class discussions or lectures associated with the text. Be sure to pay attention and participate during class, and write additional notes! Your instructor may tell you if tests are based mostly on the book or on lectures, but sometimes they don't tell you and it's best to be prepared for anything.

Scheduling Time to Read, Review, and Study

Multiply the number of pages in your assignment by 5 minutes. This is the time it takes an average college student to read the pages of a textbook. Keep this in mind as you schedule time for your reading. For instance, if you have to read 73 pages for an assignment, that is 365 minutes, or approximately six hours of reading.

Give yourself breaks. If you calculate that you have four hours of reading, we don't recommend trying to do all of it at one time. You may become tired and unfocused. Read for an hour at your lunch break, an hour in the evening, etc. Try to spread it out a bit, taking into consideration how many days you have to complete the assigned number of pages and the hours it will take you to read them.

Read each day. If you fall behind, you will find yourself skimming and speed-reading, which causes you to miss important information. Schedule some time to read each day so you can chip away at the assignment slowly and less stressfully.

Read in a distraction-free zone. This is very important. You can't be expected to comprehend lots of information if there is noise around. Avoid reading in your bed if possible. Your brain most likely associates your bed with sleep, and it will want to do that if you are reading there. Sleep experts also say that doing “work” in bed can lead to sleeping problems, and only relaxing reading and activities should be done in bed so you don't start having a hard time falling and staying asleep. Go to a quiet room in your house, the library, a quiet coffee shop, or a park to read. Anywhere that has little distractions for you is best. If you have a family (or roommates) or have lots of responsibilities at home, go out. If having any people around at all distracts you, but your home is fairly quiet, stay in. Whatever works for you; you may have to experiment and see where you can study best.

Understand what you will be assessed on. Are you being asked to write a paper, or do you have a big test that covers the assigned material? If there is a test, did the instructor offer a study guide? Take all of this into account as you focus on what you should spend the most time reviewing while you study.

Read your notes multiple times. If you read carefully, highlighted and took notes, you should only need to read the textbook once. What you will re-read during studying is your highlighted phrases, your margin questions and/or notes, and your notebook notes. Read these as many times as necessary to fully understand the material. If you didn't take great notes, you may need to re-read.

Talk to others about what you're studying. Studies show that there are huge benefits to talking out loud about what you are learning. Form study groups with your classmates, or talk with someone at home or another friend about what you are reading. Be sure to attend all of your classes, not just on test days or days that papers are due. Most likely there are discussions or lectures happening about the textbook material, and these are extremely beneficial to your long-term learning of the readings.

Complete all of the work assigned. If the instructor gave you math exercises to complete, or short answer questions to write, but they aren't necessarily graded, do them anyway. There is a purpose to the assigning of the work, and that is for you to further your understanding of the material from the book.