Along with the very important skills of managing time and making effective notes in college is the task of reading. As you make the transition to university learning, changes in the way you must structure your time are apparent; there is much to do and you may quickly realize that you must take on the responsibility for structuring study and leisure times to be effective. Often, too, the transition to large lecture halls and note-making from lectures may be new to you; you have made notes in class before, but keeping up with the pace and volume of material presented can be a real challenge. Likewise reading changes in college. For many students, though, the changes required are not so obvious as the sharp increase in reading load and difficulty. The transition I mean here is from the kind of reading we've been doing all our lives to a new way of approaching the reading.

As you enter college, reading takes on a central role as part of your approach to learning. It is very important to read independently and effectively to learn significant portions of a course of study. It may be the case that you have failed to develop strong reading skills. You hope that the reading approaches you have used up until this point will work for you. Sadly, too many students read passively, failing to construct accurate comprehension with the guidance of a purpose or goal for reading. The result is that too many students begin to dislike their reading and come to view it as a necessary evil. Reading doesn't have to be an onerous task that you dread. But, to avoid these ill feelings about reading, you will need to invest a little time to develop more active reading strategies. This may be the first time that you consciously use a strategy for reading and so it may feel awkward for a period of time. However, our experience shows, and reading specialists know, that an active approach to reading will likely be more productive and interesting for you.

Reading actively actually means a series of things. Perhaps most importantly is that active reading means reading with an awareness of a purpose for reading. Far too often students read aimlessly, hoping that the key ideas will somehow "sink in" and then eventually "surface" when they need to. Having a purpose is another way of saying that you have set goals for your readings. A Popular Active Reading Strategy is known as the SQ3R Reading Method. This approach to reading primes your brain input information readily while reading. Click here to learn the SQ3R method.