Reading Skills

Reading rapidly and efficiently with full comprehension is the key to school and business success. Build comprehension and memory by developing rapid and effective reading

If you need to improve your overall reading skills, click here

If you need to improve your study skills using a text book, click here.

If you need to improve your reading comprehension, click here.

Improve your overall reading skills

• Read at a brisk pace and concentrate. Use your hand or fingers to help you focus your eye movements and increase your speed.
• Decide your purpose for reading a selection and think about the questions you need to ask and answer. These can include "who, what, when, where, why, how" as well as more complicated research questions.
• Use note-taking skills to capture the main ideas and details you need to remember.
• Double check by rereading and adding to your notes as necessary.
• Ask yourself if you agree with the author or note, and jot down items that you wish to investigate further.

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Develop effective textbook study skills using the DiPace Reading Method

DiPace Reading Method. The DiPace Study Process, named after Mr. DiPace, a counselor at Diablo Valley Junior College in California, timed the SQ3R process to a sixty-minute class period for an individual or class study session.

• Look over the whole reading, turning the different section titles in bold type into questions, using “Who, what, when, where, why and how”. Look at the pictures and tables. 3 minutes
• Read at top concentrating speed. 15 minutes
• Reread difficult and important parts to memorize the material 7 minutes
• Write out reading notes from memory with the book closed. 7 minutes
• Summarize the main idea of the selection read in one sentence. 2 minutes
• List facts and details including names, dates, and vocabulary. 2 minutes
• Review the book and add to the written notes to be sure they are completes.

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Improve your Reading Comprehension.

Improve your reading comprehension and test scores by anticipating the questions and reading for those answers. Test questions on a reading passage will always include: (LINK TO TEST TAKING)

• Main idea. In a test, these often are phrased as “The Best Title” or “Main Idea”. Anticipate these questions by summarizing the reading in one sentence for your notes.
• Facts or Details. Required facts will often include details of number, color, size, shape, texture, form, sequence or vocabulary
• Cause and Effect.
• Inferences. Students need to predict outcomes, character’s or author’s motives and bias.
• Comparisons
• Conclusion and Moral, if any.
• If the reading passage is a story, the questions will also include plot, characters, style, theme, setting, mood, moral and style.

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