Summary Critical Reading chapter 1-7

Chapter 1 : Reading in college

1. Reading is an active process base on an author’s ability to convey meaning through the written word and your ability to extract meaning from those words.
2. A learning journal is an active learning task. It helps you identify what you understand in a reading assignment and what is still unclear.
3. Concentration involves purposely focusing your attention on a task.


Chapter 2 : Developing your college vocabulary

1. Vocabulary building is one of most important reading strategies you can learn.
2. Increasing your vocabulary also increase your ability to speak and write well and your chances of getting the job.
3. An important way to remember new words is to use them in your everyday speech and writing. Writing in your Writing journal daily will help you a lot.


Chapter 3 : Remembering what you read

1. The 3 primary stages in the memory process are (1) sensory memory, (2)shorter-memory and (3) long-term memory
2. Memory is the process of storing and retrieving information. You should know the stages in the memory process, and purposely use strategies at each stage to ensure that newly learned information becomes permanently stored.


Chapter 4 : Manage your reading time

1. Understanding should be your main reading goal, not how fast you read.
2. Develop a general study schedule that show specifically when you plan to study for each class and for how long.
3. After using a study schedule and daily reading plan for 2-3 weeks you will become more efficient reader: reading quickly when appropriate, skimming, regressing or reading, sub vocalizing, pacing.


Chapter 5 : Locating state main ideas

1. The ability to locate an author’s main idea is a key to understand your reading.
2. The main idea is the more specific controlling idea of a piece of writing.
3. The topic is the most general idea and the details, which are the most specific, support and illustrate the main idea.
4. Questioning yourself, looking in the usual places, noticing clue words, and categorizing an author’s points are four strategies you can use to think systematically about what you read.
5. Some main ideas are stated directly in a reading and are easy to identify. Others are implied, and you must inter their meaning from the reading and then restate them in your own words.


Chapter 6 : Finding support detail

1. Supporting details are arms and legs of the main idea that help readers understand author’s ideas and arguments.
2. Supporting is usually presented as facts, opinions, examples, illustrations, explanations. If you are able to distinguish between major and minor supporting details in a reading passage, it means you understood what you read.
3. Being able to identify the main ideas and supporting details will help you evaluate what is most important and determine what you need to remember for tests.


Chapter 7 : Using inference to identify implied main ideas

1. You should not only to read and understand what is explicitly stated on the page, but also to detect ideas that are implied or indirectly stated.
2. In order to completely understand a reading assignment, you need to read the material and combine what is stated with additional information you generate using inference as a tool.
3. You also need to understand how an author’s purpose, tone, and use of key words and emotive language can be used as clues to his or her implied main idea.