Study Skills Tip Sheets: Reading

Read&Write is a program that supports learning in many amazing ways. Read&Write is able to read text out loud, turn text from webpages and documents into MP3 sound files (which you can listen to while doing other tasks), check grammar when writing, and has a dictionary with both text terms and pictures.

Microsoft OneNote is a popular note taking program used for taking and organizing notes. OneNote can be used as *your* note taking system for taking notes in your readings, while attending (virtual) lectures, and in creating study notes.
As a USask student, you can install and freely use Microsoft Office Programs such as Microsoft Word, Excel, and OneNote. View the "USask Microsoft Advantage" webpage to learn more about downloading OneDrive as part of the Microsoft Office365 collection of programs.

Watch this brief introduction of how to use OneNote created by the Learning Centres, Kwantlen Polytechnic University (CA).

'hypothesis.is' is a free extension provided for the Chrome web browser that allows you to tag, annotate, highlight, and make summary notes within webpages. In addition, 'hypothes.is' allows you to share and annotate webpages as a group.

Have a look at this video and text on how to *actively* engage in reading by surveying the text, asking questions, reading the text, responding to questions, recording notes and reviewing (University of Ontario Institute of Technology).

Do you read passively through textbooks, reading all content from start to finish and possibly highlighting some sentences? Engage in your learning and change to a more active style of reading using the PQ3R method. (York University)

Do you need some guidance on how to read effectively? Follow this worksheet developed by York University to guide your reading and make serious gains on your skills.

Very practical set of strategies to help you organize and remember information that you've read (University of Manitoba).

Complete this survey to assess your reading strategies. Are you a mature, efficient textbook reader or a passive, immature, inefficient textbook reader?

Great website that challenges you, as the reader, to question what you read and think critically about what the author wants you to believe. You decide what you believe about the author's points (Suny Empire State College).

This worksheet poses a set of valuable questions to answer when reading narratives such as papers (e.g., philosophy) and chapters of textbooks for social sciences and humanities.

This is a comprehensive site on critical reading that dives into different ways of reading and interpreting textual passages (Dan Kurland).

This two-page handout developed by the University of Melbourne does a great job of describing strategies for surveying texts to get an idea of what the author(s) are talking about.

Quick 10 to-the-point steps on how to improve your College reading skills.