Active strategies to understand your reading
Research on effective reading has identified a number of useful comprehension strategies. These range from the simple to the complex, and include the following:
Activating and using background knowledge
Good readers constantly connect their background knowledge to the new knowledge they encounter in a text. Background knowledge consists of your experiences with the world (including what you have read before), along with your concepts for how the written text works, including word identification, print concepts, word meaning, and how the text is organised.
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Generating and asking questions
Asking yourself relevant questions throughout the reading of a text is a useful tool to aid your comprehension, and improve your reading fluency. This is especially valuable in helping to identify the main ideas in a reading, and to integrate and summarise information.
Asking the right questions will allow you to focus on the most important information in a text, and to recognise problems with your comprehension.
Practise asking questions
Below is a section of the article The Future of McDonald's Is in the Drive-Thru Lane, by Brian Barrett (2020), and here are some instructions:
1. Read the text
Some franchise locations have already enacted one significant change: a voice-assistant taking your order rather than a human, powered not by a name brand like Alexa but by a service-focused startup called Apprente, which McDonald’s acquired last fall. But the concepts McDonald’s is currently exploring involve more drastic changes to its stores’ footprints as well.
Some of those changes, like dedicated parking spaces for pick-up orders, have been successfully implemented on a smaller scale by other brands, and maybe even your local farm-to-table. Others are more ambitious, like a drive-thru lane exclusively for pick-up orders that delivers your food to you on a conveyor belt system; think of it like the deposits-only window at the bank, except goods flow in the opposite direction. And the company is even considering a concept store with limited or no in-room dining at all, just a kitchen surrounded by drive-thru lanes and pick-up parking.
Remodelled restaurants don’t work in isolation. The physical makeover will be complemented by the company’s existing app as well as a new loyalty program called MyMcDonald’s, which will launch across the quick-service giant’s six largest markets by the end of next year. Think of it like the Starbucks Rewards program: Members can place orders ahead of time, receive tailored offers, and earn points for food and drink purchases that they can redeem for, well, more food and drink.
Source: Barett, B. (2020, November 9). The future of McDonald's is in the drive-thru lane. WIRED. https://www.wired.com/story/mcdonalds-drive-thru-mymcdonalds-app/
2. Write down three questions about the passage. Answer them.
3. Complete the following to check your comprehension.
Making inferences and predicting
Making Inferences
When you evaluate or draw conclusions from information in a text, you make inferences. Sometimes authors make these clear in text. At other times, they don’t. They don’t provide complete descriptions or explicit information of, a topic the setting, the character(s), or the event. This means that as a reader, you will need to use clues to ‘read between the lines’. In other words, you will need to make inferences that combine the information that authors do provide in the text with your background knowledge.
Example of making inferences
When it comes to compassion, and caring for others, they have us all beat. They work long shifts doing many of the important tasks that keep us healthy. Everything from those who rush to fix booboos with Band-Aids and send the injured back to the playground, to those who perform complicated, life-saving manoeuvres on the sickest of people every day. During the 2020 crisis, they have been the first line of defence against the ravages of this relentless virus. Many exemplify their unique nature, even exceeding the already arduous call of duty.
Please visit Readers’ Digest if you would like to read the full story 14 Heartwarming Stories of Nurses Who Went Above and Beyond Their Call of Duty.
Source: Laliberte, M. & Kanarek, L. (2021, July 21). 14 heartwarming stories of nurses who went above and beyond their call of duty. Reader's Digest. https://www.rd.com/list/nurse-inspirational-stories/
Predicting
Good readers use predicting as a way to connect their existing knowledge to the new information they access in a text, and then form an idea of what is to come in future passages of the text. Even before reading, they may use what they know about an author or topic to predict what a text will be about. While it is often said that we should not ‘judge a book by its cover’, the title may activate memories of texts with similar content which allows us to predict the content of the new text.
Predicting comprises more than trying to figure out what happens next. As you find evidence to form predictions, you also formulate questions, recall facts, re-read, skim, make inferences, draw conclusions, and, ultimately, comprehend the text more fully. Good readers tend to evaluate these predictions continuously, and revise any guess that is not confirmed by the reading.
Five steps in the prediction process
Below is a handy list of the steps you can follow in order to make predictions to increase your understanding:
- Explore the start and end of the text. If it is a book, it is advisable to read the title and front and back covers. If it is a journal article, the title and abstract should give you very good clues to form predictions. In a blog or other online text, the title and first sentence should provide key information to start predicting.
- Start reading and stop once you have read a paragraph with a key idea. Make a prediction. Then, return to reading and search for evidence that corroborates your prediction.
- Repeat step 2 as you flow through new ideas.
- Ask yourself questions such as: What claims are being made in the text? or What evidence is supporting these claims?
- As you complete a section of an article/book chapter, or finish reading the book, return to your predictions and reflect on what made you formulate them.
Steps one and two
To test your prediction ability, examine the peer reviewed journal article Social media engagement behaviour: A framework for engaging customers through social media content, by Dolan, Conduit, Frethey-Bentham, Fahy and Goodman (2019), and see if you can make some predictions.
ABSTRACT
Purpose: Organisations are investing heavily in social media, yet have little understanding of the effects of social media content on user engagement. This study aims to determine the distinct effects of informational, entertaining, remunerative and relational content on the passive and active engagement behaviour of social media users.
Design/methodology/approach: Facebook Insights and NCapture are used to extract data from the Facebook pages of 12 wine brands over a 12-month period. A multivariate linear regression analysis investigates the effects of content on consuming, contributing and creating engagement behaviour.
Findings: Results reveal distinct effects of rational and emotional appeals on social media engagement behaviour. Rational appeals in social media have a superior effect in terms of facilitating active and passive engagement among social media users, whereas emotional appeals facilitate passive rather than highly active engagement behaviour, despite the social and interactive nature of the digital media landscape.
Research limitations/implications: Results contribute directly to understanding engagement and customer experience with social media. Further theoretical and empirical examination in this area will aid in understanding the dynamic nature of the levels of engagement within social media.
Practical implications: Findings provide managers and practitioners with guidelines and opportunities for strategic development of social media content to enhance engagement among consumers in a social media forum.
Originality/value: This study is one of the first to empirically examine the construct of social media engagement behaviour. It extends the utility of dual processing theory to demonstrate how rational and emotional message appeals result in online engagement.
Source: Dolan, R., Conduit, J., Frethey-Bentham, C., Fahy, J., & Goodman, S. (2019). Social media engagement behavior: A framework for engaging customers through social media content. European Journal of Marketing 53(10), 2213–2243. https://doi.org/10.1108/ejm-03-2017-0182
Steps three to five
Now that you have completed steps 1 and 2, please continue reading the article in the PDF document below and complete steps 3 to 5.
While you might think this strategy adds to your reading time, in the long run, making it an embedded part of your reading process will help you become a more effective reader and improve your reading comprehension.
Summarising and visualising
Summarising
When you summarise, you synthesise the key ideas and main points from a text and explain them in your own words. Being able to summarise easily and succinctly is a good indication that you understand what you read. At the same time, summarising can enable you to recall text promptly, and to become more aware of what is important.
Effective summarising involves the ability to condense the steps in a scientific process, identify the key stages in the development of a social movement, or the most significant episodes that led to a major historical event. It can also include the ability to connect and synthesise events on the news, or identify the key factors that motivate a character’s actions.
Test your ability to summarise
Below are sample texts for you to summarise. Turn the following 3 examples to see approaches on how to summarise them.
Visualising
Visualising goes hand in hand with summarising, as it involves the ability to make mental images of a text as a way to understand processes or events you encounter during reading. Possessing this ability is a good indication that you understand a text. Research suggests that readers who visualise as they read are better able to recall what they have read than are those who cannot visualise.
Visualising is especially valuable when it is applied to narrative texts, in which readers are often able to develop a clear understanding of what is happening by picturing in their minds the setting, characters, or actions in the plot. However, visualising can also be applied to illustrating the steps in a process, the stages of an event or the stages in how an academic argument develops.
Practise visualising
Below is a section of the article The Future of McDonald's Is in the Drive-Thru Lane, by Brian Barrett (2020), and here are some instructions:
- Read the text once.
- Re-read the text focusing on the changes and processes discussed and visualising the details. Within the context of this article you might visualise these changes and processes through the lens of a customer or an employee.
- Reflect: Has this helped you develop a clearer understanding of the text?
Some franchise locations have already enacted one significant change: a voice-assistant taking your order rather than a human, powered not by a name brand like Alexa but by a service-focused startup called Apprente, which McDonald’s acquired last fall. But the concepts McDonald’s is currently exploring involve more drastic changes to its stores’ footprints as well.
Some of those changes, like dedicated parking spaces for pick-up orders, have been successfully implemented on a smaller scale by other brands, and maybe even your local farm-to-table. Others are more ambitious, like a drive-thru lane exclusively for pick-up orders that delivers your food to you on a conveyor belt system; think of it like the deposits-only window at the bank, except goods flow in the opposite direction. And the company is even considering a concept store with limited or no in-room dining at all, just a kitchen surrounded by drive-thru lanes and pick-up parking.
Remodelled restaurants don’t work in isolation. The physical makeover will be complemented by the company’s existing app as well as a new loyalty program called MyMcDonald’s, which will launch across the quick-service giant’s six largest markets by the end of next year. Think of it like the Starbucks Rewards program: Members can place orders ahead of time, receive tailored offers, and earn points for food and drink purchases that they can redeem for, well, more food and drink.
Source: Barett, B. (2020, November 9). The future of McDonald's is in the drive-thru lane. WIRED. https://www.wired.com/story/mcdonalds-drive-thru-mymcdonalds-app/
Monitoring understanding
Monitoring your comprehension consists of knowing when you understand what you read and when you don’t, and using appropriate strategies to improve your understanding when it is not working.
Good readers are aware of and monitor their thought processes as they read. They also know when they get distracted. In contrast, poor readers do not engage with the text in as much depth.
Good readers employ ‘repair’ or ‘fix-up’ strategies to improve understanding. These strategies include re-reading, reading ahead, clarifying words by looking them up in a dictionary or glossary, or asking someone for help. Because good readers have conscious control of their strategy use, they are able to make decisions about what works best for them.
What strategies will you use to monitor your own comprehension of the prescribed readings?