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Many students, while they know how to read, struggle with the challenges of academic reading. It’s different. I can throw my feet up with a good novel and lose myself in the well-written story. Pleasure reading is fun and relaxing and can even promote mindfulness and decrease stress. 

Academic reading is not pleasure reading. In fact, in order to be successful in their college studies, students can benefit from thinking of their course reading as a form of work. And like any job, following an established, effective process for the task can help it be accomplished successfully. 

There are a variety of reading strategies that can help students understand and retain their academic reading, and this week, I will discuss the SQ3R Reading Method. SQ3R is a formula for studying and reading that is designed to help with information processing and increase our retention of written information. SQ3R is an acronym for the steps involved: Survey, Question, and 3 R’s – Read, Recite, and Review. Let’s break it down. 

Before you dive in and start reading, begin with a survey of the piece of writing. We likely wouldn’t dive into a lake without looking around first to make sure there aren’t any large stones just beneath the surface, waves about to crash up against the dock, or a snapping turtle lurking in the depths. We want to know what we are getting into before we jump, and academic reading is the same. Look over the text. Check out the titles and any headings. These can indicate the main topics and concepts. Look at any pictures or graphics. See if you spot any questions, bold print, or an italicized font. These are used to help emphasize important information, concepts, and key terms in an academic text. Turn to the introduction and then to the conclusion. Look closer here, and you’ll find statements about the topic covered in the text and its overall purpose. Scan your eyes up to the first sentence of each paragraph and sweep them down to the last to discover that these sentences tell us the main points and supporting ideas, and they provide an outline or map of the vast and yet unexplored text. 

With our survey of the text complete, we’re almost ready to jump in. But it is important that we don’t dive into these unknown waters without a plan. The next step of the SQ3R Reading Method is to question, and that’s when we create the plan for our swim through what might be a very dense, jargon-filled academic text. Questions can help to improve our comprehension of the text because when we write down questions, it gives our reading purpose and improves our concentration as we search for answers. Take note of any questions that came up during your survey of the material. What do you want to learn? Try turning some of those section headings you spotted during your survey into questions that will guide you through the text with purpose and a reading goal. 

Ready? It’s time to jump. 

Dive into the text intentionally, searching for answers to your questions as you read. Use your arms to make notes or highlight the main ideas. Your goal now is to identify supporting points and discover the examples the author uses to support or illustrate their ideas. You’re in challenging waters now. Take your time. Be patient and persistent as you read, going slowly, reading a sentence over again because the language was too murky or the waters too rough. You’ve got this. Keep reading. 

When you reach the end, make some noise. It’s time to recite. Reciting means that we say something out loud, repeating it from our memory. For academic readers like us, reciting helps put the information into our long-term memory. We better retain what we have read and learned when we recite it back again. Try to put what you learned from your reading into your own words. Did you see the size of that splash? Imagine that you are telling someone else what you discovered after diving in and swimming through the text. 

Up on the dock again with your swim complete, take time to review. Reviewing the materials helps readers understand and remember their reading. Take another look at each main idea and key term. Think about the questions you asked before diving in. Did you find answers for all of them? Did you understand the information presented? If there are areas of the reading that you don’t remember very well or that are difficult to put into your own words, dip your toes back in. Re-read, recite, and review that area again. Reviewing is an important step of the reading process and will help you avoid all-nighters and cram sessions later. 

When we use the SQ3R Reading Method, we don’t need to swim across an entire lake. We can explore and discover it intentionally, one purposeful dive at a time. 

Until next time, this is Dr. Linscott with another Learning for Success podcast. Happy Learning!