The “So MUCH to Read” three-part workshop (SMTR), an outreach program of the Writing, Reading and Language Center of the Takoma Park Campus of Montgomery College, was designed to enable STEM students to cope with the increased volume of increasingly technical reading they face in their upper-level courses. The SMTR workshop was designed to promote student retention and success in such demanding programs as nursing. The presentation described the workshop and gave evidence of its success.
1. So MUCH
to Read!
An Advanced Reading
Skills Workshop
1
Karen Blinder, Ph.D.
Montgomery College, Maryland
AFACCT ‘16 Conference – College of Southern Maryland
Presentation 6.5, Jan. 8, 2016, at 11:40 a.m.
karen.blinder@montgomerycollege.edu
2. Before we start…
• Think about your purpose for listening to this
seminar.
• What is the one thing you most hope to learn?
• Write your purpose as a question. (For example,
“What is…,” or “How…”)
• Who would like to share their questions?
2
3. Before we start, continued….
• Think about what you already know about the
question you have asked. Then think about what
more you would like to know.
• Fill out the first two columns of the chart that is
being handed out. At the end of the
presentation, complete the chart by filling out the
third column.
3
4. Why Have an Advanced Reading
Skills Workshop?
• How many of you find that your advanced
students read and even memorize without
understanding or discerning what is important?
• How many of you have students who fail to do
large parts of the assigned readings because they
find the task too overwhelming?
• How many of you find that among your students
who do complete all of the readings, many are
unable to find a successful method to study the
large volume of material?
• An advanced reading skills workshop can help
address such problems! Today we will describe
such a workshop.
4
6. Improving Reading Improves
College Performance
• In an analysis of 79 studies of college reading
programs, Fairbanks showed that taking a college
reading course significantly improved students’
GPAs. (Farrell, 1975).
• For other research findings, please refer to the
additional slides in your handout (at the end of
the presentation).
6
9. So MUCH to Read!
• The So MUCH to Read workshop is designed to
enable science students to cope with the
increased and increasingly technical reading loads
they face as they become more advanced in their
studies.
9
10. The So MUCH to Read!
Workshop
• Three-part advanced reading skills workshop
• Each module lasts 1½ hour
• Designed for first-year nursing students
• Uses their first-year text and a scientific article
about dementia
• Teaches before-reading, during-reading, and
after-reading skills to improve comprehension and
retention
10
11. Goals of these Three
Workshops
• When students have finished the workshop,
they will have learned some skills that will
enable them to
• Get a general picture of a long text
• Decide what to read for background, and
what to read to commit to memory
• Take notes in a text (annotate the text)
• Summarize the most important information
in a text
• Review effectively for tests
11
12. The Workshop - Overview
• The hands-on exercises that follow are taken from
those used in the three workshop modules.
• They utilize the following pattern:
• The rationale for a skill is explained
• The skill is modeled
• The students try it
• It is debriefed
• Students are encouraged to work together.
12
13. Skills Practiced in the Workshop
• Setting a purpose
• Activating background knowledge
• Previewing
• Skimming & scanning
• Discerning what is most important
• Annotating a text
• Summarizing
TODAY WE WILL HIGHLIGHT
• Activating background knowledge
• Annotating a text
• Summarizing using a tree diagram 13
14. Reading 1 for the Workshop
• Ch. 23. Asepsis & Infection Control,
from:
• Taylor, Lillis, LeMone, Lynn.
Fundamentals of Nursing, 8th edition,
Lippincott, 2014.
14
15. Reading 2 for the Workshop
(used today)
• Shurkin, J.N. (2009). Decoding
dementia. Scientific American Boston:
Thompson/Wadsworth, 2006. 595-
609. Print.
PDF:
• http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/benharm
/Articles/decoding%20dementia.pdf
. 15
17. So MUCH to
Read!!- Part
1:
How to Cope
“It Can’t ALL Be the
Most Important”
17
18. Steps Students are Taught to Follow
• Set a purpose
• Preview
• Review what they already know
• Skim
• Choose what to focus on
• Study critical points carefully
• Read less important points for
background
• Skim or skip sections that don’t help you
achieve your purpose
• Summarize/Review
• Remember: Good readers choose
how they read each thing!
18
19. Students first choose an
objective (purpose)
• Students are asked to set a purpose by choosing
one of the objectives from the beginning of the
chapter
• The teacher uses the first objective for
demonstration purposes.
• All skills are practiced in the context of this
objective.
19
20. The KWL Chart
• Students are asked to think about the
subject of their objective and fill in the
first two columns of the chart.
• As they study, they add to the third
column.
20
What I Know What I Want to
Know
What I
Learned
24. Study the Important
Section(s) Carefully
• Decide which parts of the text pertain to
your objective.
• Within those sections, focus mainly on
whatever directly answers the objective.
• Also make questions from the section
headings. Look for answers to your
questions.
• Other material is given as background.
You will not be highlighting this or
memorizing it. 24
25. Do not Mark Anything the
First Time You Read
• Read all the sections you identified,
including the figures, charts, etc.
• Identify the function of each
paragraph, chart or figure
• Notice the organization
• Look for answers to the objective
25
26. Annotating a text:
Marking it
• But I don’t want
to mark up my
text! I want to
resell it.
• Question: What’s
wrong with this
car?
26
27. Annotating a Text:
1. Highlight Critical Words in a
Vivid Color
• Write a question for the section you
are highlighting
• In a vivid color like pink or green,
highlight no more than an average of
three words per paragraph that are
critical to answering that question or
to answering your objective.
• DO NOT DO THIS YET – PLEASE
WAIT!!! 27
28. Annotating a Text:
2. Additional Highlighting in Yellow or with a
Pencil
Next (after I demonstrate)
• Highlight a few select details and critical
concepts that help you answer your
question.
Finally
• Underline in pencil other details that
you think are very important to
remember.
See how few words you can mark and
still convey the idea. Think tweeting!! 28
32. Annotating a Text
3. Making Marginal Notes
• If there are important examples in a
paragraph, write “examples” in the margin,
and underline one or two words for each.
• Put other “thinking” notes in the margin.
• Questions and thoughts you have
• Summaries (these can be in diagram form)
• Conclusions
32
33. Review What You Know
• Afterwards, think about what you
learned and add it to the chart.
33
What I Know What I Want to
Learn
What I
Learned
34. Types of Summaries
1. Tree diagram
2. Outline
3. Chart
4. Written summary (paragraph)
34
35. 1. Tree Diagram
Treatments
Vaccines
Lifestyle
Undergoing testing
Use it or lose it” -Not proven
Target Alzheimer’s proteins
Drugs
Namenda Aricept Dimebon
Prevents Acetylcholin- Makes
glutamate esterase mitochondria work
damage inhibitor better 35
36. 1. Tree Diagram
Now you try it!
• Make a tree diagram of the section:
“Scars on the Brain”
• Compare your outline with your
partner’s.
36
38. Next Steps
• Students are next taught how to make outlines
and charts as other forms of summaries
38
39. 3. Making Summaries
without Plagiarizing
• Make a tree diagram or outline
first.
• Then put the article away.
• Use the tree diagram or outline to
help you write the summary.
• Double check afterwards that the
wording is your own.
39
40. Save Time When You Study!
• When you study, review your
• Highlighting and margin notes
• Summary, outline, diagrams or charts
• This helps you focus on what’s most
important.*
• Don’t try to memorize everything
• Just focus on these important things
• You can review many pages of reading
quickly this way
*Remember: It can’t ALL be the most
important! 40
41. Review What You Know
• After you have studied, think about
what you learned and add it to the
chart you made earlier.
41
What I Know What I Want to
Learn
What I
Learned
43. The Workshop was Perceived as Quite
Helpful
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
1
Sesssion
1
Session
2
Session
3
Very helpful
Helpful
Somewhat
helpful
Not
helpful
1 2 3
Workshop Module
43
44. Some Things Respondents
Liked (Quotes)
• Demonstrations by the administrator
• It was unstressed and the atmosphere was good.
The teacher explained us a lot of strategies and
points that I think will help.
• Highlighting
• I am able to determine what is important.
• It helped me how find out useful information from
a passage faster than I did before.
• Ease of using the system
• The application exercises
44
45. Suggestions Made by
Respondents
• More methods for finding the most important
material in readings
• To make it a little longer
• It will be good for a free online format with
videos to be made available.
• First year [nursing] students should be made
to go through the modules before start of their
first classes.
45
46. Suggestions - Continued
• The workshop should be included as part of the
orientation session for nursing program or
brusher [brochure] for the time and place of the
workshop should be given in the orientation
session. … Many student dropout of nursing
because there is too much reading and they don’t
know how to handle it.
46
48. Conclusions
• Instruction aimed at improving reading skills has
been shown by a number of studies to improve
academic performance
• Approaches using a combination of before-,
during-, and after-reading strategies are most
effective
• Always provide a rationale for each skill, a
demonstration, an opportunity to practice, and a
debriefing. Take advantage of peer learning by
using pairs and groups.
• Critical skills can be improved in as little as 5
hours, and the instruction is well received. 48
49. Some Helpful Skills to Teach
• Setting a purpose
• Activating background knowledge
• Previewing
• Skimming & scanning
• Identifying what is most important
• Note-taking
• Self-monitoring while reading
• Summarizing
• Review/study techniques
49
50. Helpful Reference
• Mikulecky, Beatrice S. (2011). A Short Course in
Teaching Reading: Practical Techniques for
Building Reading Power (2nd Edition). (White
Plains: Pearson). ISBN-10: 0131363859 ISBN-
13: 978-0131363854
• http://www.amazon.com/Short-Course-Teaching-
Reading-Techniques/dp/0131363859
50
53. Improving Reading Improves
College Performance
• In an analysis of 79 studies of college reading
programs, Fairbanks showed that taking a college
reading course significantly improved students’
GPAs. (Farrell, 1975).
53
54. Biology Classes have Substantial
Reading Demands (Chase et al.,
1994)
• Reading volume is high
• Content is difficult
• Vocabulary demands are formidable – over 1000
technical terms over the course of a term
54
55. STEM Teachers can Help with Reading
(Holliday, 1992)
• Science teachers can and should
• Explain the purpose of the reading
• Activate prior knowledge
• Pre-teach vocabulary
• Highlight new concepts
• Teach study strategies such as outlining
• Assist with summarizing
55
56. Various Reading Strategies
can Help
• Before, during & after-reading strategies can all
be used to assist students with science reading
(Harris & Storr, 2005).
• Teaching students to monitor themselves as they
read can also facilitate reading comprehension by
lowering frustration (Harder, 1989).
56
Hinweis der Redaktion
Elicit: What are some of your challenges when you have a lot of reading to do?
Elicit: What are some of your challenges when you have a lot of reading to do?
Ask students: What is wrong with the car (no wheels)?
How much does the car cost? How much do the wheels cost? The car won’t go without the wheels.
How much does their education cost? How much do their books cost? Their education won’t succeed if they aren’t willing to spend the money for the books. They’ve already paid tuition. They shouldn’t waste this money by being “penny wise and pound foolish.”
