1. A+
Student
Strategies

2. A+ Student Strategies for Reading & Thinking Critically
Do you want to know what it takes to get better grades?
Do you want to be able to read more effectively?
Do you want to better analyze information?
This workshop will help you to read more efficiently and show you effective
strategies to get the most out of what you read. You will also gain skills that
will help you to think more effectively about the information you have read
and better expand on these ideas through your writing.

3. Agenda
• A+ Student Learning Metaphor
• Model of A+ Student Learning
– Reading Effectively
– Thinking Critically

4. A+ Student Learning Metaphor
The performance of a car does not depend on the horsepower of the
car, but upon the skill with which the car is driven by the driver.
So, if learning is the horsepower of the car, then thinking is the skill
with which that horsepower is used.
Learning is a potential. Thinking is an operating skill.
Adapted from Edward DeBono Thinking Course, p. 2

5. WHAT YOU BRING TO
A schema (pl. schemata), in
psychology and cognitive science, is a
THE LEARNING PROCESS
mental structure (prior knowledge)
that represents some aspect of the A schema is a
world.
specific, well-documented,
and consistent plan.
Personal Characteristics
• Your Learning Style
• Your Experience People use schemata to organize
• Your Attitude
• Your Filter current knowledge
• Your Prior Knowledge
and provide a framework
• Your Learning Environment
for future understanding.

6. Output
What you create from
Input
Information to be
what you learned learned
Evaluation A+
Student Understanding
Judging what you
learned Comprehending
Learning what you learned
Analysis
Using what you learned

7. The Text
• “The Assignment”
• “The Reading”
• “The Lecture” INFORMATION
• “The Movie” TO BE LEARNED
• “The Conversation”
Reading Strategies The actual “text”
Schema Activation
Survey &
Skimming
SQ3R & SQ5R
purpose for reading
Reading Environment
Active Reading
Efficient Reading

8. WHAT IS
YOUR
INPUT?

9. *CREATE A POSITIVE READING ENVIRONMENT*
• Relatively free of interruptions (phone, email, TV, friends)
friends/family)
• Free of distractions (noise, people watching, windows)
• Study in the same place & time (routine)
• Not too comfortable (easily fall asleep)
• Choose a time when you are mentally alert
**INCREASE YOUR ATTENTION SPAN**
• Set specific and manageable study goals
• Read with a purpose
• Read actively (create study aids)
• Keep a distractions list
• Vary your reading
• Take breaks
• Approach assignment with a positive attitude

10. Survey
Objective: To get a solid overview of what need to learn.
What it does…
Prepares your mental processing system.
Why do it?
• Be better able to concentrate with a frame of reference.
• Be better able to identify & locate important information.
Endstate…
Better understanding/comprehension/retention of material

11. Survey Applied to Your Studies
• Periodically, review your learning contracts
and/or your online course syllabi
• Keep a list of important terms and concepts
• Skim any handouts
• Read your assignments/questions before
you read your texts.
• Use the SQ3R strategy when reading your
texts

12. SQ3R Textbook Study System
5 step method that was designed to help people become more active in their reading
and retain information more easily.
Survey Read intro, summary; skim headings, boldface, italicized words, charts, etc.
Question Identify your purpose for reading – assignment, paper, discussion, etc.
Read Break into sections, take notes as you read, make links back to your purpose
Recite Rewrite key information in your own words
Review Scan material; talk about it with classmate if possible; identify themes and
relationships between concepts
Research shows students who learn this system and use it conscientiously
- read 22% faster
- comprehend 10% more
- retain 80% of material.

13. Active Reading
Engage with
the text
Take Notes
Highlight
Important
Use a Pacer
Information

14. Efficient Reading
Break poor reading habits
– Don’t sub-vocalize (pronounce) each word in your head
– Chunk words into concepts instead of reading word-by-word
– Soften your eyes and force yourself to scan faster
– Don’t re-read unnecessarily, use a pacer/pointer
– Avoid distractions to improve your concentration
– Read from top to bottom as well as left to right
Practice Your Skill - http://www.readingsoft.com/
Adapted from http://www.mindtools.com/speedrd

15. What is “understanding”?
• Knowing what needs to be known
and why/what will be done with the
information COMPREHENDING
WHAT YOU LEARNED
• Activated Schema
• “Thinking” Making meaning
• Comprehending – Key Issues/ as you read the “text”
Main Points
• Summarizing in your own words
Strategies for how to get it
Reading and Decoding
Applying Bloom’s Taxonomy

16. Comprehension Tips
CREATE INTEREST
• Set Goals:
• “What is my purpose for doing this reading?”
• “What do I want to learn?”
• Look at lessonhow to best take notes
Think about objectives
• Learn new vocabulary
• Preview the reading
• Review introductory information
USE WHAT YOU ALREADY KNOW
• Activate prior knowledge (schema):
“What do I know about the topic?”

17. Reading & Decoding
College reading requires that you not only read and compreh
a subject, but that you also read for a specific
purpose, analyze the material, and read between the line
3 levels of reading and decoding:
• Decoding for meaning – using context clues
• Reading for meaning – not word for word
• Reading with a purpose – knowing what you are reading a
why you are reading it

18. Decoding for Meaning – Using context clues

19. Decoding for Meaning – Using context clues
Raining Cats and Dogs Belly Button

20. Reading for Meaning – not word for word
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde
Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the
ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng
is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit
pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you
can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is
bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey
lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

21. Reading for Meaning – not word for word
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde
Uinervtisy,researcher at Cambridge University, it doesn't matter in
According to a it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the
ltteers in aletters in a are,are, the olny iprmoetntthat the
what order the wrod word the only important thing is tihng
first and last letter be at the right place. The rest can be a total mess
is tahtcan stillfristit and lsat ltteer isbe at thehuman
and you the read without problem. This because the rghit
pclae. The read every letter bya toatlthe word asand you
mind does not rset can be itself but mses a whole.
http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/~mattd/Cmabrigde/
can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is
bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey
lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

22. evaluate
Bloom’s Taxonomy
critique argue
EVALUATION – JUDGE – Do you have to appraise, assess or critique
on a basis of specific standards and criteria?
synthesize contrast
SYNTHESIS – COMBINE – Do you need to take your own ideas and
integrate them with course concepts into a product, plan or proposal?
Can you identify what is relevant from what irrelevant?
compare/
analyze
ANALYSIS – CONNECT – Do you need to compare/contrast,
distinguish, classify and relate any assumptions, hypotheses, evidence
or structure of a statement or question?
apply
react
APPLICATION - USE – Do you have to select, transfer or use data
and principles to complete a problem or task?
summarize describe
interpret
discuss define
COMPREHENSION – UNDERSTAND - Do you have to translate
your understanding or interpretation of information?
KNOWLEDGE – REGURGITATE -- Do you have to recall or
recognizes information? Do you have to present the ideas and principles
that you learned in a basic summary?

23. Bloom and a Real Life Example
• Knowledge – What is it?
• Comprehension – What else is it like?
• Application – What does it do?
• Analysis – How does it work?
• Synthesis – What happens when you…?
• Evaluation – How was the quality?

24. What is “analysis”
• Identify the Elements, Relationships and
Organization of the “text” USING WHAT
YOU LEARNED
• Know the Parts of the “text”
• Look for the relationships between ideas
• Interpretation
Strategies for how to do it
How you piece together the
Context Clues significance and organization
Association with Schema of the parts of the text
Says/Does
Outlining
Graphic Organizing/Mindmapping
PTR2

25. Restatement:
Reading What a Text Says
Description:
Describing What a Text Does
Interpretation:
Analyzing What a Text Means

26. EXAMPLES of Ways to Read and Discuss Text
From: www.criticalreading.com/ways_to_read.htm
Consider the following nursery rhyme...
Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow,
and everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go.
What A Text Says talks about the topic of the original text, Mary and the lamb.
Mary had a lamb that followed her everywhere.
What A Text Does talks about the story.
The nursery rhyme describes a pet that followed its mistress everywhere.
What a Text Means talks about meaning within the story, here the idea of innocent devotion.
An image of innocent devotion is conveyed by the story of a lamb's close connection to
its mistress. The devotion is emphasized by repetition that emphasizes the constancy of
the lamb's actions ("everywhere"…"sure to go.") The notion of innocence is conveyed by
the image of a young lamb, "white as snow." By making it seem that this connection
between pet and mistress is natural and good, the nursery rhyme asserts innocent
devotion as a positive relationship.

27. Helpful
SAYS/DOES EXAMPLE
Copyright New York Times Company Aug 9, 2005 Helpful
Hint: Hint:
These
CONGRESS has an amazing new scheme to cut
crime, automobile fatalities and energy consumption. There is These
should all should all
be one hitch. We have to stay in bed until sunrise during the first
week of November -- lights out, televisions and radios off and be action
descriptive words.
words please stay away from that coffee maker.
Congress Of course, doing so might interfere with breakfast, school Intro to
attempts attendance, morning workouts and jobs. That's because during topic with
to that week, the sun won't rise until 7:30 a.m. at the earliest. If humorous
influence you live on the western edge of your time zone, expect darkness linkages to
social until 8:30 a.m. Sorry, Boise. Good night, Grand Rapids. daily
problems impact of
with change in
change in Congress has extended daylight saving time by four weeks: In
2007, our clocks will spring forward on the second Sunday of DLS.
time
Change in March and fall back on the first Sunday of November. And
DLS is frankly, there may be another hitch or two in the plan. First, the Provides
extended trick of shifting unused morning light to evening was intended current
4 weeks state of
to exploit long summer days, when sunrise occurs between 4:00
and points affairs
out
and 5:00 a.m. Standard Time -- hours of daylight that do not
exist during the short days of March and November. with &
problems critique of
with
Second, after nearly 100 years, daylight saving has yet to save
us anything. The idea of falsifying clocks was proposed by the the change
original in DLS.
intent & British architect William Willett in 1907, but the Germans were
current the first to try it in 1916, hoping that it would help them
change conserve fuel during the First World War. Then Britain and
America gave their clocks a whirl.

28. PTR2
P =
roblem
INTRO
T hesis
R =
easons BODY
R =esults Conclusion

29. Are military TO ARGUE WITH this outcome? Back in 1992 Shunta Belle was on the fast at-risk
WHO'S GOING
programs in the inner-city public schools rescuing track to
nowhere, "hanging around thugs and drug dealers and tryingbecome soldiers? Then, as a freshman at
kids or pushing them to to prove myself to them."
Provine High School in Jackson, Miss., she signed up for the spit-and-shine, no-nonsense world of the Junior
Reserve Officer Training Corps. For the first year, Belle held on to a few of her underachieving civilian
comrades. But over the next three years, she picked up new friends, a better attitude and a fresh set of goals to
match. "I got serious about things," she says, "and I wanted to be around people who wanted something out of
life." Today Belle, 23, is a fire fighter in her hometown department.
Problem It is stories like Belle's that have helped fuel the growth of JROTC. Started in 1916, JROTC established a
beachhead at the American Literary, Scientific and Military Academy in Norwich, Vt. Currently the program can
be found in some 3,000 public schools across the nation, and its Pentagon funding is expected to rise more than
50%, from $215 million last year to $326 million by 2004. JROTC has its best-known booster in Colin
Powell, who was a ROTC cadet as a student at City College of New York. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, he decided that JROTC offered the best prescription for saving lost inner-city youths.
"Yes, I'll admit, the armed forces might get a youngster more inclined to enlist as a result of Junior ROTC. But
Thesis society got a far greater payoff," Powell later wrote in his 1995 autobiography, My American Journey. "Inner-
city kids, many from broken homes, found stability and role models in junior Rom They got a taste of
discipline, the work ethic, and they experienced pride of membership in something healthier than a gang."
There are quite a few people, however, who believe that those success
stories come at too high a price. After all, JROTC teaches kids how to act and think
like soldiers before they are old enough to know their own mind. Critics argue that because such
programs are among the few sources of additional funding for some of the nation's neediest
schools, they exploit poor kids by putting them on a military track, to the exclusion of other
R1
Reasons options. The debate hasOakland, Calif.,growing number ofscrapped conventional teaching methods to convert
heated up as a school districts have begun offering JROTC, while
others in such cities as and Chicago have
some schools into public military academies.
One of the biggest selling points of JROTC to school districts is that its matching federal funds provide a cost-
R1 effective way to broaden a school's curriculum. But that's a claim opponents say masks many hidden expenses.
A recent study by the American Friends Service Committee argues, for example, that after school districts

30. What it is
• Assess merits of the argument
• EFFECTIVENESS JUDGING WHAT
• Draw conclusions YOU LEARNED
• Critique the structure, content, or
implications
• Generate possible solutions
• Look for logical fallacies How you judge the quality
Strategies for how to do it
and make decisions based
Outlining on the evidence, structure,
Graphic Organizing and logic of the reading
PTR2
Interpretation of Intent/Facts

31. The Benefits of Mind Mapping
Concept mapping can be done for several purposes:
• to generate ideas (brain storming, etc.).
• to design a complex structure (long texts, large web sites, etc.);
• to communicate complex ideas.
• to aid learning by explicitly integrating new and old knowledge
• to assess understanding or diagnose misunderstanding.
Concept maps:
• Show relationships between ideas.
• Acts as a memory trigger.
• Makes it easier to remember information.
• Improves reading comprehension.
• Unequaled tool for organizing information.
• The act of organizing materials is studying.

32. BRAINSTORMING
LECTURE
STUDY GROUP TEXTBOOK
CHAPTER
CHAPTER
NOTES
NOTES
LESSON
What Can I
WHAT TO PARAGRAPHS
OBJECTIVES
Graphically Organize
G.O?
ROUGH TEST
DRAFTS REVIEW

33. Similarities
Differences Differences
Object, Event Object, Event
or Person or Person

34. Persuasive
Essay
State the Give brief outline Tell why Address
Introduction Summarize
facts of argument to argument is arguments of your argument
follow reasonable the other side
Supports organization of ideas
Helps form logical arguments
Serves as reminder of audience and purpose

35. Line 8 Line 1
Line 7 Title of Line 2
Poem
by
Line 6 Author Line 3
Line 5 Line 4

36. OUTPUT
What it is
• Your Assignment
• Paper WHAT YOU CREATE FROM
• Presentation WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
• Quiz
• Adding to your schema
Strategies for how to do it
Prewriting How you prove that you have
Outlining successfully linked the important
Mindmapping course material with your own
Rough Drafts schema. You must show evidence of
Editing this through clear and well organized
Accepting a final draft writing.

37. You Should Now Be Able To
• Understand what is expected of you
• Know effective reading/studying strategies
• Understand and use critical thinking skills
• Make connections with personal schema
and new information
• Demonstrate that you’ve acquired new
knowledge through clear writing,
presentation, etc.

39. Reading Efficiency Resources
READING TEXTS
• Pre-Reading Strategies www.studygs.net/preread.htm
• Critical Reading www.esc.edu/ESConline/Across_ESC/WritingResourceCenter.nsf/wholeshortlinks2/Academic+Reading
• Studying Efficiently gwired.gwu.edu/counsel/asc/index.gw/Site_ID/46/Page_ID/14536/
• Textbook Reading Strategies academic.cuesta.edu/acasupp/as/208.HTM
• How to Study – Reading Resources www.howtostudy.org/resources_skill.php?id=10
• Dartmouth Academic Skills Center www.dartmouth.edu/~acskills/success/reading.html
• St. Louis University Reading Resource Center www.slu.edu/x14076.xml
• Rochester Institute of Technology – Academic Support Center – On Textbook Reading
www.rit.edu/studentaffairs/asc/college_programs/lng_pwr/index.php?l1=3&l2=7&location=37
• James Cook University
– Reading Efficiency - http://www.jcu.edu.au/office/tld/learningskills/effreading/
MINDMAPPING
• Theory Behind Concept Mapping
cmap.ihmc.us/Publications/ResearchPapers/TheoryCmaps/TheoryUnderlyingConceptMaps.htm
• Mindmapping Overview members.optusnet.com.au/~charles57/Creative/Mindmap/
• Reading Comprehension & Mindmapping Video www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvnbKEHOQIY&feature=related
• University of Victoria www.coun.uvic.ca/learning/reading-skills/
• James Cook University
– Mindmapping - http://www.jcu.edu.au/office/tld/learningskills/mindmap/index.html

40. Characteristics of Strong Critical Thinkers
(from Vincent Ruggiero, Beyond Feelings, A Guide to Critical Thinking):
• Critical Thinkers... "Are honest with error."
themselves, acknowledging what they
don't know, recognizing their • Critical Thinkers... "Are interested in
limitations, and being watchful of their other people's ideas, so are willing to
own errors." read and listen attentively, even when
• Critical Thinkers... "Regard problems and they tend to disagree with the other
controversial issues as exciting person."
challenges." • Critical Thinkers... "Recognize that
• Critical Thinkers... "Strive for extreme views (whether conservative or
understanding, keep curiosity liberal) are seldom correct, so they avoid
alive, remain patient with complexity and them, practice fair-mindedness, and seek
ready to invest time to overcome a balanced view."
confusion." • Critical Thinkers... "Practice
• Critical Thinkers... "Set aside personal restraint, controlling their feelings rather
preferences and base judgments on than being controlled by them, and
evidence, deferring judgment whenever thinking before acting."
evidence is insufficient. They revise
judgments when new evidence reveals