Reading

Comprehension
Saint Louis University
Department of Academic Support

Why does it take so much time

to read your textbook?

What makes reading difficult?

Four major factors contribute to the difficulty of your
reading.
Difficulty and familiarity of the concepts
presented.

The more unfamiliar or challenging the concepts, then the

slower the reader will have to be in order to fully
understand.
For example, think of the differences between a textbook
and a magazine.

The level of vocabulary.

If the vocabulary used is unfamiliar to you, the

material will be harder to understand and
comprehension will drop.

(Continued on next slide)

What makes reading difficult?

The complexity of style.

Textbooks with longer sentences and more challenging

grammatical components require more concentration.
Authors will be less direct and implicate their main ideas,
which also require more intense thought.

The readers ability to use key techniques to

efficiently read.

In this workshop, we will look at how to prepare and adjust

your reading times based upon your reading purpose.
Visit SLUs Academic Support website to review additional
reading comprehension tools.

What is the purpose

behind your reading?
There are four main purposes to read
1.
To locate specific information.
2.
To survey, gain an overview, or review information.
3.
For recreation and entertainment.
4.
To thoroughly understand and recall.
As a student, you will need to begin
your reading with a clear purpose.

Adjust your time and planning

based upon your purpose!
Purpose: To locate specific information
Kind of Activity: Scanning
Type of Material: Any type
Speed: Thousands of words per minute

Adjust your time and planning

based upon your purpose!
Purpose: To survey, gain an overview, or
review information
Kind of Activity: Skimming
Type of Material: Any type
Speed: Thousands of words per minute

Adjust your time and planning

based upon your purpose!
Purpose: For recreation or entertainment
Kind of Activity: Rapid Reading
Type of Material: Newspapers, magazines,
and novels
Speed: 250 to 800 words per minute

Adjust your time and planning

based upon your purpose!
Purpose: To thoroughly understand and recall
Kind of Activity: Study Reading
Type of Material: Textbooks and technical materials
Speed: Up to 250 words per minute
Expect this process to take a while and
attempt to schedule adequate time to
complete study reading.

Calculate how long it will take

you to study your text.
Instructions:

From one of your textbooks, choose three pages

that contain mostly words.
Pull up http://www.online-stopwatch.com/ on a
new internet window.
Start the clock when you begin reading the pages.
Read the way you would any homework
assignment (including taking notes, time to reread something you didnt first understand, etc).
Stop the clock when you have finished reading
the three pages.
Continued on next slide

Calculate how long it will take

you to study your text.
Instructions

(cont):

Divide the minutes by three (this is how long it

took you to read ONE page).
Multiply the number of pages you need to read by
the time it takes to read ONE page.
Divide this number by 60 to get total hours and
minutes it will take to complete your reading.

Example on next slide

Calculate how long it will take

you to study your text.
For

It took Matt 18 minutes to read three pages.

example:
18/3 = 6 minutes to read one page.

Matt has to read 20 pages for homework.

20*6=120 minutes to read 20 pages.

120/60= 2 hours to read 20 pages.
Source: University of North Carolina, Greensboro
http://success.uncg.edu/lac/

Want more information?

Contact:

Kelly Herbolich
Coordinator, Academic Support
Student Success Center
Busch Student Center, Room 331
kherboli@slu.edu