Understanding Textbooks: Five Tips for High School Students

There are plenty of good tips and comprehension guidance teachers can provide their students to help them understand and stay focused when reading textbooks.

EducationWorld has curated a list of five tips on ways to help high school students from a number of different educational outlets. With these methods, teachers can encourage and help students get the most out of reading any textbook.

1. Scaffolding: One method this article recommends is for students and teachers to use "scaffolding" which will help improve a student's reading experience. Through three stages, the pre-reading stage, during-reading stage, and after-reading stage. In the first stage, students establish the purpose for reading and help students see what they know about the topic before reading about it. In the second stage, students can create images, such as charts, organizers, etc., while they are reading. In the third stage, students can reflect on what they read, and write a summary on what they read. (From Educational Research Newsletter and Webinars.)
2. KWL Chart: An article titled, "Help! My Students Can't Read Their Textbooks" examines how best to guide students to understand textbooks.Teachers shoiuld use a KWL chart before or after the reading process. This three-column chart asks students to identify what they already know (K) of the subject they are reading, what they want to know (W) about the subject, and what they learned (L) after reading. This exercise will help students know what to look for while reading their textbook, and then pay attention to answering the questions they have to answer after the text. (From Educational Research Newsletter and Webinars.)
3. Activities to do before reading: One site called Academic Tips, gives students tips on what to do before, during, and after reading their textbooks. When it comes to best methods or activities to perform before reading, students should:

• Make specific times to read assignments for each course. 
• Recall what you already know before reading 
• Have an open mind
• Intentionally state a reason to read, or create questions out of titles, subheadings, or italicized words. For example, "I want to find out about..."
• Divide long chapter assignments into pieces
• Skim the chapter before diving in

5. Active Reading: Material from Carnegie Mellon suggests that students partake in active reading when delving into textbooks. The best way to understand the material is to preview the reading, such as skimming the chapter headings, noting vocabulary and terminology, read the chapter summary, and more. Then, read and understand the information by isolating one small piece of the text at a time, incorporating the main ideas of the text. Students should read to find significant facts, and take note of this information. After finishing the text, a small summary of what was just read should be generated.

Article by Kassondra Granata, EducationWorld Contributor