Critical Reading Strategies

Critical Reading Strategies: A Review of What Students Learned at Orientation

By Professor Michele Santamaria

Reading Robots: Review

  • Visualizing the main points can really help you understand a reading.
  • You can do this visualization by drawing something like a concept map.
  • A concept map, sometimes called a “mind map,” places the key concepts in relation to one another in a diagram that looks something like this:

Making Poetry: Surveying

  • Surveying a text is getting a sense of the “big picture” by looking at the end/conclusion, reading the abstract if there is one, and looking at the organizational structure.
  • In order to make your poem, you had to have a sense of the page as a whole to see what you were working with; this helped you read with purpose.
  • Once you have a sense of “the point” of the reading, it’s a lot easier to not “lose your place” because you have a sense of where it’s headed.

Annotating Texts: Pose Questions

  • In order to annotate a text or comment upon it, you need to be willing to ask questions about it & ask questions of yourself.
  • When reading a textbook or an article, you can make questions out of the section headings and look for answers to those questions.
  • Be sure to write down your questions/answers so you can review the results of your inquiry process.

Finding Your People: Teaching Others

  • The ability to explain a concept to others, to make yourself clear is one of the best ways to test your reading comprehension of the material.
  • Another important skill you used here was making new connections between different concepts. You had to connect your superpowers to each other and to your enemy of reading.
  • When you make new connections between the material and other subject matter, you are also improving your ability to comprehend and retain material.

Many thanks to Orientation at Millersville for including Bibliomarauding! The One Book Committee wishes all incoming and returning students academic success for this upcoming school year.

Please remember that if you want *more* of “All American Boys,” the book we are reading this year, the book is available for free checkout at the library. Simply talk to a student worker at the desk and they will help you find it. Or if you want your own copy, you can buy the book at the university bookstore.

If you have questions about the activities or game design feel free to email Dr A Nicole Pfannenstiel (ambernicole.pfannenstiel@millersville.edu) or Professor Michele Santamaria (michele.santamaria@millersville.edu).