Concentration Cycle
A key to study success
Learning
Pyramid
Average Retention Rate
Lecture
Less
Reading
Audio/Visual
Demonstration
Discussion Group
Practice by Doing
Teach Others/Immediate Use of Learning
Source: National Training Laboratories – Bethel, Maine
More
Barriers to Concentration
 Hunger
 Fatigue
 Distractions (What are your distractions?)
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Where do you study?
How do you prepare to study?
What is on your mind?
Building Concentration
 Develop an interest and positive attitude
What is one thing you can learn?
Set a specific study goal
 “I’m going to take reading notes on pgs. 38-62”
instead of “I’m going to read my Sociology text.”
Set specific study times during the week. (weekly
planner)
Prepare to study:
 Gather appropriate study materials.
 Dump your distractions – write them down.
 Attend to physical needs beforehand (eat, drink,
exercise).
Plan rewards!
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Building Concentration
Appropriate time and place
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Don’t study where you eat or sleep.
Study when you have the most energy.
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Are you a morning person?
Are you a night owl?
Building Concentration
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What is the task?
Organize the assignment.
Vary the activity.
Prevent daydreaming: ideas?
Relate learning: practical application
Pace yourself:
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50 min. study
10 min. break
What do you think about this
student’s studying?
Concentration Cycle
10 min. Study
Break
Begin Study
Period
Light (about 5 min.)
Moderate (about 5 min.)
Ideal Study Session
Deep (about 40 min.)
Active reading
strategies
Make friends with your textbooks
Reasons college students don’t read their
(expensive) textbooks

Past experience: I didn’t have to in high
school, and I still got A’s and B’s.
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Specialized, technical information
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Hard to understand
Difficulty retaining information
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Boring
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Motivation factors
Active Reading Strategies
to avoid MEGO
My eyes glaze over
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"Reading is a means of thinking with
another person's mind; it forces you to
stretch your own."

Charles Scribner, Jr.
Making the CAASE for you to become a critical reader
In all of your roles: school, job/career, community member,
family/personal
With all types of material: books, newspapers, magazines,
advertisements, marketing, Internet
You need to be able to CAASE:
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Comprehend what you read.
Apply what you learn from what you read.
Analyze what you read for accuracy, credibility.
Synthesize what you read from multiple sources.
Evaluate what you read so you can use it in making decisions .
Wow, can anyone say “Bloom’s”??
Active Reading
 Before
 During
 After
Sound familiar? Yup! Same concept as note
taking. What do you do before, during,
and after reading textbook material?
Active Reading
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Before:
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During: comprehension strategies
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Use a reading system.
PBID: assess and select reading strategies.
Surveying, pre-reading
Finding the main ideas and important details
Annotating: summarizing important information
 You’ve already learned this! Just like Split Page, T
method, etc.
After:
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Reviewing what you read to prepare for tests
Creating additional study guides (written rehearsal
strategies; visual organizers)
Why do I need a reading system?
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You don’t.
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IF you don’t care about being able to comprehend or use
what you read.
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Oh, so you do care most of the time? Great!
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A reading system will help you:
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Stay active while reading.
Identify important information for test preparation.
Increase your comprehension.
Increase your ability to remember and retain information.
SQ3R reading system
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Survey
Question
Read
Recite
Review
BEFORE
DURING
AFTER
Many types of reading systems. All have 3 things in
common: 1. Previewing before you read
2. Marking & taking notes while reading
3. Reviewing after what you read
SQ3R
Before
PBID technique
If you don’t know where you are going, how will you know when you arrive?
 Purpose: Why am I reading this material?
 Background: What do I already know about the
subject?
 Interest: How interested am I in this subject?
 Difficulty: How difficult is the text or article?
SQ3R
Before
PBID
● A great “BEFORE/SQ” activity.
● Like stretching before exercise; warms you up
● Helps you select the reading strategies you
will need to understand the material
● Improves your efficiency and speed
Instructors: demonstrate this with your students
for their first chapter.
SQ3R
Before
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PBID demonstration
Using your ____textbook, Chapter __:
1.
Do a PBID and turn it in.
Instructors: broadcast or online, you could craft this
as an assignment for 5 points.
SQ3R
Before
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Movie and book previews
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Survey
Set context to help understand plot
Big picture so you can fit in the details
Improves comprehension
Previewing text book material: Why? How?
SQ3R
Before
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guided tour for your students. Help them learn the “architecture”.
Pre-chapter guides
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Survey (preview):demo your text book. Give a
Chapter title, introduction, pre-questions,
objectives, glossary
What’s unique about our textbook?
Within chapter guides
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Headings, graphics, diagrams, bold & italic print,
vocabulary
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What else does ___textbook have?
Post chapter guides
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Summary, chapter questions, other?
SQ3R
Before
Question: Chapter 9
How does creating questions before you read help
comprehension?
Instructors: demo this with your textbook
SQ3R
Before
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Survey/Question exercise
Create an outline of pages 144-149 of
Chapter 9. (written survey)
Create at least three questions as you
outline. (Who? What? Why? Where? When? How?)
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Explicit practice for what you would normally do
silently/visually
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Written outlines can be used to take reading notes
if you don’t want to mark in textbook
(example to get you started)
Active Reading Ch. 9
1.
Strategies for Warming Up for Reading (pg. 147 heading)
A. Create a good learning environment. (heading bold)
1. noise level (numbered;bold) (Q: What will it say about
playing music while I study?)
2. learning space (numbered;bold) (Q: How can I best
organize my study area?
Finish outlining on your own.
Active Reading
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Before:
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During: comprehension strategies
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Use a reading system
PBID: assess and select reading strategies
Surveying, pre-reading
Finding the main ideas and important details
Annotating: summarizing important information
 You’ve already learned this! Just like Split Page, etc.
After:
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Reviewing what you read to prepare for tests
Creating additional study guides
SQ3R
Read: Finding the main idea
During
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What can you take away from
this food item and still maintain
the “essence” of what it is?
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Is it still a hamburger without
pickles? Cheese? Onions,
lettuce, sauce?
SQ3R
During
Finding the main idea
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All of those items help make the hamburger
tasty, but they don’t define it as a hamburger.
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Without the “two all beef patties” and buns,
you don’t have a hamburger.
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Meat and buns = main idea of a hamburger
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Pickles, etc. = supporting details
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Many students struggle identifying main ideas,
which affects their comprehension.
SQ3R
During
Finding the main idea
Main idea
Main idea
Topic
=
Subject of paragraph +
Controlling
Idea
what we learn
about the subject
in the paragraph
SQ3R
During
Finding main idea: example
Instructors: come up with several examples from your textbook to
help students. Show them on doc camera or in a PowerPoint (for
online courses)
SQ3R
During
Finding main idea: example
To many parents, the infant’s crying may be mainly an irritation,
especially if it continues for long periods. But crying serves
important functions for the child as well as the parents.
For the child, crying helps improve lung capacity and the
respiratory system. Perhaps more important, the cry serves as
a signal of distress. When babies cry, they indicate that they
are hungry or in pain, and this is important information for
parents.
Infant crying
A. Serves important functions
1. improves lung capacity and respiratory system
2. signals distress
a. hunger
b. pain
SQ3R
Finding the main idea
During
Main idea
Main idea
Topic
=
Crying (of infants)
Controlling
Idea
+ serves important
functions for child
& parents
SQ3R
Main idea: practice #1
During
Despite the hatred that most people feel toward cockroaches, they
do help humans in several ways. For example, they are perfect
experimental animals and are used for scientific research in the
laboratory. Breeding them is easy, for they thrive under almost
any conditions. In studies on nutrition and food, cockroaches are
good subjects because they will eat any kind of food. They can
be used to study heart disease, and cancer researchers work
with roaches because they grow cancerous tumors like those
that are found in humans.
Main idea:
What is the topic/subject of paragraph?
What do we learn about the topic? (controlling idea)
SQ3R
Main idea practice #1
During
Despite the hatred that most people feel toward cockroaches, they
do help humans in several ways. For example, they are perfect
experimental animals and are used for scientific research in the
laboratory. Breeding them is easy, for they thrive under almost
any conditions. In studies on nutrition and food, cockroaches are
good subjects because they will eat any kind of food. They can
be used to study heart disease, and cancer researchers work
with roaches because they grow cancerous tumors like those
that are found in humans.
Main idea is in first sentence.
SQ3R
During
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Marking = identifying main ideas (underline or highlight)
Annotating = making notes to condense and
summarize
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Read: Marking and Annotating
Just like the note taking methods.
You already can do this. Just do it with your text books.
You bought your textbooks; you can write in them.
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Writing in textbooks does not affect buy-back.
SQ3R
During
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Methods for marking your text
Read, think, decide, AND THEN mark!
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What is important?
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Highlight or underline
 Left to right (built in re-read)
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Number any causes, effects, characteristics, factors,
etc.
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K.I.S.S.
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Don’t become too complex in your system
SQ3R
During
What to Mark?
** Guideline: If it might be on the test, mark it! **
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Mark main ideas
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Topic/subject and what is said about the topic in
(controlling idea)
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Usually 1st or 2nd sentence of paragraph
Remember: can be stated or implied.
Mark supporting details
SQ3R
During
What to mark?
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Mark information that answers purposesetting questions
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Mark enough so that 1 month later the
information will make sense!
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Avoid under- OR over-marking
SQ3R
During
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“Three Bears” rule
Too much
Outlines and maps help you predict and organize information while
surveying. This is particularly true if you rephrase headings and
subheadings into questions or connect chapter titles with headings and
subheadings to questions. Questions require you to look for answers,
and thus, make reading more active. You read to answer what, how,
when, who, which, where, and why. When previewing, you will
normally be looking for main ideas. Thus, why, how and what
questions will form the basis of your previewing outline. Question
outlines and maps make previewing less covert and more concrete.
They help set goals for reading.
SQ3R
During
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Too little
Outlines and maps help you predict and organize information while
surveying. This is particularly true if you rephrase headings and
subheadings into questions or connect chapter titles with headings
and subheadings to questions. Questions require you to look for
answers, and thus, make reading more active. You read to answer
what, how, when, who, which, where, and why. When previewing,
you will normally be looking for main ideas. Thus, why, how and
what questions will form the basis of your previewing outline.
Question outlines and maps make previewing less covert and more
concrete. They help set goals for reading.
SQ3R
During
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Just right
Outlines and maps help you predict and organize information while
surveying. This is particularly true if you rephrase headings and
subheadings into questions or connect chapter titles with headings
and subheadings to questions. Questions require you to look for
answers, and thus, make reading more active. You read to answer
what, how, when, who, which, where, and why. When previewing,
you will normally be looking for main ideas. Thus, why, how and
what questions will form the basis of your previewing outline.
Question outlines and maps make previewing less covert and more
concrete. They help set goals for reading.
SQ3R
During

Annotating your text
(making reading notes)
Develop your own system, as long as it
Identifies main ideas, supporting details
 Increases your comprehension
 Provides effective study/review guide
And, you will still be able to sell your books!
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Why is it not effective to use someone else’s
annotations (like in a used textbook)?
SQ3R
During
Example of annotation
Instructors: Create an example from your textbook or other required reading
materials. Upload to Blackboard and/or show on doc cam.
Show an example from your course reading material or text.
SQ3R
After
Recite & Review is Essential!

Review what you marked and annotated.
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Recite aloud when necessary.
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Think about what information could be on a test.
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Create visual organizers to help you with test prep
 Concept cards: terms, definitions
 Charts, diagrams: processes, procedures, cycles, systems,
comparisons
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Review and answer the questions you developed during
survey/question phase. Think of other questions your prof. could
ask on a test.