SCIENTIFIC WAY OF STUDYING
Survey! Question! Read! Recite! Review!
SQ3R will help you build a framework to understand your reading assignment.Before you read, Survey the chapter:
- the title, headings, and subheadings
- captions under pictures, charts, graphs or maps
- review questions or teacher-made study guides
- introductory and concluding paragraphs
- summary
Question while you are surveying:
- Turn the title, headings, and/or subheadings into questions
- Read questions at the end of the chapters or after each subheading
- Ask yourself,
"What did my instructor say about this chapter or subject
when it was assigned?" - Ask yourself,
"What do I already know about this subject?"
Note: If it is helpful to you, write out these questions for consideration.
This variation is called SQW3R
When you begin to Read:
- Look for answers to the questions you first raised
- Answer questions at the beginning or end of chapters or study guides
- Reread captions under pictures, graphs, etc.
- Note all the underlined, italicized, bold printed words or phrases
- Study graphic aids
- Reduce your speed for difficult passages
- Stop and reread parts which are not clear
- Read only a section at a time and recite after each section
Recite after you've read a section:
- Orally ask yourself questions about what you have just read, or summarize, in your own words, what you read
- Take notes from the text but write the information in your own words
- Underline or highlight important points you've just read
- Reciting: The more senses you use the more likely you are to remember what you read Triple strength learning: Seeing, saying, hearing
- Quadruple strength learning: Seeing , saying , hearing, writing!!!
Review: an ongoing process
Day One- After you have read and recited the entire chapter, write questions in the margins for those points
you have highlighted or underlined. - If you took notes while reciting, write questions for the notes you have taken
in the left hand margins of your notebook.
- Page through the text and/or your notebook to re-acquaint yourself with the important points.
- Cover the right hand column of your text/note-book and orally ask yourself the questions in the left hand margins.
- Orally recite or write the answers from memory.
- Develop mnemonic devices for material which need to be memorized.Make flash cards for those questions which give you difficulty.
- Alternate between your flash cards and notes and test yourself
(orally or in writing) on the questions you formulated. - Make additional flash cards if necessary.
- Using the text and notebook, make a Table of Contents - list all the topics and sub-topics you need to know from the chapter.
- From the Table of Contents, make a Study Sheet/ Spatial Map.
- Recite the information orally and in your own words as you put the Study Sheet/Map together.
- As you have consolidated all the information you need for this chapter, periodically review the Sheet/Map so that at test time you will not have to cram.
