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Chapter 7
Study Skills and Strategies
Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area ClassroomsGunning
Reading to Remember
“Students’ ability to manage their own studying is one of the more
important skills that students need to learn, with consequences that will be felt throughout their lives” (Pashler, Bain, Bottge, Graesser, Koedinger, McDaniel, and Metcalfe, 2007, p. 1).
Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area ClassroomsGunning
How We Remember
- Clear Encoding
- Encoding Specificity- encode information the way it is to be remembered
- Rehearsal- take steps to remember information
Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area ClassroomsGunning
Conditions that Foster Remembering
- Meaningfulness
- Organization
- Imagery
- Associations
Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area ClassroomsGunning
Associations-Mnemonics
- Reconstructive Elaboration-modifying and elaborating a concept to to make it
more memorable
Create a reconstructed word that sound like word to be learned: decide for deciduous
Create interactive illustration to link reconstructed word and target word: tree labeled as deciduous saying, “It’s fall, so I have decided to let my leaves fall.”
Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area ClassroomsGunning
Mnemonics (Continued)
- Acronyms-word composed of the first letters of a series of words to be memorized
- Rhymes
- Acrostics-sentence or rhyme in which the first letter of each word stands for the first letter in a series of words to be memorized.
- Narrative Stories- includes items in the order in which they are to be memorized
Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area ClassroomsGunning
Questions to Aid Retention
- 1. How does this relate to what I already know?
- 2. What does it remind me of?
- 3. What can I associate it with?
- 4. Can I picture it in my mind?
- 5. What can I link this picture to?
- 6. How does it relate to the topic as a whole?
- 7. What crazy things pop into my mind when I think of it?
- 8. How can I use crazy associations to help me remember?
- 9. How does this relate to what I learned before?
- 10. How does it relate to my life outside this class? (Devine, 1987, p. 302)
Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area ClassroomsGunning
Quizzes to Foster Retention
- Items should foster retrieval: fill-in-the-blanks or essay better than multiple choice
- Act of recalling information to answer a question helps to establish it in memory
- Can be game-like activity. Need not be actual test.
Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area ClassroomsGunning
SQ3R
- Survey- get quick overview
- Question- turn each heading into a question
- Read- to answer the questions that you posed
- Recite- stop at end of the section and test yourself. Go back to text if you can’t recite.
- Review- at end of assignment
Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area ClassroomsGunning
Judicious Review
- For initial learning, need three or four varied presentations or experiences within two days of each other.
- Interval between learning described above and added review should be approximately 5 to 10 percent of the time that the information has to be retained.
- For formation to be retained for 60 days,reviews should not be scheduled for at least three to six days (5% X 60 days or 10% x 60 days).
Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area ClassroomsGunning
Four Main Notetaking Skills
• Selectivity-choosing most important information
• Organization-showing how ideas are related
• Consolidation- condensing information
• Fluency- using telegraphic style & abbreviations to take notes quickly
Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area ClassroomsGunning
Scaffolding Notetaking
- Structured Notetaking- set up topics or heading beforehand, create partial notes for students to complete
- Assisted Notetaking-provide brief practice sessions with scaffolds, such as cueing main topics
Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area ClassroomsGunning
Cornell Notetaking System
Step 1: Record- write notes in second column
Step 2: Reduce or question- reduce each major idea to key words & write in first column
Step 3: Recite- quiz oneself on the material
Step 4: Reflect- relate information in notes to other sources
Step 5: Recapitulation- summarize notes
Step 6: Review- periodically review notes
Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area ClassroomsGunning
Power Thinking
- Simplified outlining
- Main ideas are preceded by a 1
- Second-level or supporting ideas by a 2
- Third level details by a 3
Power thinking is outlining without the emphasis on formatting.
Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area ClassroomsGunning
Power Thinking
- Simplified outlining
- Main ideas are preceded by a 1
- Second-level or supporting ideas by a 2
- Third level details by a 3
Power thinking is outlining without the emphasis on formatting.
Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area ClassroomsGunning
Importance of Practice
- Enables students to reach a certain level of competence
- Fosters extended development of a skill
- Makes skills automatic
- Aids retention
Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area ClassroomsGunning
Effective Practice
- Intentionality- want to improve and take steps to do so.
- Feedback from a knowledgeable source
- Distributed practice generally results in longer retention- better for rote learning
- Massed practice more effective when task has a wholeness– reading an essay, writing a report
- Overlearning–entails continuing to study after information can be recited- aids retention
Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area ClassroomsGunning
Other Factors in Studying
- Metacognition: Estimating how much is known and how well
- Motivation
- Study habits
- Time management
- Discipline
Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area ClassroomsGunning
Reading Rate
Process | Purpose | Rate |
Scanning | Recognizes target word | 550 |
Skimming | Gets quick overview | 400 |
Rauding | Gets main ideas & details | 250 |
Learning | Checks to make sure material is remembered | 175 |
Memorizing(Carver, 1990) | Says material repeatedly | 100 |
Building Literacy in Secondary Content Area ClassroomsGunning
Test-Taking Strategies
- PLAE: Preplanning,Listing, Activity, and Evaluating
- PORPE: Predict, Organize, Rehearse, Practice, and Evaluate
- Test Preparation for High-Stakes Tests
- Incorporate skills assessed on high-stakes tests into the curriculum
- Model the process of taking a test
- Probe test-taking processes with a think-aloud & give suggestions for more effective test taking
