A lot of my time has been taken up simply by reading for class here at BYU. It's something that makes or breaks me in understanding things in class and I do read each passage completely as needed. But I could definitely do better with time management and comprehension so I have a list of goals I'll try to do my best with in order to improve.
1. I will become a better skimmer.
I know for a fact that by reading the topic sentences and intro/conclusion to many works I will be able to better gauge the main idea or argument of a work before indulging completely. That way I can have an idea in my head instead of trying to formulate one as I read.
2. Look up words I don't know.
I have always thought it is a waste of time. I have always thought that I can understand what a new word means solely based on the context around it. I've paid the price for that though because in essays I have tried to reproduce that word in my own writing and have discovered that it doesn't mean exactly or at all what I thought it did.
3. Summarize the main idea or theme of each reading.
Much of the time I convince myself that I understood something just because I got through it. But I know that by formulating a concrete sentence about the main idea of a work, I will better remember its argument in preparation for tests or essays in the future.
4. Prejudice.
Ok, not negatively like the connotation, but I need to better predict what I will read and judge the work as I go with the information already in my mind. Then I can better connect what I know with what I learn.
I'll probably incorporate these one by one but I hope that they speed up and improve my effectiveness as a reader here at BYU.
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