A Better Way to Read a Textbook

You're not reading a textbook to get to the end. You're reading for familiarity and understanding. A textbook isn't a story. While this is obvious in an intellectual sense, the actual implications are not as straightforward. We aren't working through a narrative, we're working through information.

Most modern learning materials work off of scaffolding theory. Even older materials are aware you build off of information rather than just learning in a random order. You get plateaus which present the tools to make it up to the next level.

The book aims to deliver the pieces and the instructions in one package. You can't start building a piece of flat-pack furniture without the instructions, but the instructions are less meaningful without looking at the pieces first. On top of that, it usually helps to read through the instructions once, then go through to actually build it. Why should your learning be all that much different?

This method focuses on looking at what we're going to use to progress first, how each piece is used, then see how to do each individual action and how to actually put them together. We're taking the parts out of our box, reading the directions, and getting ready to actually build. Reading the next steps provides context for why you need to do something.

The goal of the first pass is to understand the general process even if you don't understand everything about it. This method shows you how to pull the instructions away from the materials when working with a textbook.

The Method at a Glance

Reading a textbook is substantially different than reading a novel. While it seems intuitive, I hadn't really considered there was a better way until I stumbled onto it by accident with a terrible teacher. I came to realize I wasn't trying to get to the end of the chapter as quickly as possible; I was trying to get done with the content and understand it. What had worked to read fiction worked to waste my time with nonfiction.

Fiction tells a story, but a textbook is (ideally) laid out in order to facilitate understanding a subject. A story needs to flow, but differential equations? Not so much. Some knowledge is required to understand future sections, but sometimes you don't really get a concept until you've seen it in its many forms. Knowing what's at the end of a chapter can enhance the beginning without "spoiling" anything.

If I did a bit of legwork before I really dove into the content, I could spend roughly the same time reading through the actual text, but only have to do it once. The first pass primed me, but it was the equivalent of reviewing before you start to study; it was virtually useless on its own. Once I was primed though, everything else fell into place easily. I was effectively reviewing in reverse.

The process is deceptively simple once you understand what you should do and why you should do it. I begin digesting a portion of a textbook by skimming for familiarity, searching for important keywords, and then scanning for topics and concepts. Once I get these pieces laid out, going back through and reading is substantially more productive. This method may not work for you as laid out, but the pieces themselves are all useful for getting the most out of your textbook.

Skimming for Familiarity

When you first start a chapter or section, you want to flip through and take note of the general structure and content of each section. What does it cover? You aren't looking to understand each thing you see, just take note of what sticks out and where we're going. Look at but don't read each page.

Get an idea for the sections, look at the examples and illustrations, read the introduction and conclusion for each section (if noted, or the first and last paragraphs), and look for areas that stick out. Build an awareness of what the content will introduce and discuss. Most of it won't make sense at present, but that's not why we're doing this.

We're trying to pick up on the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. This is the phenomenon which happens when you encounter new information and see it everywhere. Someone tells you about the Wilhelm scream and now you hear it in every movie and show. By going through and skimming our chapter or section, we're trying to get acclimated to what is mentioned and see what we pick up on as we go back through.

Searching for Keywords

Once you get an idea of the basic organization of a chapter, you want to go through and look for keywords. Textbooks usually contain bolded or emphasized words. For language materials, I look at the vocabulary or grammatical terms used, especially those with notes. Look for themes and patterns if nothing else.

Search the text for common words. You don't need to read everything, just skim through and see what comes up more often than not. The more a term sticks out, the more pivotal it probably is for understanding the text. If I really need to understand the material as much as possible, I'll take note of these and research them independently before beginning. The denser (or more mindnumbing) the material, the more useful this strategy is.

I like to do this process in conjunction with the other steps if possible. If the material is too dense, consider skimming first, then going back through to look for terms which stick out. The whole goal of this method is to build exposure and prime yourself to the material so that you get the most out of a full reading.

You also want to see how these terms fit into what you've previously read. Like I mentioned before, materials tend to build iteratively and scaffold the learner's understanding. Even if a chapter is relatively freestanding, there is almost definitely some overlap somewhere in the book (even if it isn't direct). Honing in on these terms now gives you a chance to read back up on them and stitch this information into your understanding from the first read through.

Scanning for Topics and Ideas

Familiarizing yourself with the content gives you a general overview of the purpose. Looking for keywords gives you the building blocks for what will be discussed, but you need to put everything together. This is the phase you want to scan for topics and ideas in the content. We've seen the purpose and we've seen the words, but how are they used together?

A road map tells you little about the terrain, and knowing the names of places and things does little to understand where and what they actually are. Go through the text and scan for ideas using the words you've looked into. We've seen what the terms mean but we need to ask how they fit into the scaffolding of the whole?

Read the first and last sentence of every paragraph to see what the general idea is. Again, you don't need to understand everything at this stage, you just need to follow the flow. What pieces are we using and where are they going?

If a chapter has exercises, look at them and see what concepts from earlier stick out. You aren't trying to solve them necessarily, you're trying to see how the concepts work "in practice". Words can have the same definition, but a very different usage. You want to see if the definitions line up with your expectations, and if not, you want to pay more attention for your actual read through. This is reconnaissance for your studying, not the main attack.

In Practice

When we skim for familiarity, we may hypothetically start a chapter in physics on electricity. We get exposed to the equation E = IR (or similar for Ohm's Law). This is Ohm's law and it is the most fundamental equation of electronics. You'll see all sorts of diagrams and similar which detail this law and it's applications, as well as what each term E, I, and R mean.

This naturally partners with our idea to search for keywords. E is voltage, I is current, and R is resistance. The voltage is the electronic tension or potential, the current is the intensity, and the resistance is the inhibition of flow. We see where the words live, what they mean, but we also need to see how the ideas fit together.

The difference between previous stages of this process and scanning for concepts is primarily in intent. You need the first piece and the second to tie them together. We don't need to know what the actual implications or full details for each piece to look for them though. Tying the content and the keywords together with other hints from the text is your scan for the key concepts and ideas. Some content lets you run through a single time to prime yourself to read, other content takes a couple passes to be able to understand what the purpose is for each chapter.

Other Methods

Depending on the density and depth of a text, these measures may not be enough to fully learn the content. Other times, a work just doesn't groove with your learning. Purple prose and wandering trains of thought can derail this methodology entirely as well. The text may just not cooperate.

That being said, there are workarounds which don't hurt your understanding. We're learning for content and not for the specific text. If you're taking a formal course, you can't just necessarily jump to another textbook, but you can workaround the limitations of what you're stuck with. I've been assigned textbooks for classes which left me more confused than anything.

A review or summary with something like CliffNotes or similar can be a great way to get through content (for more standardized courses). A review is a distillation of information omitting the details, and the whole purpose of this method is to distill the information to figure out what matters. It's not perfect, but with many courses, there's enough overlap the chapter headings are enough to know where to go next. If not, there are plenty of resources online which may do a better job for the specific course or textbook. The textbook can serve as the guide for what you need to learn, even if the book itself doesn't provide.

Putting It All Together

You don't need to follow these in the order I've presented them, or even do all of them to get a boost in productivity from the time spent learning. If you really want to learn material well, the more priming you do the quicker you'll get through and understand the material when you read through in depth. Do what works for you in order to prime yourself best. If this method doesn't work as is, change it up.

The whole goal is to grasp the material and to use it. If you know what to expect and the words and ideas introduced, you'll know how to weigh each section. A historical aside may be essential or it may be useless for grasping the material. If you know going in, you can know whether to pay extra attention to the concept or to put it in the trivia bucket.

You're not reading something like a novel where the temporal order affects your enjoyment; you're trying to learn. The only spoilers you get flipping ahead are the roadblocks coming up. Whether you use the textbook or do similar from an external method, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that you prime yourself and skip out on reading gratuitous examples over and over without the context to understand them. Use this method to read your next textbook, and see how much faster you get through it.