SQ3R

This is my first new educational article for I really have not written one of these since I first started and turned my old class notes into somewhat lectures of past courses I have studied. Does anyone out there remember the reading method 'SQ3R' or 'Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review'. Believe it or not the first time I really used this reading method was when I went to a business school and this was part of the first English course the school required for all students.

Survey means to just look over the chapter material and just get a general feeling for the material presented. Question is just that form the who, what, where, when, why and how questions of the material. Reading is next and maybe answers will come and then recite some answers from the questions you posed, then review the material and maybe be able to ask more questions and figure answers.

In reading one of my graduate textbooks for college teaching this is where I re-read about this reading method. This is a good method to teach all students no matter what grade well grades six through graduate school to teach how to mindful of what they are learning in and out of the classroom. This is also a great way to make students 'think' or what some would call 'active reading'.

Teachers it seems today one must be able to make their students visualize what the material is about. To me this is a good reading method for all learning styles from the visual and auditory learners to the kinesthetic and logico-mathematical readers. In using this reading method, the teacher helps the students reach the goal of the lesson when the students are able to find an answer or answers to their questions in the reading.

In the elementary grades the teacher can teach these skills as in 'How to form a question basically using the five 'W's and 'How' format to how to find the answers in other ways like using a dictionary to define a term, maybe a thesaurus when looking for a word they better understand for maybe the why, where, when or even the 'how' of whatever the subject may be. They students can even check the internet versions of these books as well. In using these tools even in these younger grades, the teacher is teaching mindfulness in learning to read and reading to learn.

In review the SQ3R reading method is one method that writers of all kinds could still find useful in their work. Book reviewers sharing their insights into what makes the book one that everyone should read or try to read. Poets so that others can see the imagery of their words. Novelists of many genres so that the reader will be engrossed to read and not put the book down and feel like the reader has maybe learned something in a fun way, and maybe even re-read the book, which I have done many a time.

After re-reading the graduate book one of the contributors added a few steps to this method. They are 'Rehash', 'Rethink', 'Re-evaluate'. These three steps give the students at least from the junior high (middle school), high school, college, and maybe even graduate students a chance to read even deeper into the subject or topic of the lesson, book, or whatever is about to be taught in and out of the classroom. Out of the many reading methods I still like the 'SQ3R' method even if it is only to make the student begin to read and become more mindful of the material presented.