Tuesday, June 5, 2012

My Reading Habit

So far, I have been enjoying the reading process in Module 2. I have always loved books but I find it difficult now to find time for this hobby. Because this reading is mandatory for class, I have been challenging myself to stick to an assiduous reading schedule by reading in all of my downtime. My reading sessions will range from 5 or 6 minutes to a whole hour. I read on the bus, when I’m preparing dinner, during a commercial break, right before bed, and I make it a habit to keep the book on me at all times.
Because I break up my reading it can be tough to remember where I left off. I make comments on a piece of paper that I keep in my book (like a bookmark) and after every reading session I remind myself where I left off. I also reference this sheet of comments and notes every time I begin to read as a tool to mitigate my poor memory.
Sometimes I have a problem comprehending what I read and after reading a whole chapter I find that I didn’t retain any information. I recently learned how to annotate in my Business Communications class. I write comments in the margins of my book. I will draw happy faces, sad faces as I react to certain parts of the reading and this keeps my mind active. I also underline words I don’t know, and find the definition if I can’t figure out the meaning from within the context of the sentence. I find that when I use annotation methods like these my retention is much better.
I would suggest that people annotate while they read and keep a concise log of comments after each time you put the book down.

2 comments:

  1. Great post Ashley. This was well written and I can relate to writing things down for retention purposes because I also have terrible memory. Keep up the good work, your blog continues to be one of my favorite to read.

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  2. I also have a terrible memory after I read because I tend to day dream while I'm reading, so I have to reread the whole passage again. It's a good idea to have a bookmark, so you can remember where you left off. If you don't remember when you have a bookmark, what I usually do is reread the whole page again.

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