David M. Callahan, Ph.D.
Providing Psychological Services to
Cape Cod and Southeastern Massachusetts
Active Reading: SQ3R and SQ4R
For many people, the act of reading is difficult, challenging areas of vulnerability that make it hard to actively process information as they read. There are a significant number of people who successfully can read individual words, but their ability to retain the information as it is decoded is much less robust. Thus, a person can spend several minutes reading an entire page, processing each word individually and accurately, but then have difficulty understanding what has been read. These problems with reading comprehension have many sources, but a very frequent area of difficulty is problems with focus and attention due to distractibility. This can make it very difficult to retain information, as one’s ability to hold information in working memory and continue to process new information is compromised. Attentional difficulties will essentially make new information push out the old, resulting in limited acquisition of material.
There is another subset of people who have significant difficulty with decoding individual words. Thus, it takes an excessive amount of time and effort to simply read those words. This can result in very long reading times, but also very limited acquisition of material, as the act of simply reading the words can be very daunting, resulting in tremendous difficulty retaining the flow of information as one reads.
In order to counter these struggles, it is often important that individuals move away from acts of passive reading. For many people, simply opening a book and reading in a sequential fashion can be very ineffective. There are several techniques that are used to help counteract that, but perhaps the most commonly used are SQ3R and its later version SQ4R, which attempt to activate the brain more effectively so that reading becomes more efficient. SQ3R stands for: Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review. This five-step process changes the act of reading from a passive attempt to absorb information through very active searching for information, creating an internal outline and active process of reading that can greatly increase one’s ability to acquire information. Rather than hoping that information will be absorb, the reader begins the task in an active attempt to create what is essentially an internal outline or framework for placing information. This will increase storage and also helps to highlight the meaningfulness and importance of specific material. Thus, rather than needing to decide what is most important to retain as one reads, that filtering is done beforehand, with the subsequent reading being more effective as readers search for information that they already know they are looking to acquire.
The individual steps of SQ3R are rather straightforward. The first step is Survey. Rather than simply picking up a book and reading, the individual is encouraged to begin by flipping through the material that is about to be read, essentially discovering what it is he or she is supposed to be learning as one reads. A simple example of this is to flip through a chapter of a textbook, reading each of the section headings, and the italic and boldface words and their definitions, trying to determine what information will be forthcoming when one reads in more depth. Creating these highlighted elements of chapters can be very effective in helping to understand the basic flow. For less structured text, simply reading the first sentence of every other paragraph can begin to create some understanding of the information that is to come. This basic survey creates an overview of the information to be sought, along with some tidbits of information that are already acquired through that search.
Step two is Question. In this step, the reader actively attempts to create a list of questions that will aid in the search for the material. For example, in a history text book with a section entitled, “The Reign of Charlemagne,” the person will generate questions such as: Who is Charlemagne? When was he king? What is he most famous for? This can be done in writing or mentally, but either case the brain is prepared to search for that information more actively than if passively reading.
Only after those two preparatory steps have been performed does one move to the third step of Read. Here we see the reader reading in a sequential fashion, but again hopefully with a more active approach to the material. This increased level of activity will hopefully increase absorption, resulting in more efficient reading even though it may have taken a few moments to perform the first steps.
The fourth step is Recite. In this step, the reader states aloud the information that he or she has been learning, typically focusing on answering the questions that have been generated, but also any other information that has been absorbed. This can be done from memory or by scanning material as one moves through the chapters once more. The recitation of the material has two important functions. First, it can be very effective in helping a person understand the material, particularly if the information recited is translated into one’s own words. The act of trying to rework material into one’s own language can be very effective in improving understanding, as it requires very active processing of the information. It also creates more sensory channels for information to be stored in; rather than simply being placed in visual channels as in passive reading, more active reading will create a motor component due to the speaking of material, along with an auditory component from speaking aloud. There are many areas in the brain that become engaged in creating recitation that can be very helpful in improving one’s ability to remember material. Recitation can be done after an entire assignment has been read, but often even is more effective if done section by section. Being sure that one understands what he or she has just read before moving forward can be very important in improving overall retention of material as well.
The final step is Review. This is a step that is often neglected, but can be extremely effective, taking advantage of the brain’s ability to determine what should be deemed as important information. In the review phase, after a delay of at least 30 minutes and as long as several hours, the individual returns to the material and simply performs a quick review. This can be very brief, taking a matter of just a few minutes, but doing so informs our brain that the information is important enough that we have revisited during the same day. This active revisitation helps the brain to earmark material for memory storage, which we have come to understand is largely consolidated when one sleeps. Review reinforces the material learned, but also reminds our brain that this information should be stored somewhere where we have ready access to it.
There is an alternative version of SQ3R called SQ4R, which adds an additional stage known as Record after the Recite stage. Adding this phase can be helpful as well, as it requires note taking that can be helpful to the review stage and also adds more sensory channels to the information. This can powerfully reinforce the information as well.
My experience with these techniques is that the first few times that an individual uses them, they seem a bit cumbersome and tedious, as it takes a fair amount of effort. However, once there has been a bit of practice, this can often greatly reduce the amount of time that it takes an individual to acquire information. Use of this more active reading can be quite helpful in counteracting both phonological processing difficulties and inability to actively process material due to inattention, improving the efficiency of one’s reading. Most clients have reported that, while at the beginning it seemed difficult, in the long run this approach proved very effective in reducing the amount of effort it required for them to complete tasks.
