Study Skills Unit - Notes
Terms:
agenda book - a book in which to record assignments and other daily activities
passport pages - pages used for recording areas or trips around the school that a student needs to make like to the bathroom or another teacher's room
short term goal - achievement in a limited amount of time Ex. get an A on a math test - do homework for the week
long term goal - achievement drawn out over a period of time Ex. Oral History Project; graduation from college
Purposes for Reading: (fiction or nonfiction)
- to find specific details
- to find main ideas
- to understand and remember
Reading Rates:
1. scan - reading for specific details or information
2. skim - reading for main points or important ideas
3. read for mastery - reading closely to understand and remember
Interpreting and Analyzing What You Read
1. main idea - writer's most important point
2. stated main idea - author clearly expresses the major point; can be found in one specific sentence
3. implied main idea - may not be stated directly; suggested; may need to analyze meaning of details
Finding Relationships Among Details
- 5 W and How Questions - Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?
- fact versus opinion
fact - something that can be checked and proved to be true by direct observation or by checking a reliable reference source
opinion - how you feel or what you think about a topic; what you believe
- similiarities and differences - how details are alike or not alike
- cause and effect
- order of importance
chronological order - order in which events actually occur
spatial order - how information is arranged in space and arranging the details in a paragraph; nearest to farthest or left to right or top to bottom, etc.
order of importance - tell the most important reason first, the next most important reason next, and so on; the process can be reversed and tell the least important first
Applying Reasoning Skills to Your Reading
- conclusions - make decisions based on clearly expressed facts and evidence
- valid conclusion - based on facts, evidence, or logic
- invalid conclusion - not based on logical reasoning and not grounded on facts or evidence
- inference - decisions based on evidence that is only hinted at or implied in what you have read; hypothesis
Applying Study and Reading Strategies
- classification - a way to organize items by arranging them into categories
- outline - helps organize important ideas and information
informal outline: formal outline:
main idea I. Main Idea
supporting detail A. Supporting Point
supporting detail 1. Detail
supporting detail a. detail
- paraphrase - a restatement of someone else's ideas in your own words; written paraphrase in about the same length as the original piece
- summary - a brief restatement of a piece of writing; expresses the ideas of the passage in your own words; presenting only the most important points
Improving Test-Taking Skills
- objective test - recall and apply specific information; (most) one answer ; called limited-reponse or limited answer
-Reasoning or Logic Questions - tests reasoning abilities more than knowledge; on standardized tests; identify relationship between several items or identify a pattern or predict next item in a visual sequence
-True/False Questions - make a choice whether a specific, given statement is true or false
-Short-Answer Questions - short, precise answers that you write; answer is few words or sentences
-Multiple-Choice Questions - select correct answer fromamong a number of choices
-Matching Questions - match the items in one list with the items in another
-Analogy Questions - special reasoning and logic questions; analyze relationships between words
- essay tests - measure your understanding of material you have learned; required to write a paragraph or more to answer an essay question
