SQ3R – Learning how to study The Ten minute Guide on how to study You’re not sure if you’re studying in the most effective way? But you don’t have time to read through a ‘How to Study’ book of scores of pages? Here’s a 4 page guide on how to study that can improve your studying efficiency! SQ3R stands for five possible steps in studying a book or text:  Survey  Question  Read  Recall  Review The SQ3R approach can be a useful way of learning from a book or study text, whether on paper or online. It’s not the only way but it can be worth trying it out as part of finding out what study methods work best for you. The five stages are: 1. Survey When presented with a book or text many of us tend to ‘begin at the beginning, go through to the end and then stop’. This may not always be the best way to read. We don’t know where we are going so we can get bogged down in detail and fail to see the wood for the trees.. So instead we could get a bird’s eye view of the wood before we begin trampling through the undergrowth. We could survey the whole before we try to understand the parts. Page 1 of 4 For instance start your survey with the title page. You may not think you’ll get much from it but it’s always worth a glance. It can tell you: 1. The general subject area – from the title 2. The level of approach – from the sub-title 3. The author’s name and qualifications – is he or she going to be worth reading? 4. The date of publication – is this text going to be reasonably up to date? The Preface, Table of Contents, Learning Objectives (if any) and Index similarly all have various items of information worth a look. The last step in the survey is to leaf or surf through the book or text. While leafing through:     Read chapter and section headings Read end–of chapter summaries if any Look at any charts or pictures Glance at the occasional sentence. Spend just a few minutes on this. 2. Question I suggest you begin the detailed reading of the text with a set of questions you want answered in your mind. Questions will often give you a sense of purpose and keep you alert. For instance headings and sub-headings could bring questions to mind – let's say when reading this text you might ask “Why has the author used the heading ‘Question’?” “Who questions who?” “What part do questions play in study?” If there are questions in the text itself such as ‘self-assessment questions’ then try to resist the temptation to skip them! This is especially important if you are studying a math or science text where there may be examples in the text trying them will give you valuable feedback on how well you’re doing. Research says that ‘knowing how well you’re doing’ is the best single learning activity there is. Page 2 of 4 3. Read It is important to read actively and interact with the text, looking for the important ideas behind the text. There will be a main idea behind each chapter section and paragraph. However there are two things which are worth considering. Should you: 1. Take notes on the first reading? – decide if this is worth doing. It may be helpful or it may slow you down and distract you 2. Underline or highlight things first time through? – ok, but you may find you’ve highlighted the wrong things. You can do both these things on a second reading if you like or wait until the Recall activity (next). 4. Recall Perhaps the most important part of study is transferring your learning from your short term or working memory (the memory that enables you to remember a phone number whilst you’re tapping it out) to your long term memory (the memory that keeps it permanently). Psychologists have found that the best way to do that is to try to recall what you’ve read. If you make regular attempts to recall you’ll improve your learning four ways: 1. You’ll help transfer your learning from your working memory to your long term memory 2. You’ll concentrate better 3. You can remedy any misunderstandings and lapses of memory 4. You’ll be kept actively involved with the text. You probably won’t get these benefits by just re-reading. So once you have started reading, pause frequently (about every section within a chapter is about right) and tell yourself the main ideas in what you have read. This might be the best time to start taking notes about the ideas and concepts that you think are important. Perhaps up to 50% of your time could be spent in recall. Page 3 of 4 5. Review The final step in the SQ3R study method is the review section. Here your aim is to check the truth of your recall. The best way to do that is to do a quick repeat of the previous four steps: 1. Survey the text again 2. Question – remind your self of which questions you asked 3. Re-read the text to see that you've remembered everything of importance. 4. Recall by filling in any holes and correcting notes. Remember that the SQ3R method is just a suggested method of study. You might find some parts of it more helpful than others or find other methods of study entirely. But give it a try on the next thing you study! Below you’ll find a quiz to test your memory on this reading - see how well you remember what you’ve read. Questions on this text - look back for the answers! 1. What does SQ3R stand for? 2. What four things might you learn from a survey of the title page? 3. What are the two purposes of asking questions? 4. What are the two don’ts when first reading a text? 5. When should you first attempt to recall (choose one) (a) at the end of a text (b) at the end of each chapter (c) at the end of each section within a chapter (d) at the end of each paragraph (e) at the end of each sentence Ormond Simpson (after Derek Rowntree) Page 4 of 4