Entry 2: My Literary Experience with SQ4R

SQ4R is a strategy used to comprehend informational texts. It stands for survey, question, read, record, recite, and reflect. In using SQ4R, the reader gets a preliminary sense of the text, focuses attention, is concentrated during reading, takes notes, covers materials, and then reflects on what has been read. All of these events help the reader to comprehend the text. I've never used the SQ4R strategy before this assignment but I had such a great experience that I am now using it for all of my reading. 

Turning each heading into a question to answer helped immensely with my ability to focus on what I was reading. I now had an idea of what I was looking to answer through the text and how to better concentrate my thoughts. In turn, this helped with my notes and highlighting as I was writing down and highlighting points important to the question I was trying to answer instead of parts of the text that didn't really matter on a broader scale. At the end of each section I was able to use these notes to, not only answer the question, but also to find information quickly on whatever concept I was trying to expand on. Using the SQ4R strategy definitely contributed to my overall comprehension of the text and my ability to formulate answers and reflections about the text afterwards. 

The SQ4R strategy helped me to participate in the Forum discussions with my peers immensely. When I was writing on my post-it-notes during my initial read of the text, they were all posted to the page I wrote the note from. During my own Forum post and my comments on other classmates posts, those organized notes helped me to quickly find points I wanted to reference and also helped me to quickly find more information about those points instead of flipping through pages and pages of highlighted text.

There are some habits I could definitely build on in order to help me have more ownership and become a more purposeful and creative reader of texts. One of those habits would be reading ONLY the section of the text until reaching the next heading. I tend to skip ahead, especially when I'm excited about a good read, and it can often cause me to become distracted and lose my focused train of thought. Building this habit will help me to prepare for engaging in discussions about the text with my peers by keeping me focused on the question at present, answering it, and writing good notes to support my thoughts. Another habit I need to build on is reciting my notes. To be honest, I didn't recite them with this assignment although I did re-read what I wrote down. However, I am aware that speaking them aloud will help with memory retention, which, in turn, will prepare me for engaging discussions with peers on the text. 

As I mentioned above, my experience with the SQ4R was great. Initially, I thought I was pretty good at reading for comprehension and that my highlighting process had been perfected. However, the SQ4R strategy has forever changed how I will read moving forward.