Painless Reading Comprehension - Darolyn “Lyn” Jones Ed.D. 2021

Rereading part of the text
Keeping what you read in your head

What if you have to know by memory the information in the reading assignment for a discussion, quiz, or test? What if there is no assignment and your teacher has told you to just study and know the information? How do you know what you are supposed to know? How do you know what is important? You might think that if you read it once, you know it. But that’s not always possible.

PAINLESS TIP

Even the very best readers must reread and take notes to remember what they read.

Unless you are the author or an expert in the topic, there is no way you can know everything you read.

Taking notes

When I was in high school, I received some very good advice from a teacher. I had performed poorly on a quiz about a novel we were reading in class, and I asked the teacher what I had done wrong.

“But I read the chapter and listened in class!” I insisted.

“Apparently you were not reading or listening closely enough,” said Mrs. M.

And I retorted, “Well, no offense Mrs. M., but this stuff is boring!”

And Mrs. M., unmoved by my smart-aleck and defensive remark, replied, “If you are bored while you read or listen, then take notes. It keeps your brain awake so you don’t get bored!”

I thought about that, tried it, and it worked! Mrs. M. was right. (Teachers generally are!) Taking notes keeps your hands moving, which guarantees that your brain will stay awake and alert and keep you connected to the words and their meaning.

When you sleep, your body temperature drops. The same is true with your reading brain. When you are reading or listening and your alert or awake brain changes to napping or drooling, your brain goes cold. When your brain goes cold, rigor mortis can set in and no meaning can penetrate.

Think about it! You have all stayed up really late reading a book or a magazine because you just couldn’t stop reading. When you are really into something, your brain is not just warm—it’s hot!

Not everything you read will be interesting to you. Not everything will make your brain hot or even warm, but you need to read to learn! So take notes!

Whenever I find myself getting bored or napping while I am reading or listening to a presentation, I stop, reread, and take notes. By doing something with my hands and my brain, I can stay focused and keep what I read in my head.

RADAR

So, how do you take notes? You turn on and use your reading RADAR: Read, Anticipate, Decide, Analyze, Record. Radar focuses in on something specific. An air traffic controller uses radar to see exactly where planes are in the sky. Ground troops in the military use ground surveillance radar to detect enemy movement of troops or vehicles. Bats even use a type of radar. They can’t see, but they emit sound waves that work like radar. When the sound hits an object, it sends the sound back to the bat, allowing the bat to see the object ahead.

PAINLESS TIP

Read, Anticipate, Decide, Analyze, Record

Using reading RADAR is an effective way to reread and find the important ideas. RADAR allows you to see all the words on the page and to focus in on only the information that bounced back to your brain.

When you reread for an assignment, a class discussion, a quiz, or a test, you will anticipate what you will need to read for or what information you will have to know, you will then decide what is the most important to know and remember, you will analyze (stop, examine, and think about that information critically), and then you will record that analyzed information in your notes.

Let’s practice!

Pretend your teacher says, “There will be a ten-point quiz tomorrow on how Gandhi used civil disobedience successfully in India.”

Go back to Chapter Three and reread the selection on civil disobedience (pages 29—30). After you have finished rereading, can you explain how Gandhi used civil disobedience? You are probably at a loss unless you took some notes! Now check out the following student model. I asked the student to write down his thoughts—in his own words—as they came to him.

Student example: RADAR

READ:

I will go back and quickly reread the article in order to be ready for this quiz.

ANTICIPATE:

I anticipate that I will have to know how Gandhi used civil disobedience successfully in India.

DECIDE:

As I read, whenever I read those two words civil disobedience, I will need to be able to decipher if the information is about how he used civil disobedience in India and how he used it in an effective and useful way.

ANALYZE:

I need to think critically and make inferences. It says that civil disobedience doesn’t use violence. Gandhi was a lawyer who was discriminated against so he led protests to help people like him. Protests aren’t violent but they get people’s attention. He got the idea from an American who wrote about it when trying to get the government to get out of the Mexican War.

RECORD:

I need to write my thinking down. Gandhi was discriminated against by the British and this upset him. He couldn’t get a job in India so he moved to South Africa, and for twenty years, he protested the British there and got rid of laws against the Indians that said they weren’t really married and charged them more taxes. He came back to India and protested for forty years against the military in India. Hundreds of Indians joined him on a march. He was arrested but was considered a hero for shaking up the British.

By using RADAR and writing down his thoughts for the quiz, this student was able to look at some specific ideas on what to read and know for this quiz.

Let’s practice!

Now it’s your turn. Pretend your teacher says to you, “Be prepared for a class discussion on what makes Chris Crutcher such a good writer for teens.” Reread the selection on author Chris Crutcher in Chapter Three (pages 37—39), and then complete the RADAR notes. Write or type something for all the letters. You don’t have to use complete sentences. You may record words, phrases, or fragments—anything that helps you to remember what makes Crutcher a good writer for teens.

PAINLESS TIP

Turn on your reading RADAR to:

Read

Anticipate

Decide

Analyze

Record

Reflect on what you have learned!

1. Would you have remembered all you needed to know about why Crutcher makes such a good writer for teens if you hadn’t used the RADAR method? Did the RADAR method help you focus your reading? What worked the best for you on the RADAR method? Was it the A in anticipate, the A in analyze, or the R in record, or was it all of them working together?

2. What if you don’t have any direction when you read? What if your teacher doesn’t tell you what is going to be on the quiz or test or what you have to know for the class discussion? For example, in the student example and the one you did yourself, the teacher told you to know how Gandhi used civil disobedience and what makes Chris Crutcher a good writer for teens. How do you know what to anticipate, decide, analyze, or record if you aren’t told?

Tell a friend!

Another way to help you remember what you read and keep it in your head is to write, text, or tell someone (read and think aloud!), like your best friend, your grandma, or your teacher. It’s a different and more fun way to remember and keep what you read in your head.

In your message or while you are talking to someone:

✵ Tell the person the title of what you are reading or a description of the title.

✵ Tell them the gist of what the reading was about. Use the question words as a guide—Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. They may not all apply. It depends on what kind of reading it is.

✵ Describe what stood out for you. What was interesting? What did you like or agree with about what you read?

✵ Tell what you didn’t like, disagreed with, or what confused you. What didn’t you understand about the reading?

✵ Choose three quotes, lines, passages, or events from the reading that you think are important and explain why they are important.

Check out an example of a text message about John Green’s novel, The Fault in Our Stars:

What’s up Neecy!

I am reading fault in our stars by john green

it’s awes!

takN a br8k to tell u all bout it

It’s about this grl who has cancA and she meets and falls in luv with a boyo who has cancA 2

de liv in Indy

grl is dying and she meets boyo in a cancA support teen group

the grl is syk and the boyo init

But I think there is se twistD comng nxt

I wndr if boyo will get syk too

My fav parts are when grl Hazel and boyo Augustus learn they love the same buk and ritR

wn they vzit the :-X bones at IMA

when they X the 1st time and Hazel fnly agrees to fall in luv evn tho she has cancA wn boyo makes her wsh 2fly 2 meet her fav ritR in Amsterdam come 2ru

I luv the scen wo de are planning for this wyld trip

the mom is actually kul bout them gng 2gthr

But I dnt get how grl can be so syk and need o2 and still fly

Cnt w8 to read what hpns nxt!

I dnt ever want to get cancA

livN with it swNdz as hrd as dyiN from it

but I hOp I fall in luv with a boyo lk him

read it w/ me plz!

LOL jen

Use this strategy with note writing, email, or online messaging, too. Find a friend who is reading the same thing as you, and exchange conversation, text messages, or Instagram posts about the reading. You and your friend can answer each other’s questions. By having this virtual discussion, you are studying and keeping what you read in your head.

Let’s practice!

A short story, “A School Ghost Story,” follows. Read it and write an email or text message to a friend about what you just read!

English Selection: “A School Ghost Story” by M. R. James

Introduction to the Story: Two Men Talk About Being Boys and Their Love of Ghost Stories

Two men are talking about their favorite ghost stories from when they attended a private boarding school together. “At our school,” said A., “we had a ghost’s footprint on the staircase.”

“What was it like?”

“Oh, very unconvincing. Just the shape of a shoe, with a square toe, if I remember right. The staircase was a stone one. I never heard any story about the thing. That seems odd, when you come to think of it. Why didn’t somebody invent one, I wonder?”

I Remember Ghost Tales from School

“Let’s see if I can remember the ghost stories from my school. First, there was the house with a room in which a series of people insisted on passing at night; and each of them in the morning was found kneeling in a corner and had just time to say, ’I’ve seen it,’ and died.”

“Wasn’t that the house in Berkeley Square?”

“I dare say it was. Then there was the man who heard a noise in the passage at night, opened his door, and saw someone crawling toward him on all fours with his eye hanging out on his cheek. There was, besides, let me think—Yes! the room where a man was found dead in bed with a horseshoe mark on his forehead, and the floor under the bed was covered with marks of horseshoes also; I don’t know why. Also, there was the lady who, on locking her bedroom door in a strange house, heard a thin voice among the bed curtains say, ’Now we’re shut in for the night.’ None of those had any explanation or sequel. I wonder if they go on still, those stories.”

I Have a Good Ghost Story: Listen Up

“From the way in which you said that, I gather that you have.”

“I have a ghost story. It happened at my private school thirty-odd years ago, and I haven’t any explanation of it.

“The school I mean was near London. It was established in a large and fairly old house—a great white building with very fine grounds about it.

“I came to the school in September, soon after the year 1870; and among the boys who arrived on the same day was one whom I took to: a Highland boy, whom I will call McLeod. I needn’t spend time in describing him: the main thing is that I got to know him very well. He was not an exceptional boy in any way—not particularly good at books or games—but he suited me.

“The school was a large one: there must have been from 120 to 130 boys there as a rule, and so a considerable staff of masters was required, and there were rather frequent changes among them.

The Ghost Story About Our Teacher, Mr. Sampson

“One term—perhaps it was my third or fourth—a new master made his appearance. His name was Sampson. He was a tallish, stoutish, pale, black-bearded man. I think we liked him: he had traveled a good deal and had stories that amused us on our school walks, so that there was some competition among us to get within earshot of him. I remember, too—dear me, I have hardly thought of it since then—that he had a charm on his watch chain that attracted my attention one day, and he let me examine it. It was, I now suppose, a gold Byzantine coin; there was an effigy of some absurd emperor on one side; the other side had been worn practically smooth, and he had had cut on it—rather barbarously—his own initials, G.W.S., and a date, 24 July 1865.

“Well, the first odd thing that happened was this. Sampson was doing Latin grammar with us. One of his favourite methods—perhaps it is rather a good one—was to make us construct sentences out of our own heads to illustrate the rules he was trying to make us learn. Now, on this occasion, he was telling us how to express remembering in Latin, and he ordered us each to make a sentence bringing in the verb memini, ’I remember.’

“Well, most of us made up some ordinary sentence, such as, ’I remember my father,’ or ’He remembers his book,’ or something equally uninteresting: and I dare say a good many put down memino librum meum, and so forth: but the boy I mentioned—McLeod—was evidently thinking of something more elaborate than that. The rest of us wanted to have our sentences passed and get on to something else, so some kicked him under the desk, and I, who was next to him, poked him and whispered to him to look sharp. But he didn’t seem to attend. I looked at his paper and saw he had put down nothing at all. So I jogged him again harder than before and upbraided him sharply for keeping us all waiting. That did have some effect.

“He started and seemed to wake up, and then very quickly he scribbled about a couple of lines on his paper and showed it up with the rest. As it was the last, or nearly the last, to come in, and as Sampson had a good deal to say to the boys who had written memini scimus patri meo and the rest of it, it turned out that the clock struck twelve before he had got to McLeod, and McLeod had to wait afterwards to have his sentence corrected. There was nothing much going on outside when I got out, so I waited for him to come.

Memento Putei Inter Quatuor Taxos “Remember . . .”

“He came very slowly when he did arrive, and I guessed there had been some sort of trouble. ’Well,’ I said, ’what did you get?’ ’Oh, I don’t know,’ said McLeod, ’nothing much; but I think Sampson’s rather sick with me.’ ’Why, did you show him up some rot?’ ’No fear,’ he said. ’It was all right as far as I could see: it was like this: Memento—that’s right enough for ’remember,’ and it takes a genitive—memento putei inter quatuor taxos.’ ’What silly rot!’ I said. ’What made you shove that down? What does it mean?’ ’That’s the funny part,’ said McLeod. ’I’m not quite sure what it does mean. All I know is, it just came into my head and I corked it down. I know what I think it means, because just before I wrote it down I had a sort of picture of it in my head. I believe it means ’Remember the well among the four’—what are those dark sort of trees that have red berries on them?’

“’Mountain ashes, I s’pose you mean.’ ’I never heard of them,’ said McLeod; ’no, I’ll tell you—yews.’ ’Well, and what did Sampson say?’

“’Why, he was jolly odd about it. When he read it he got up and went to the mantel-piece and stopped quite a long time without saying anything, with his back to me. And then he said, without turning round, and rather quiet, ’What do you suppose that means?’ I told him what I thought, only I couldn’t remember the name of the silly tree; and then he wanted to know why I put it down, and I had to say something or other. And after that, he left off talking about it and asked me how long I’d been here, and where my people lived, and things like that; and then I came away; but he wasn’t looking a bit well.’

“I don’t remember any more that was said by either of us about this. Next day McLeod took to his bed with a chill or something of the kind, and it was a week or more before he was in school again. And as much as a month went by without anything happening that was noticeable. Whether or not Mr. Sampson was really startled, as McLeod had thought, he didn’t show it. I am pretty sure, of course, now, that there was something very curious in his past history, but I’m not going to pretend that we boys were sharp enough to guess any such thing.

An Extra Paper, Marked in Red

“All the same, I noticed that he hadn’t taken any of the papers with him when he ran out. Well, the top paper on the desk was written in red ink—which no one used—and it wasn’t in anyone’s hand who was in the class. They all looked at it—McLeod and all—and took their dying oaths that it wasn’t theirs. Then I thought of counting the bits of paper. And of this I made quite certain: that there were seventeen bits of paper on the desk and sixteen boys in the dorm. Well, I bagged the extra paper and kept it, and I believe I have it now. And now you will want to know what was written on it. It was simple enough and harmless enough: Si tu non veneris ad me, ego veniam ad te, which means, I suppose, ’If you don’t come to me, I’ll come to you.’”

“Could you show me the paper?” interrupted the listener.

“Yes, I could: but there’s another odd thing about it. That same afternoon I took it out of my locker—I know for certain it was the same bit, for I made a finger mark on it and no single trace of writing of any kind was there on it. I kept it, as I said, and since that time I have tried various experiments to see whether sympathetic ink had been used, but absolutely without result.

“So much for that. After about half an hour, Sampson looked in again; he said he had felt very unwell and told us we might go. He came rather gingerly to his desk and gave just one look at the uppermost paper; and I suppose he thought he must have been dreaming. Anyhow, he asked no questions.

“That day was a half-holiday, and next day Sampson was in school again, much as usual. That night the third and last incident in my story happened.

A Stranger Visits Sampson in the Night

“We—McLeod and I—slept in a dormitory at right angles to the main building. Sampson slept in the main building on the first floor. There was a very bright full moon. At an hour which I can’t tell exactly, but some time between one and two, I was woken up by somebody shaking me. It was McLeod, and a nice state of mind he seemed to be in. ’Come,’ he said, ’come, there’s a burglar getting in through Sampson’s window.’ As soon as I could speak, I said, ’Well, why not call out and wake everybody up?’ ’No, no,’ he said, ’I’m not sure who it is. Don’t make a row; come and look.’ Naturally I came and looked, and naturally there was no one there. I was cross enough, and should have called McLeod plenty of names; only—I couldn’t tell why—it seemed to me that there was something wrong, something that made me very glad I wasn’t alone to face it. We were still at the window looking out, and as soon as I could, I asked him what he had heard or seen. ’I didn’t hear anything at all,’ he said, ’but about five minutes before I woke you, I found myself looking out of this window here, and there was a man sitting or kneeling on Sampson’s windowsill and looking in, and I thought he was beckoning.’ ’What sort of man?’ McLeod wriggled. ’I don’t know,’ he said, ’but I can tell you one thing—he was beastly thin: and he looked as if he was wet all over, and,’ he said, looking round and whispering as if he hardly liked to hear himself, ’I’m not at all sure that he was alive.’

“We went on talking in whispers some time longer and eventually crept back to bed. No one else in the room woke or stirred the whole time. I believe we did sleep a bit afterwards, but we were very cheap next day.

“And next day Mr. Sampson was gone—not to be found—and I believe no trace of him has ever come to light since. In thinking it over, one of the oddest things about it all has seemed to me to be the fact that neither McLeod nor I ever mentioned what we had seen to any third person whatever. Of course no questions were asked on the subject, and if they had been, I am inclined to believe that we could not have made any answer; we seemed unable to speak about it.

Sampson Is Discovered

“Later that same year at a country house in Ireland, my friend was turning over a drawer full of odds and ends in the smoking room. Suddenly he put his hand upon a little box. My friend opened the little box, and found in it a thin gold chain with an object attached to it. He glanced at the object and then took off his spectacles to examine it more narrowly. ’What’s the history of this?’ he asked. ’Odd enough,’ was the answer. ’You know the yew thicket in the shrubbery; well, a year or two back we were cleaning out the old well that used to be in the clearing here, and what do you suppose we found?’”

“Is it possible that you found a body?” said the visitor, with an odd feeling of nervousness.

“We did that; but what’s more, in every sense of the word, we found two.”

“Good Heavens! Two? Was there anything to show how they got there? Was this thing found with them?”

“It was. Amongst the rags of the clothes that were on one of the bodies. A bad business, whatever the story of it may have been. One body had the arms tight round the other. They must have been there thirty years or more—long enough before we came to this place. You may judge we filled the well up fast enough. Do you make anything of what’s cut on that gold coin you have there?”

“I think I can,” said my friend, holding it to the light (but he read it without much difficulty); “it seems to be G.W.S., 24 July 1865.”

PAINLESS TIP

One of the best ways you can remember what you read is to question. Questions:

✵ Make you curious

✵ Make you think

✵ Make you understand