This week, we are covering the top skills and habits of successful students. Today, we tackle reading for meaning. There is no academic skill as powerful as efficient reading for meaning. If a student can quickly pull out the main ideas from texts, understand the hidden structure and organization of academic and fiction works, and connect secondary terms and concepts with the thesis, then he or she will be on the fast track to producing outstanding grades.

Mind-space is reserved only for important ideas

Efficient and skilled readers focus only on important information and do not waste precious mind-space on inessential data. The mind, for all of its miraculous abilities, is quite limited in its ability to recall information from working short-term memory. The only solution to this biological constraint is to avoid overwhelming the mind with unimportant information. Thus, a skilled reader truly digests the main ideas, understands how they are supported with other secondary concepts and terms, and discards the bulk of unnecessary detail that fills up most chapters and texts.

To give a metaphor that may help you understand the problem, you might think of Olympic distance runners. In races such as the 1,500, 5,000, or 10,000 meter run, the most successful runners are the most efficient runners. It is biologically impossible for humans to run at peak effort over 5,000 or 10,000 meters; the body cannot produce enough energy to maintain a sprint over such distance. Instead, medal winners keep a steady, efficient pace through the bulk of the distance and use their max effort only for the final lap. Gold medal winners have strength to close out the race because they have identified the most important portion of the contest and focused their energies on that piece.

Just as it is impossible for the body to maintain max effort over long distances when running, it is also impossible for the mind to hold onto all of the details and information contained in a chapter of a textbook. The mind simply cannot process and retain all of the information in a single chapter from a high school or college textbook or novel, much less all of the details from 5 or more classes at once. There is far too much information! Instead, a successful student knows how to identify the structure and clues from the text that point to the most important information, like the thesis, key terms, and supporting evidence. An inefficient student will treat all information as equal in value, with no thought as to priority. Such a method leads to results below the student’s true capabilities.

A student who reads for meaning and efficiency focuses his or her effort on identifying, breaking down, and processing the most important information. The thesis, connected secondary ideas and key terms are like the final lap of an Olympic distance race. They are the elements that champions focus upon.

Unfortunately, most students have no idea how to do such efficient reading. These skills are not taught in schools, even though they are the backbone of academic performance and understanding. Instead, most students rely on memorization, an unproductive learning technique that is severely limited by the biological constraints on our short-term working memory.

If you or your child wants to learn to be an efficient student and how to read for meaning, take useful notes, prepare for exams, and write academic essays, then please take a look at our Learning to Learn study skills and methods program for middle, high school, and college students.