Study Skills for Higher Education: Active Reading Techniques Essay

This essay explores essential study skills for higher education, emphasizing the significance of active reading techniques and strategies for improving personal reading habits. It highlights the importance of study skills in organizing and retaining information, particularly for higher education students. Active reading techniques such as identifying new words, reading with a pencil, making shrinking outlines, and finding the main idea are discussed, emphasizing their role in enhancing concentration, vocabulary, and comprehension. The essay also delves into personal reading habits, acknowledging challenges like maintaining concentration and making reading engaging. It proposes practical solutions, including meditation, creating inspiring study environments, scheduling reading times, setting goals, and using creative note-taking methods. The conclusion reinforces the importance of study skills in higher education and advocates for the continuous development of reading and learning abilities. Desklib provides a platform for students to access similar resources and solved assignments.

Study skills for higher
education

Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Explanation of active reading techniques and their significance for students.............................3
Explanation of own reading habits and how to improve reading techniques..............................4
CONCLUISION .............................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Study skills are described as a set of practices which aids an individual in handling the
process of organising and retaining information as well as dealing with evaluations (Cameron,
2019). In order to develop study skills effectively individuals can polish their reading and
concentration exercises. In getting higher education, these study skills are essentially required for
effective learning.
This essay highlights the importance of active reading techniques. This essay also talks
about personal experience of individuals in improving reading techniques.
MAIN BODY
Explanation of active reading techniques and their significance for students
Active reading skills are defined as learning abilities of individuals in order to determine
and evaluate relevance of module (Cottrell, 2020). Identification and improvement of active
reading skills is beneficial for students as it aids them in increase their concentration levels in
learning a specified module. It also helps students in highlight key information for further
reference. Varied active reading skills which are used by students are identifying new words,
read with pencil, making a shrinking outline and finding the main ideal or thesis.
Effective reading helps students in identifying new words which further aids in
enhancing their vocabulary (Lim, 2018). It is desirable to underline the difficult words while
reading an article or a book. It is beneficial for students as it assists them to learn high frequency
words which is desired for speaking fluently and improve comprehension. Expanding of
vocabulary helps students in having unlimited access to new knowledge or information. It also
assists in improvise their understanding of word origin.
Another technique that can be developed in students through enhancing their reading
skills is making a shrinking outline. It states that rewrite the key phrases which helps in learning
efficiently (Medeiros, Ramalho and Falcão, 2018). It also improves writing as well as learning
skills of individuals.

It can be a time consuming process but it help learners to have remembrance of their
lessons for long time (Nisbet and Shucksmith, 2017). It also helps to increase writing sped of
individuals which help them to make their notes faster and saves their time. This practice is
significant for individuals as it provides them to make structured and systematic notes which
further helps in preparing effectively for tests.
Reading with pencil is also an efficient technique of enhancing learning in individuals. It
is significant for students as it aids them in writing notes by hands (Sera and McPherson, 2019).
Students can also mark difficult or key words with pencil which does not make their books ugly.
It is effective as compared to highlighter which makes learning material dirty.
It is desirable to make reading experience effective by finding the main idea or thesis.
This skill is needed for reading the hard module as it it is important to find the main idea which
focuses on learning aspects of individuals (Wibrowski, Matthews and Kitsantas, 2017). It is a
crucial task while attempting comprehension. As tile or main idea is important to find while
doing comprehension activities. It is important as it streamlines all the activities in
comprehending an article. Finding of main idea or thesis is important for students in order to
understand the whole paragraph altogether.
Explanation of own reading habits and how to improve reading techniques
Reading habit is significant as it helps in developing individual's knowledge and
information (Trautwein and Bosse, 2017). It also assists individuals in keeping their mind active
and enhancing creative and innovative abilities. It also helps me improving my communication
skills and vocabulary. I know the significance of reading habits but I am not very good at
reading, I lose my concentration very fast and it seems to be boring after a point of time. I love to
read fantasy novels and stories but whenever it comes to my course module, it seems to very
boring. However, in order to pass tests, it is important for me to develop my reading habits so
that I can get good grades.
For developing and improvising my reading habits, I will start mediations in morning as
this will help me in increasing my concentration levels. I will try to read in environment which
inspires to learn in an effective manner. I will schedule my timings for reading course modules
as well as novels so that I will not get bored.

I will set goals to read a particular lesson from my module and prepare notes as well as
highlight key words with pencil in order to read them further. I will also keep a recording journal
with me that aids me in writing notes whenever I remember.
In order to improve my reading habits, I will some use some creative sticky notes to
markup the pages. As creativity inspires me to read effectively. I will increase my reading habits
through sitting in a calm and quiet environment which will aids me in focusing towards different
lessons.
CONCLUISION
From the above essay report, it has been concluded that study skills are significant for
developing growth of individuals while pursuing higher education. Study skills are needed by
students to tackle and mange information they get from their lessons. Active reading skills are
helpful for students in focusing towards learning module through use of pencil and making
shrinking outline. For developing reading habits it is essential for individuals to avoid any sort of
distractions and focusing on learning modules. It is desirable to test individual's potential
abilities through reading and learning. It is significant to use shrinking outline that helps in
making key phrases in learning and practising for test. It is important to develop the skill of
finding main idea and thesis which helps in comprehending articles effectively.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Cameron, L., 2019. Adjusting the balance of power: initial self-assessment in study skills for
higher education-a case study. In Assessment & Evaluation (pp. 63-72). Routledge.
Cottrell, S., 2020. Teaching study skills and supporting learning. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Lim, D., 2018. Quality assurance in higher education: A study of developing countries.
Routledge.
Medeiros, R.P., Ramalho, G.L. and Falcão, T.P., 2018. A systematic literature review on
teaching and learning introductory programming in higher education. IEEE
Transactions on Education. 62(2). pp.77-90.
Nisbet, J. and Shucksmith, J., 2017. Learning strategies. Routledge.
Sera, L. and McPherson, M. L., 2019. Effect of a study skills course on student self-assessment
of learning skills and strategies. Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning. 11(7).
pp.664-668.
Trautwein, C. and Bosse, E., 2017. The first year in higher education—critical requirements
from the student perspective. Higher education. 73(3). pp.371-387.
Wibrowski, C. R., Matthews, W. K. and Kitsantas, A., 2017. The role of a skills learning support
program on first-generation college students’ self-regulation, motivation, and academic
achievement: A longitudinal study. Journal of College Student Retention: Research,
Theory & Practice. 19(3). pp.317-332.