Further Reading — Chapter 19

Reading to Learn: How to Actually Get Something from a Textbook (Including This One)

This annotated bibliography provides resources for deeper exploration of the concepts introduced in Chapter 19. Sources are organized by tier following this textbook's citation honesty system.

Tier 1 — Verified Sources

These are well-known, widely available works that the authors are confident exist with the details provided.

Foundational Works on Reading Strategies

Robinson, F. P. (1946). Effective Study. New York: Harper & Brothers.

This is the book that introduced SQ3R to the world. Robinson developed the method while working with returning World War II veterans at Ohio State University who were enrolling in college under the GI Bill and struggling with academic reading. The book is a practical manual, not a research report, but Robinson's intuitions about effective reading anticipated what cognitive science would later confirm: that previewing, self-questioning, and self-testing during reading dramatically improve comprehension and retention. The original text is out of print but available in many university libraries, and SQ3R has been reproduced in virtually every study skills textbook published since.

Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). "Improving Students' Learning with Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions from Cognitive and Educational Psychology." Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4-58.

This landmark review evaluated ten popular learning techniques and rated each for its effectiveness. The review's treatment of rereading (rated "low utility") and highlighting (rated "low utility") provides the empirical basis for this chapter's argument that passive reading strategies don't work. The review also rates practice testing (high utility) and distributed practice (high utility) — the strategies embedded in the Before-During-After Protocol. At 55 pages, this is a thorough and accessible review that every student of learning science should read. It's freely available online and is one of the most-cited papers in educational psychology.

Metacomprehension Research

Maki, R. H. (1998). "Test Predictions Over Text Material." In D. J. Hacker, J. Dunlosky, & A. C. Graesser (Eds.), Metacognition in Educational Theory and Practice (pp. 117-144). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Maki's chapter provides a comprehensive review of metacomprehension research — the studies showing that students are remarkably poor at judging their own reading comprehension. The chapter documents the typical metacomprehension correlation (approximately 0.27) and explores the factors that contribute to poor calibration: fluency, familiarity, and the confusion of recognition with recall. This chapter is the primary source for the metacomprehension statistics cited in Section 19.1.

Thiede, K. W., Anderson, M. C. M., & Therriault, D. (2003). "Accuracy of Metacognitive Monitoring Affects Learning of Texts." Journal of Educational Psychology, 95(1), 66-73.

This study demonstrated that having students generate keywords (summaries) after a delay improved their metacomprehension accuracy compared to students who generated keywords immediately or not at all. The finding supports the chapter's recommendation to do comprehension checkpoints after each section — delayed self-testing improves not just learning but metacognitive calibration. The study is relatively short and clearly written, making it accessible to advanced undergraduates.

Speed-Reading Research

Rayner, K., Schotter, E. R., Masson, M. E. J., Potter, M. C., & Treiman, R. (2016). "So Much to Read, So Little Time: How Do We Read, and Can Speed Reading Help?" Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 17(1), 4-34.

This is the definitive review of speed-reading claims. Rayner and colleagues examine the eye-movement research that demonstrates the biological limits of reading speed, evaluate specific speed-reading techniques (suppressing subvocalization, reducing fixations, using visual guides), and conclude that there is no evidence for dramatic speed increases without corresponding comprehension losses. The review is thorough, evidence-based, and clearly written. If you know anyone who believes in speed-reading, this is the paper to share with them.

Books on Effective Reading and Learning

Brown, P. C., Roediger, H. L., III, & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. Harvard University Press.

Chapter 3 ("Mix Up Your Practice") and Chapter 5 ("Avoid Illusions of Knowing") are particularly relevant to Chapter 19's themes. The discussion of illusions of knowing directly parallels the reading illusion — the feeling of comprehension that masks a failure to encode. The book's practical advice on retrieval practice and self-testing complements the Before-During-After Protocol.

Oakley, B. (2014). A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra). New York: TarcherPerigee.

Oakley's accessible treatment of reading and studying includes excellent advice on reading difficult scientific and mathematical texts. Her concepts of "focused mode" and "diffuse mode" thinking relate to the chapter's discussion of when to read carefully versus when to step back and let ideas percolate. Particularly useful for students who struggle with reading STEM textbooks.

Adler, M. J., & Van Doren, C. (1972). How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading. New York: Touchstone.

Originally published in 1940, this classic predates cognitive science but anticipates many of its findings. Adler and Van Doren distinguish between four levels of reading: elementary, inspectional (skimming), analytical, and syntopical (reading multiple sources on one topic). Their concept of "inspectional reading" maps onto the Survey/Preview step of SQ3R, and their concept of "analytical reading" maps onto the deep reading with annotation that this chapter recommends. The book is opinionated and occasionally dated but contains insights that remain valuable.

Tier 2 — Attributed Sources

These are findings and claims attributed to specific researchers or research traditions. The general claims are well-established in the literature, but specific publication details beyond what is provided have not been independently verified for this bibliography.

Research by Thomas and Robinson on PQ4R.

E. L. Thomas and H. A. Robinson expanded SQ3R into PQ4R in their 1972 textbook Improving Reading in Every Class. The addition of the Reflect step addressed a known weakness of SQ3R: students could go through the five steps mechanically without engaging in deep processing. The Reflect step forces elaborative processing — asking "why?", generating examples, and connecting to prior knowledge — which subsequent research has identified as the most important component of effective reading. PQ4R has been widely adopted in educational psychology and study skills instruction.

Research by Meyer and colleagues on text structure.

Bonnie Meyer and her collaborators have published extensively on the role of text structure awareness in reading comprehension. Their work demonstrates that readers who can identify a text's organizational pattern (cause-effect, compare-contrast, problem-solution, sequence, description) comprehend and remember the text significantly better than readers who don't attend to structure. Meyer's research provides the empirical foundation for the Genre Shift technique discussed in Section 19.7.

Research by Pressley, Afflerbach, and others on verbal protocols during reading.

Michael Pressley, Peter Afflerbach, and others used think-aloud protocols to study what skilled readers do while reading. Their research revealed that expert readers actively monitor their comprehension, adjust their reading speed based on difficulty, generate questions, and connect new information to prior knowledge — essentially performing many elements of SQ3R/PQ4R spontaneously. Novice readers, by contrast, tend to read at a constant speed with little self-monitoring. This research supports the chapter's argument that active reading is a skill that can be taught, not an innate talent.

Research by Callender and McDaniel on annotation and highlighting.

Aimee Callender and Mark McDaniel conducted studies comparing different annotation strategies, finding that students who wrote marginal notes and summaries significantly outperformed students who highlighted on subsequent comprehension tests. Their research supports the chapter's recommendation to replace highlighting with the Marginal Dialogue technique. Importantly, the studies found that the annotation condition and the highlighting condition required similar amounts of time — the benefit came from processing depth, not time on task.

Research by Kintsch on text comprehension.

Walter Kintsch's construction-integration model of text comprehension describes reading as an active construction process in which the reader builds a mental representation of the text (the "textbase") and then integrates it with prior knowledge to form a "situation model." Kintsch's model explains why passive reading produces only shallow comprehension: without the integration step, the reader builds a textbase (understanding the sentences) but never constructs a situation model (understanding the meaning). The Before-During-After Protocol's comprehension checkpoints and connection activities are designed to promote situation model construction.

Tier 3 — Illustrative Sources

These are constructed examples, composite cases, or pedagogical resources created for this textbook.

Mia Chen — composite character. Based on common patterns in reading comprehension research. Mia's reading transformation (Case Study 1) illustrates the shift from passive to active reading, including specific behaviors documented in metacomprehension and study strategy research. Her before/after comparison reflects the typical magnitude of improvement found when students adopt structured reading strategies.

Priya, Marcus Thompson, and Jasmine — composite characters. Case Study 2 constructs three students reading in three different genres to illustrate text structure awareness. Marcus Thompson is the career-changer introduced in Chapter 1 and developed in Chapters 4, 9, 11, 17, and 18. Priya and Jasmine are new characters created for this case study to illustrate genre-specific reading challenges.

The Before-During-After Protocol — synthesized technique. This reading system was constructed for this textbook by combining the evidence-based elements of SQ3R, PQ4R, and contemporary research on retrieval practice, elaboration, and metacomprehension monitoring. It is not a previously published protocol but rather a synthesis of well-established strategies packaged for practical use.

Recommended Next Steps

If you want to go deeper on Chapter 19's topics before moving to Chapter 20, here's a prioritized reading path:

1. Highest priority: Read the Dunlosky et al. (2013) review. It covers all major learning strategies, including the rereading and highlighting research that underlies this chapter. It's long (55 pages) but clearly written and freely available online. Budget 2-3 hours, or focus on the sections on rereading, highlighting, practice testing, and summarization. Budget 45-60 minutes for the focused version.

2. If the speed-reading debunk interested you: Read Rayner et al. (2016). It's a thorough, evidence-based review that covers the biology of eye movements, the limits of visual processing, and the specific claims of speed-reading programs. Budget 1-2 hours.

3. If metacomprehension is what you want to understand better: Read Thiede et al. (2003) for the experimental evidence that delayed self-testing improves metacomprehension accuracy. Budget 30-45 minutes.

4. If you want the classic book on reading: Read How to Read a Book by Adler and Van Doren. Despite being published in 1940 (revised 1972), its framework for four levels of reading remains useful. Budget several hours for the full book, or read Part 1 (the four levels) in about an hour.

5. If you want a broad overview of reading science: Read Chapter 5 of Willingham's Why Don't Students Like School? His treatment of "knowledge is sticky" and the role of prior knowledge in comprehension complements this chapter's discussion of schema activation during the Before phase.

Online Resources

The Learning Scientists (learningscientists.org). Their resources on retrieval practice, elaboration, and dual coding connect directly to the annotation and comprehension checkpoint strategies discussed in this chapter. Downloadable posters and guides are available for free.

Retrieval Practice website (retrievalpractice.org). Resources on embedding retrieval practice into reading sessions — including specific prompts and protocols that complement the Before-During-After Protocol.

"How to Read a Paper" by S. Keshav. A widely circulated three-page guide to reading scientific research papers that outlines a three-pass approach similar to the non-linear reading order discussed in Case Study 2. Freely available online and frequently assigned in graduate programs across disciplines.

Coursera: "Learning How to Learn" by Barbara Oakley. The lectures on reading and study strategies complement this chapter's practical recommendations. The course is free to audit and presents many of the same underlying principles (chunking, retrieval practice, illusions of competence) in video format.

End of Further Reading for Chapter 19.