By: Melissa Chen
The Reading is Fun Club emphasizes the importance of annotating while reading. Taking notes while reading books is important to help you organize your thoughts. For example, if you’re reading a mystery book and the author gives you small hints here and there, highlighting those hints can help you solve the mystery!
Here are some helpful tips to follow while reading:
Stack up on annotating materials. Post it notes, colored pens, and highlighters are some examples of annotating materials you should have with you. Using colored pens and highlighters can help you differentiate between what you are annotating. For example, you can underline new vocabulary words with a red pen and highlight phrases that you don’t know the meaning to. This also helps keep your ideas organized!
Jot down your thoughts and opinions. It is important to note down what you are reading so you can be more engaged and involved with the book while reading. Writing down your thoughts and opinions allows you to show how you interpreted the text at first glance. When you reread the same text later on, you can see how you first interpreted and compared. Each time you read the same line, you may pick up something new.
Don’t be afraid to write down what you want. If you encounter a word you’re not familiar with and you want to try to guess the meaning of the word before you look it up, take a chance and write down what you think the word means. Even if you think it is wrong, it doesn’t hurt to jot notes down. This helps you grow as a reader by building your inference and vocabulary skills!
The next time you read, take these three tips into consideration and you will go a long way!
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