Assess Your Reading Style

Reading Strategies Questionnaire

Directions: Read each question and click on one of the three suggested answers. Which answer comes the closest to your behavior, feeling or attitude as it actually is, not as you would like it to be, or think it should be? Honesty here will give you the best feedback about your reading style.

1. As I read literature, I am aware of how quickly or how slowly I am reading. In fact,

sometimes I think I need to hurry up or slow down, depending on what I am reading.

my reading speed naturally varies and I am aware of and comfortable with that as I read different types of literature.

I think the ideal reader reads fast, so reading slowly always bothers me.

2. When I read literature, one of my strategies is to mark and annotate passages that seem significant.

I have not thought too much about that option.

I do this usually when I am reading to analyze the work.

I have marked textbooks I study, but I think it would get in the way of reading literature.

3. If I reread a work, I consciously try to set a goal for doing that, such as enjoying it again, reading to understand some aspect better, or to analyze some element more closely.

Maybe, but not often.

Definitely yes.

No way.

4. Sometimes I am aware of my strategies not working and I then look to others to see what they did to read and respond to the work.

It can be useful to learn about different way to read something but not particularly enjoyable.

Others discussing something I did not understand makes me uncomfortable.

I enjoy discussing works and especially how someone managed a work difficult for me to read.

5. In order for me to enjoy a fiction or poem, I know I need to identify with a familiar character or emotion to fully appreciate the work.

Sometimes I choose to identify with characters and sometimes I choose not to. I might enjoy doing either.

Yes I am aware of this and look forward to that sense of the familiar.

If it happens, it happens. I don't think about it.

6. On occasion the characters less focused on or only barely mentioned can be very interesting to think about.

Not for me; if they are not developed, that's the way it is supposed to be.

Only if it turns out they are important to the plot or main characters development.

Yes; sometimes they seem to be a key to more meaning than even the writer knew.

7. I enjoy "reading beyond the ending" and "between the lines" of a work. I like to fill in the empty spaces of a work in my imagination.

On occasion I will do this.

Sometimes I can imagine writing in these spaces myself.

I like to be told what to imagine and to focus on that.

8. I am conscious of being alert to well written or impressive images, language or style. In fact, I

might do something like read these passages aloud to increase my appreciation.

actually do read aloud to others and sometimes mark or copy these passages in order to fully appreciate them.

assume everyone is.

9. When I read, I enjoy noticing patterns of action, language or images.

Patterns help me understand it as a work of art.

Patterns might escape my notice or even bore me.

Patterns could be helpful in figuring out what it means.

10. When I read, I like to formulate questions such as "Why did the author write it that way and not another?"

I usually do not question why a text is the way it is.

I might ask about something that seems strange in a text.

I like thinking in terms of the decisions of the author and what his or her choices might have been.

Scores

Score 91 - 100
Totally Metacognitive Reader

You seem to be totally aware of not only different strategies for reading literature, but how to use them, shift them, or recombine them to achieve your purpose in reading. If you find one strategy not working, you can apply another. You may in fact enjoy thinking about these processes and about thinking itself.

Score 81 - 90
Usually Metacognitive Reader

While you score high and no doubt have some of the attitudes of the Totally Metacognitive Reader, you may at times be less willing to reflect on processes of reading or be less agile in shifting tactics to see what works. Or you may not be quite as experienced in the various techniques and thus not as aware of them.

Score 71 - 80
Sometimes Metacognitive

You are aware of different strategies but may not be conscious of them as processes you use or can control. Reading may seem more like it needs to be an act of surrendering an active kind of monitoring of your thought processes in favor of turning that over to the work being read, whereas that is one strategy for reading.

Score 51 - 70
Usually Unaware of Reading Strategies

You may be simply unaware of the fact that reading is a set of methods, strategies, or tactics that one might execute without being particularly aware of them. It could be that you have not had enough experience reading a variety of texts that ask you (teach you?) how to shift your tactics consciously.

Score 50 and below
Consciously Resist Thinking about Thinking

Have you ever seen the bumper sticker, "You can make me go to college, but you can't make me think!" Well you may feel that way about the activity of reading and especially reading literature. If you have had shall we say "forceful" instruction in reading, you may "turn off" or "shut down" when others talk about how they read what they read.

Feedback:

Metacognition is the fancy term being used these days to mean thinking about thinking. Some high performance activities require that the performer NOT be metacognitive while the activity is going on. If, for example, you think too much about walking while you are walking, you could lose your rhythm and stumble! However, even in physical activity, there is still a part of the person which is monitoring and taking account of feedback, even if you are walking while talking on a cell phone and gesturing. How conscious one is of that is another question.

Readers need to be metacognitive to varying degrees at different times and for different texts. For example, a reader will succeed better if the reader thinks about what he or she is reading (fiction? nonfiction?) so that different standards and expectations can apply for what it might say or how one might interpret it. Some escapist reading in which one immerses oneself might not require much more metacognition than that. But some works can require much alterness on your part to how things are going. You might have to prepare to read it, to select or shift strategies, to monitor their effectiveness, to combine strategies, and to evaluate them.

There are questions one can keep in mind as one reads and if you have answers for them, you are becoming Metacognitive!

1. What am I trying to achieve as I read this?

2. What strategies am I using to make sense of it?

3. How well are they working?

4. What else might I try?

Beyond this set of questions, you need to add to your bag of tricks, your set of options, your different things to try, what some call your repertoire--techniques which we hope you will learn from this website! Now you can think about thinking about thinking!

Links

Much literature is available which teaches about metacognition in reading generally. For example, here is Norma Decker Collins, "Metacognition and Reading to Learn" (ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading, English, and Communication Digest #96) <http://www.indiana.edu/~eric_rec/ieo/digests/d96.html>

This brief article plus its links might also be helpful: Julie Coiro, "Making Sense of Reading Strategies" <http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/reading/9169>

And here is another brief but useful page on Metacognition and reading from Indiana University <http://www.indiana.edu/~l517/metacognition.html>.