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Active reading means engaging meaningfully with texts by asking questions, taking notes, making connections, and drawing conclusions before, during, and after you read. On this page, you’ll learn strategies for reading more actively, with the goal of absorbing, analyzing, and applying information.

Active vs. Passive Reading

Active reading is often contrasted with passive reading. Passive reading means reading the words on a page without engaging with them. While you might read a novel or another non-academic source passively, simply enjoying the sound of the words, it’s important to read scholarly works and other course texts actively. Here are some benefits to reading actively:

Active Reading Strategies: Pre-Reading Steps

Especially when pressed for time, it’s tempting to dive right into a reading assignment. But the steps you take before reading (also called prereading steps) can help you read more quickly and efficiently, improve understanding, and sustain focus. When faced with a difficult or lengthy reading, these six pre-reading tips encourage a smoother, more productive reading session:

Identify your ideal reading environment.

The location in which you read, as well as variables like the time of day and the length of a reading session, can impact your skill and efficiency. For example, while some students might prefer getting out of the house and reading in a busy coffee shop, others might need the quiet and comfort of a home office or study space to focus on an academic text. Understanding what works best for you is the first step in ensuring a productive reading session. To get a better understanding of who you are as a reader, you might complete a reading inventory:

Reading Inventory

Pay attention to the title.

The title is your first indication of the author’s argument—that is, what they have to say about a topic. Considering the title and what it suggests about the contents of the article helps orient you to what you are about to read, saving time and boosting comprehension.

Click on the icons in the image to see this pre-reading strategy in action.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Impact

In previewing the title for this article, try to make a few predictions: What do you think this article will be about? If you had to guess, what would you say the authors’ argument or thesis is?

 
 

Hygiene

Think, too, about looking up terms you aren’t familiar with. For example, do you know what "sleep hygiene” means? If not, look it up, as it will be important to your understanding of the article.

Preview the headings.

If you notice that an article or text includes section headings, give them a quick look. Headings are like mini-titles, but rather than capture the main idea or argument of the article, they clue you into the author’s supporting evidence. Taking a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the headings helps you map out the logic of the author’s argument.

Click on the icons in the image to learn more about how previewing the headings can help you read more efficiently.

Light

The first heading in this excerpt indicates that at least a portion of this article will focus on variables that impact sleep. For example, without digging into the text of the article, a reader can intuit that light affects sleep hygiene.

Napping

This heading points to another variable related to sleep hygiene: napping. Again, without reading the text, a reader can use the article’s organization to gain a general understanding of its content.

Take stock of what you already know.

Once you have a sense of the reading’s purpose, reflect on what you already know about its topic. What personal experience, if any, do you have with the subject? Have you seen a movie, read a book, or taken a class that connects to the topic? Activating your prior knowledge works as a sort of warm-up for your brain: you’ll have an easier time digesting new information if you can relate it to something you already know.

Here's how personal experience might help you to make predictions about the article’s contents:

Prior Knowledge Example: Personally, I can only sleep in a very dark room; therefore, my guess is that the authors will argue that too much light in a room makes it more difficult to sleep.

As you read, you might find that your prediction is wrong, and that’s okay: activating your prior knowledge is not about getting it right; it’s about priming your brain by recalling information you are already familiar with. It also establishes motivation for reading: to find out if your prediction is right.

Ask questions.

After previewing the title and headings, you should have a good idea of the reading’s main points. Based on your initial impressions, jot down a few questions you think the reading will answer. Better yet, if your instructor has assigned a set of reading comprehension or discussion questions, carefully review those beforehand.

Skim the first and final paragraphs.

The first paragraph of an article sets the stage, and so it’s both natural and strategic to skim it first. While skipping to the end of a reading might feel like cheating, knowing how it concludes helps you read with purpose. Once you know where you’re going, it’s much easier to muddle through the most complex and dense part of any article: the middle.

Active Reading Strategies: Reading Steps

After establishing a solid foundation in the pre-reading stage, you’re ready to begin reading. To read actively, find a notetaking strategy that works for you. You can begin by employing any or all of these four tips as you read:

Make Connections

One of the best ways to stay engaged as you read is to consider how the subject matter of the article applies to you: your goals, your community, your career, your family. As you draw comparisons and connections to your own life, jot them down in the margins of the article or on a separate piece of paper—they may come in handy when you sit down to write.

Read with Purpose

In the pre-reading stage, you established a set of questions you thought might be answered by the text, or you reviewed the set of reading questions your instructor assigned. Refer to those questions often while reading. Reading to answer specific questions fosters motivation, sustains focus, and helps you prioritize information, narrowing your attention to the most urgent and relevant content.

Notetaking Tip

As you read and find answers to your questions, take notes. By the time you finish reading, you’ll have created a helpful study guide or an outline for a discussion post or writing assignment!

Summarize as You Go

Read each paragraph carefully; then, in the margins of the text or on a separate piece of paper, write a one to two sentence summary of the paragraph’s main idea. Think of this mini-summary like a newspaper headline: in as few words as possible, sum up the main point of the paragraph. By the time you finish reading, you’ll have created a set of notes that can be used to review before a test, assignment, or discussion post.

Example Mini-Summary

Original Paragraph: “Sleep is a fundamental physiological process and a biological need, just like air, water and food. It is crucial for the health and wellbeing of all living things, and, especially for adolescents, it is significant for growth and development. Sleep problems are common among children during physical development; however, especially among adolescents, they can give rise to important physiological and psychological issues that have a significant impact on their families and caregivers” (Hayl et. al, 2025, para. 1).

Example Mini-Summary: Sleep is essential to adolescents’ psychological and physical health.

Pose New Questions

As you read, think of new questions. If you don’t understand something, make note of it. If something you read spurs a question or an idea, jot it down. You can research it later, bring it up with your instructor, or pose the question in a discussion post.

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While reading actively might seem like a daunting, time-consuming task, you’ll find that it saves you time in the long run. This is because you’ll read more efficiently, gaining a better, deeper understanding of what you read, which means you won’t need to spend as much time re-reading texts that you skimmed or read passively the first time through.

Putting it all Together: A Triple Entry Notebook

A triple entry notebook is a simple, organized way to practice all four of the suggested intra-reading tips. Genuine active reading consists of three important cognitive steps:

  1. Simply reading the words on a page without much of an effort to make sense of them. 
  2. Summarizing or breaking down those words into a more digestible form.  
  3. Applying the information you read—that is, considering how the text’s claims or ideas apply outside of the reading itself.
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Keeping a triple entry notebook ensures that you take the time to cycle through these three stages as you read. It’s also a good way to practice the four intra-reading strategies: reading with purpose, summarizing as you go, posing new questions, and making connections.

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Step 1

Take a piece of paper and create three equal-sized columns.

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Step 2:

In the first column, write (or type) important quotes or passages from the article.

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Step 3:

In the second column, summarize the quote in your own words.

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Step 4:

In the third column, draw a connection, ask a question, or offer an evaluation of the text: do you agree with the author’s claim? Is his/her reasoning sound? However you choose to use it, the third column pushes you to think more deeply about a text.

Example Triple-Entry Notebook

Quotation Paraphrase Connections, Questions, Evaluations
“Nutrition refers to the process of consuming and utilizing the nutrients required for growth, development, and a long, healthy and productive life. Inadequate and poor-quality sleep, inadequate and unbalanced nutrition and unhealthy eating habits may have a deleterious effect on children’s quality of life” (Hayl et al., 2025, para. 5). Because consuming adequate nutrients supports health, poor nutrition, along with insufficient sleep, can harm children’s wellbeing. Is there a connection between poor sleep and poor nutrition? Are children who don’t get enough sleep more likely to have poor eating habits and vice versa?

Active Reading Strategies: Post-Reading Steps

Re-reading is a common study strategy. However, it’s not the most efficient—or even the most effective—study method. Combined with pre- and intra-reading steps, these post-reading tips can save time and help you remember what you read, without re-reading entire texts.  

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Recite.

After reading, take a break. Make dinner, take your dog for a walk, watch tv—do something else. Later, try recalling facts and details from the article. Say them out loud, tell them to a friend, or write them down.  

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Don’t worry about filtering through what’s important information and what’s not. The simple act of retrieval and recitation kicks your short-term memory into gear. And while merely reciting facts won’t foster true learning, it can start to build the foundational knowledge necessary to learn a topic more deeply.  


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Summarize main ideas.

Without looking at your notes or the text, write a short summary. When summarizing, be sure to use your own words—that’s the only way to ensure that you are fully digesting and understanding what you read. After completing your summary, compare it with your notes or the reading itself, correcting inaccurate information.

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Draw a picture.

When learning new information, it can be helpful to both verbalize—as you do when summarizing and reciting—and visualize. Drawing a picture of a concept or word you are hoping to remember can be particularly useful when engaging with new vocabulary or terminology. Rather than simply memorizing the definition of a word, drawing it out can deepen your understanding and increase the likelihood that you’ll be able to call that image to mind when you need to.

Explore the flip cards for examples of how to represent concepts and terminology visually:

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Ask and answer how/why questions.

Here are some questions you might formulate after reading an article about imposter syndrome.

lightbulb_2Notice that asking how and why questions promotes deep learning of a concept, while asking who and what questions encourages the memorization of facts related to that concept. Both are important, but how and why questions will strengthen your understanding, making it more likely that you will be able to remember and apply the information you read.

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Review your notes frequently.

Whenever possible, avoid re-reading the text itself. Instead, rely on the notes you took while reading. Take a few minutes every other day to review one section or chapter of your notes. Short bursts of study time, spaced out over the course of a few days, are often more productive than long, agonizing cram sessions the night before an assignment or exam is due. 

Key Takeaways

Active reading is common in scholarly contexts, as it improves engagement, comprehension, and critical thinking. Active reading requires you to ask questions, take notes, and make connections before, during, and after you read. 

Check Your Understanding

Related Resources

Critical reading is a form of active reading that focuses on comparison, evaluation, and analysis. 

For more practice reading critically, try this interactive guide:

Read Critically