Advanced note taking and reading skills are partners.  The first enables the second, and the both support your classroom teaching.  The two together provide a foundation for your homeschooling efforts.  Knowing how to record important key ideas, with the summarization of ideas and information, along with the written organization of insights – all are important to memory and retention.

It’s not just about improving your homeschooling.  More important, this course will teach your child the skills and learning strategies that are needed for college-level work.  And for lifelong learning.

We know the quality of your reading has a huge impact on how you think.  Since reading actually changes the wiring of the brain, then advanced reading improves our brain’s ability to comprehend, analyze, and evaluate information.

When students take notes, too often they do little more than copy information.  This is not a sound strategy for memory and retention.  Understanding the science helps students create much more effective notes, in your classroom, and from independent study.

We also know untrained students engage in many ineffective learning practices that waste time.

The Big Difference

An example is rereading the same information multiple times in attempts to remember it.  Students who do so are not aware that the new science of learning provides much better solutions.  In his book, Daniel Coyle writes about one technique:

“Research shows that people who follow strategy B of reading ten pages at once, then close the book and write a one page summary remember 50 percent more material over the long term than people who follow strategy A of reading ten pages four times in a row and trying to memorize them.” (Note: Strategy A is not only less effective but obviously takes much more time)

The Benefits

This emphasizes the benefit of learning how to read and take notes smarter.

• Most students don’t know how to incorporate advanced learning techniques into reading.
• Reading for understanding is a critical component of independent research and lifetime learning.
• As your children grow, a much larger component of the information they need to acquire will be through independent reading.
• Studies show that students who take notes by hand learn more than those who take notes on a laptop. (Mueller & Oppenheimer).
• Most students take notes for the wrong purpose. They take them to create a record and don’t think about the larger purpose of memory and recall.

“Nothing so much assists learning
as writing down what we wish to remember.”
— Cicero

Looking Ahead

Your child already knows how to read – they most likely learned this early.  But the more important question – does he or she really know how to read well enough to support college-level work?

This advanced course will get them there.  It will help students to:

• See the benefits of getting better at these skills
• Learn and practice advanced reading and note taking skills
• Read to gain a deeper understanding and recall of any subject.
• Know how to take notes that further memory and understanding.

Note: This is not a speed-reading course; it emphasizes reading for understanding. 

What you will learn

Through 22 lessons, students will learn advanced techniques and have numerous opportunities to practice and improve both skill sets.  Practice sessions will help the student appreciate the benefits of more advanced skills.  The lessons will cover:

• Get a self-assessment of your reading and note taking skills
• Understanding what note taking with a purpose means
• How to get past the “elementary” reading level
• Cultivate a new kind of brain to benefit from both deep reading and skimming.
• Learn other types of reading such as inspectional reading to assist memory
• Know advanced reading skills such as analytical and syntopical
• How to use skimming to enhance learning and memory.
• Developing reading as a self-concept
• The importance of marginalia and how to do it
• Mastering the Cornell notes technique
• The value of developing side questions while reading
• Reading beyond an input function – how to create outputs to encourage learning
• How the SPQ4 note taking method improves memory and retention
• Exploring a toolbox of note-taking skills
• Using tools such as Evernote or OneNote to improve note organizing
• The problems of decontextualizing quotes
• The three levels of note taking – storing information, generating knowledge, and applying wisdom
• And much more . . .

Help your child learn what kind of reader and note taker he or she is now, and how to get to a much higher level.  This course will transform how students approach reading and how they use notes to enhance memory and accelerate learning.

Don’t let your child get stuck being a “sophomore” the rest of her life!  Help him learn how to read for depth and understanding, with memory and recall.