Reading Books For School | How To

As a literature student, I'm constantly being asked how I manage to read books for school. I have a lot of friends who struggle to find interest in or motivation to read their school reading list, and so they feel they don't understand the text as well as those who've read it before.

Today I wanted to give you my tips and tricks for getting through, and more importantly understanding, your school reading list.

1. Set yourself a time schedule. How long do you have until you need the book read? Say you have one school week (5 days), you need to divide the book into portions to read each day.

There are a number of ways to do this.

1. Chapters. If the book has 15 chapters, read 3 per night etc.

2. Pages. If the book has 200 pages read 40 per night etc.

3. Percentage. This is only really possible on a kindle or ereader, as they allow you to see what percentage you are through a book. In a 5 day period, you would need to read 20% per night etc. (Note – I do understand you can work out the percentage in a physical copy of a book… but who has the time!)

Personally, I find that working by percentage gives me the most motivation, but find what works for you.

2. Don't read it alone. Have another book that you're reading for yourself, make it something light that you enjoy reading and then discipline yourself enough that you can only read it, after meeting your goal for the day in terms of school reading.

3. Download a study guide and chapter summaries. You can find these for free on websites like Sparknotes. These are great to ensure you actually understand what has happened in the book, particularly for books with interesting language, such as Shakespeare. After reading a chapter, read the corresponding summary to ensure you got the point. Also, after you've finished the book look more closely at motifs, symbols and character analysis, so you have something to contribute in class.

4. Reward yourself. Personally, my reward is being allowed to add it to my Read shelf on Goodreads, and being given the freedom to read whatever I want for a few days or weeks. If that doesn't work for you, try food or activities like going to the cinema to motivate you to read.

That's really all I got to say, this is the best way I've found to get through school books at a reasonable rate, and with as much understanding and enjoyment as possible.

What are some of the books you've been forced to read by teachers?

xx