ACT Reading Strategies Adapted from Mrs. Julie Rash – Beechwood H.S.

Reading strategies Selective Abandonment Re-ordering passages according to your interest level Read and answer Read questions first – prepare the document Annotate with pictures and your own words Skim and answer Chunking Predict Before You Peek Find the “wrong” in the wrong answer

Selective abandonment Read THREE passages and randomly guess on one OR Read TWO passages and randomly guess on two

Re-ordering Re-ordering passages according to your interest level Four types of passages: 1) Prose Fiction 2) Social Science 3) Humanities 4) Natural Science What order would you put them in? Remind students to be careful and closely watch numbers and answers to be sure they are in the correct spot

Read and answer Read and answer (DO NOT second-guess) Go with your first gut instinct every time

Read questions first Read questions first Annotate the question Prepare the document Make makes on lines or sections of the passage that have questions addressing them

Annotate with pictures and your own words Why do we annotate? What do we annotate?

Skim and answer Skim through each passage Answer each question Take no more than 25% of the time doing this Answer each question 75% of the time should be spent with the questions Analyze the question Go back to the text

chunking Read a paragraph Skim the questions to see if any of the questions can be answered by that particular paragraph Move on to the next paragraph and repeat the process.

Predict before you peek Predict a short answer IN YOUR OWN WORDS Then look at ACT’s answer choices Find the best multiple choice answer that matches your short response answer

Find the “Wrong” Find the “wrong” in the wrong answer Cross out what makes the wrong answers wrong

Reading strategies Selective Abandonment Re-ordering passages according to your interest level Read and answer Read questions first – prepare the document Annotate with pictures and your own words Skim and answer Chunking Predict Before You Peek Find the “wrong” in the wrong answer

Act reading strategies Which strategy do you already use? Which strategy do you think might help you improve your score?