Feedback Focus

3. Use a Timer

This one is just really ineffective for me and the way that I read. I'll fess up to it, I'm a really slow reader. Some of this is probably because I get distracted and think of 57 other things when I'm supposed to just be thinking about what I'm trying to read. Using a timer and setting a goal to think of nothing else for 10 minutes seemed really hard for me because the more I think about focusing on one thing, the more my mind wants to wander to 100 different other things. 

Interestingly, when I was in the 10th grade, my AP European History teacher had this thing she called a "vacation sheet." She told us that whenever we sat down to read our book, we should have a blank piece of paper next to us so whatever our mind wanders to, we can jot it down and go back to what we were supposed to be doing. I felt like I needed my vacation sheet all over again!

2. Copy & Delete

I like the concept of deleting past paragraphs. This helped me keep my place in the reading a little better, but stopping every paragraph or so to write comments down kind of took me out of my "zone" and I kept thinking, "Okay, what just happened?" when I would try to hop back in. I would LOVE to try to combine this with the reading out loud though!

1. Reading Out Loud

I honestly thought that I wasn't going to like this at all. I thought I was just going to be able to read something out loud without focusing 100% of my attention on it, but this really worked! The one disadvantage I can think of for this is that it may slow you down a bit. But, I'm a slow reader anyways so it works great for me!!

(A cat and a dog, web source: Pixabay)