28 5.3 Navigate Textbooks
Often when presented with the textbook for a course, you may find it a little overwhelming. The textbook can be large with a lot of information in it. Students can feel a little defeated even before they start. They may have questions like, “Will I need to know everything in this book?” or “Will I be able to understand it?” or even “When will I have time to read all this?” Rest assured, it is likely much better than it might seem at first. Often you are only asked to read and deal with certain parts of the textbook, as opposed to the whole thing, so make sure to read your instructions carefully. Many students have ended up reading chapters that weren’t required for the course.
Furthermore, there are many strategies that are helpful for navigating your textbook. Knowing the layout of your text can help you locate information easily, identify important information, and aid in reviewing and summarizing material. Here are some useful tips.
Front and Back Matter
Before diving into every line of text in a textbook reading assignment, it is helpful (and saves time) to find out first what resources the entire book has to offer you. Then, as those chapter readings are assigned, it helps to first skim read them for the big picture meaning.
The first exercise in this chapter will help you find all the resources in your textbook, and some textbooks have a lot more help in the front matter and back matter of the text than you may realize. One student who, when given this exercise to use on any textbook he had with him, picked his math book. He was at that time re-taking that math class because he had failed it the term before. As he did the exercise, he realized the back matter of the book included an answer key for half of the problems for every exercise. “Had I known this last term,” he said, “I would have passed!” He would have been able to check his answers and see when he didn’t understand a concept. See if you, too, find something useful in your textbook that perhaps you didn’t know was there, either.
The exercises in this chapter cover strategies for skim-reading specific chapters and a strategy for getting the most out of graphics included in textbooks.
Exercise: Front and Back Matter of a Textbook
FRONT MATTER
___Table of Contents
___Preface
___Introduction
___To the Teacher
___To the Student
___Other (list, here): _____________________________________________
BACK MATTER
___Glossary of Terms
___Index of subjects
___Answer Keys
___Additional Exercises
___Additional Readings
___Tables, graphs, charts
___Maps
___Other (list, here): ________________________________________________
Answer the following questions:
- Were there any surprises for you?
- How can you use the front and back matter in your text to help you with your studies? (3 or 4 sentences)
Skim-Reading Textbook Chapters
Before doing a detailed reading of a textbook chapter, get the big picture by following these steps:
- Similar to reading the Table of Contents for