despite its popularity, highlighting tends not to be a very effective reading strategy.

Usually students highlight because they want to focus on the important parts of the text and highlight—literally and figuratively—those parts for later study.

The problem is that instead of thinking critically about the content, they primarily spend their mental energy sorting the content into what’s important and what’s not. Focusing on which details to highlight can get in the way of a deeper understanding of the big picture.

Rereading in this way can contribute to illusions of competence—the feeling that we know more than we actually know. Why? After looking at content that’s phrased a particular way and presented on the same part of a page a couple of times, that content can pretty quickly become familiar to a reader.

highlighting isn’t 100% bad in and of itself, depending on what students highlight and how they use that content later.

Effective strategies to use when reading are ones that engage your brain in deep thinking about the text

Preview the text.

Know your purpose. Set a purpose for reading before you start.

Annotate. Take brief notes in your own words about the main concepts and key words in the margins of your text.

Ask and answer questions. Turn headings into questions and then answer them as you read.

Summarize. Stop after every paragraph or page and write a brief summary of the main concepts in your own words.

Limit yourself to highlighting one sentence or phrase per paragraph. Look for the sentence that best expresses the main concept.