Foreign language professors learn a technique for reading that they pass on to their students, a technique designed to make reading for comprehension more successful for students even when they have difficult with the language and complexity of the written material. Most of what foreign language students read, even “simple” popular magazines, presents difficulty because of the language and because the student does not bring a deep and rich context to the reading.

For many students, academic discourse is, in fact, a foreign language and you approach the classroom texts without the deep, rich intellectual context that would help give that text meaning. You may suddenly find yourself, in relation to your own, native tongue, in exactly the same position as a foreign language learner in relation to the target language.

Foreign language students are often advised to not read a passage like a road, starting with the first word and moving steadily forward to the last, as though the text were a road they were traveling. Instead these students are encouraged to read the text more like a pyramid.

First, look at the title of the piece—the book, the chapter, the section—and imagines what the topic probably is. Then read the next level—the chapter headings, or major chapter sub-headings. Now think about what the general direction of the chapter would appear to be, what the major point of the author probably is. Third read through the whole chapter, by reading section headings and other highlighted areas. Again think about what the general direction of the chapter appears to be. Finally, quickly skim the chapter by reading the first sentence of each paragraph. If paragraphs are very long, read the first and last sentence of each paragraph. If paragraphs are very short, you may want to read only the first sentence of every second or third paragraph. 

You are now ready to actually read the chapter because you have a context of meaning that will give sense and purpose to the details you will meet along the way. This technique adds an extra 10 or 15 minutes to the front end of a reading assignment, but saves at least that much time by making the actual reading easier. In addition, this technique increases understanding of the text and therefore probably improves the level of learning.