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

2. 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

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

4. 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

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

6. 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

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

8. 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

9. 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.

10. 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

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

12. 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

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