tips for reading in nursing school without having to read every single word

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I will be starting nursing school soon and I was wanting some tips on reading. I know tons of reading will be required and I was wondering if anyone could share their reading/studying tips? For me I have to read chapters twice sometimes to make sure I got it all. It seems impossible to read every single word and I know some people have discovered ways to read and understanding everything you read without reading every word. Can anyone share any tips with reading in nursing school? Thank you:)

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

One of the great parts about this site is the multitude of various forums- there's even an entire section dedicated to students that you can browse, and an entire subforum of that area dedicated to study tips. Best of luck with school!

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

Most of my textbooks had sections at the end of each chapter with focus questions. If you found the answers to the questions you would get the important stuff out of the chapter. Plus many would have side bars or special boxes in the text that were good to read. Some chapters would also have a part at the beginning outlining what you should be getting out of this chapter.

Plus don't let yourself get behind on your reading plus read the required chapters before the class. Teachers can tell who didn't do the reading.

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Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.

Hi!

Moved to AN's General Nursing Student forum for best chance member advice.

:)

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Specializes in CVICU, CCRN.

I use the power points in lecture to guide me. If the teacher put a certain subject on the power point, it means she acknowledges the information, at the very least, and wants us to see it's value. So I take effort to use the power point to guide me through, highlighting the subjects that the teacher seems to want me to see. If I have time, I go back and look at the other stuff. Also, charts, charts charts. They may never seem fun, trust me, I'm such an anti-chart gal, but when it comes to time, read the charts, read the boxes. They summarize everything really fast and helps organize your mind.

Hope I could help!

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Specializes in Cardiac PCU/Med-Telemetry.

I dont read everything. However I do read all boxes and pay attention to anything in bold. I also read powerpoints and I do study guide questions and nclex questions.

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Specializes in NICU, Trauma, Oncology.

YouTube nurse nacole she has gray tips. I generally focus on the boxes, italicized items, bold words, etc.

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Thanks to all that have responded they are all great tips that I will be trying! Anymore you think of let me know! Thanks again to everyone very helpful!

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The more you read the material, the faster you will be...unfamiliar words tend to slow me down, but once I understand them, I can read many times faster. --Take the time in the beginning...it will serve you well later on.

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Thank you for the replies! Appreciate the tips 😀

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Specializes in Hospice, Palliative Care.

It really depends on the class and the professor as to how much you have to read "word for word" vs. bigger picture. In my first semester of nursing school for both the assessment and fundamentals class, the professor would make her own NCLEX questions on exams often pulling information from portions of a paragraph (could be start, middle, end, etc.). If you didn't really know the material front to back, you would often get the question wrong with the response being... "it's in the book."

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