By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed.
I teach all things English, so of course I know how to not zone out while reading. But I still do it anyways. Even I, a reading “expert” will sometimes get to the end of a page and have no idea what I just read. I call this âfake reading syndromeâ â when we fake ourselves out and think weâre reading when we’re not.
Although we all zone out once in a while, thereâs actually something specific that âgood readersâ do when they zone out: they use fix-up strategies. Yup. Fix-up strategies. Theyâre an actual thing, and they work.
Most people keep reading when they zone out, praying hoping that at some point they will regain consciousness and somehow be able to follow along with the text again. But come on â this never happens, does it? Are you ever really able to recover after zoning out for more than a sentence or two? Iâll bet not.
So what do good readers do when they realize they’ve zoned out?
First, they recognize a zone-out the moment it happens. The ability to do this is called metacognition, and itâs an amazing thing. Metacognition is the process of thinking about thinking. If you have good metacognition skills, you will be able to catch yourself right when youâre beginning to zone out. This is important, because if you canât even identify when youâve zoned out, you wonât be able to move to the next step, which is to use fix-up strategies.
Fix-up strategies are basically a bunch of strategies that good readers use â sometimes without even knowing it â to repair their reading right after the âahhh, I donât get itâ feeling hits.
Below are a few things you can do AFTER you realize youâve fallen asleep with your eyes open when you were supposed to be reading.
Also, I have a whole video with some more strategies for avoiding zoning out while reading. You can check that out here.
How to NOT zone out while reading – and what to do when it’s too late
1. Reread the page. Sometimes we donât even know when the zone-out began, so just go back and start at the top of the page to be safe.
2. Change something. When you go back to reread what you missed the first time, do something different, or else youâll zone out again. Either change your position (stand instead of sit, etc.), or go to a different seat or room.
3. When youâre rereading, read two sentences at a time, and then stop. After every two sentences, take a second to confirm that you didnât accidentally zone out again. Do this until youâre sure youâre okay.
4. Try reading aloud. You might feel silly, but it totally works.
5. Take notes in the margins or on sticky-notes. Depending on what type of text youâre reading, write down a thought or question after every paragraph. You could paraphrase what each paragraph is about, or you could just write a few words about it.
6. Let really difficult sentences go. The truth is that in most cases, we don’t need to understand every single sentence to get the gist of what we are reading. If you come to a sentence that you’ve already reread and you still swear it’s written in another language, move on and let it go.
You might find that you already do some of these strategies, in which case you have good metacognition skills. (Awesome. I love you.)
But if youâre reading these five tips and are thinking to yourself No way ⊠it would take too long to do all that! then I feel ya and I get itâŠ. you donât want to do extra work when itâs hard enough to stay awake when reading the darn bookâŠ. right?  But I promise you that even though these fix up strategies might take a second up front, they save you from reading the same darn page a bazillion times. And that alone makes these tips worth it.