THIEVES Reading Strategy

The THIEVES method is a reading technique to better understand and retain information from the text you are reading.

Title

What is the title? How is it relevant to what you are learning?

Headings

What are the section headings? How can I turn this into a question to be answered after reading that section?

Introduction

What does the introduction tell you that you will be reading about?

Every first sentence in a paragraph

Read the first sentence in each paragraph. What is the paragraph about based on the first sentence?

Visuals and vocabulary

• • • • Does the chapter include photographs, drawings, maps, charts, or graphs?
      • What can I learn from the visuals in a chapter?
      • How do captions help me better understand the meaning?
      • Is there a list of key vocabulary terms and definitions?
      • Are there important words in boldface type throughout the chapter?
      • Do I know what the boldfaced words mean?
      • Can I tell the meaning of the boldfaced words from the sentences in which they are embedded?

End of chapter questions

• • • • What do the questions ask?
      • What information do they earmark as important?
      • What information do I learn from the questions?
      • Keep the end-of-chapter questions in mind so you can annotate the text where pertinent information is located.

Summary

What do I understand and recall from the reading?