How do you read a textbook with ADHD?

Why textbooks are harder than novels

A novel pulls you forward with characters and suspense. A textbook asks you to push: dense paragraphs, new terms, and no reason to turn the page except that you have to. For a brain that runs on interest, that is the hardest possible setup. So you build the pull yourself, with questions.

The method, step by step

1. Survey (two minutes)

Before reading a word of body text, look at the chapter's shape: title, headings, bold terms, figures, the summary and the end-of-chapter questions. This is the survey step of SQ3R, a method from the 1940s that university learning centers still teach. (Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning) It gives you a map, so each section has somewhere to land.

2. Question (one minute per section)

Turn each heading into a question and write it down. "Causes of the Industrial Revolution" becomes "What caused the Industrial Revolution?" Now each section is a hunt for one answer, which is far easier to hold attention for than "read pages 140 to 168".

3. Read one section

Read only to the next heading. Short sections are your friend. If a section runs long, split it at a figure or a bold term. Use a timer if it helps: one section per sprint, then a short break. See reading sprints.

4. Recite: close the book and answer

Close the book or look away and answer your question out loud or on paper, in your own words. This is retrieval practice, and it is the step most people skip. In Roediger and Karpicke's study, students who practiced recall remembered more a week later than students who reread. (Roediger and Karpicke, 2006) The Learning Scientists point out that the recite and review steps are where SQ3R's research support is strongest. (Learning Scientists)

5. Review, spaced out

Two or three days later, cover your answers and try your questions again. Then again before the exam. Spacing reviews out beats cramming them together; a large review of the research by Cepeda and colleagues found that spaced practice reliably improves long-term recall. (Cepeda et al., 2006) Put the review on your calendar the moment you finish the chapter, or it will not happen.

ADHD adjustments that make it stick

• Do the survey and questions in one sitting, and the reading in another. Starting is the hardest part; splitting it gives you two easy starts instead of one hard one.
• Write questions on sticky notes in the margin, so the answer and the question live on the same page.
• Read the hard sections with text-to-speech or the audiobook running. Adults in one study understood a nonfiction book about equally well reading, listening or both. (Rogowsky et al., 2016)
• Study with someone who asks you the questions. Explaining out loud is recitation with an audience.
• Keep a running glossary of new terms on one page. Many textbook questions are vocabulary questions in disguise.

What about highlighting?

Highlighting feels like studying, and for some readers it keeps the hands busy and the eyes on the line. But a page of yellow is not memory. If you highlight, add a rule: every highlight gets a question in the margin, and the question is what you review. For digital texts, a read-it-later or reading app that exports highlights can feed the review step; our read-it-later hub covers the options.