When I was in Year 11…

I would rock up to class and try to learn a concept for the first time straight from the teacher. Some HSC Chemistry/Physics/Biology concepts made sense, and some didn’t.

At times, it was really hard to keep up.

Then I started to pre-read, and gosh… believe me, it felt like everything started to fall into place. And it also made me look kinda smart.

Let me tell you more 👇

The art of pre-reading

So what exactly did I do?

I’d grab my school textbook (which wasn’t that great btw), and just gave it a light read on the topics I knew were coming up.

I didn’t always fully get it, but that actually didn’t matter.

Because I found that pre-engaging with the content, actually primed my brain to receive this content more efficiently in class.

Here’s what would happen

The teacher would start teaching and my thoughts would be like:

“Yep cool I get that bit”

to

“Fair enough, that makes sense”

to

“Ok this bit I was totally clueless about earlier so lets listen in a bit harder”

which became

“Oh crap, I think I get it – But wait what if “XYZ were to happen instead…?”

Then I would raise my hand, and ask the teacher

 

 

what if “XYZ were to happen instead…?”

And the teacher would be like:

“hey thats actually a really good question…[this] is what happens”

To which I’d be like 👇

 

 

The point being…

This was a game changer.

30 mins of extra reading before HSC classes was hardly a price to pay for the clarity.

And YOU could do the same before our classes

Pre-read if time permits. We follow the syllabus, so it’s not hard to figure out what we’ll be covering in the next lesson.

Give it a go!

I’d love to know if it helps,

Vin

Dr. Vinuja Fernando (Director @ Elevate HSC)