having trouble "seeing the big picture" in texts?

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I think I have trouble understanding what a certain chapter is talking about when reading notes or the textbook. I would understand the meaning of individual words or even a whole sentence. But by the time I finish a paragraph, I would either "forget what the first sentence of the paragraph was talking about" or I would be unable to "pull together the meaning of the whole paragraph".

I feel like a camera that is supposed to show the whole of an object but its too zoomed in, being able to only show parts of an object at a time.

Anyone else have this problem?

I do for sure, you explained it to a T.

I have that problem too. I found this impacted my school performance in certain classes because I wouldnt completely understand the question and I wouldn't give quite the responce that the professor wanted.

Yes, also sometimes have trouble understanding subtle things in movies that aren't thoroughly explained that most other people would notice easily.

Yeah, I experience that sometimes.

My strategy for studying from a text for a memorization intensive class: Read the paragraph/section as closely as I can. 2) write out/draw pictures of the key points, referring to the text very carefully to make sure I phrase/depict things in an accurate way. You can connect individual ideas with words, flow arrows, or you can draw a summary picture. Again, make sure your summary conveys accurate info; Trust me, you do NOT want to memorise something that is incorrect and then have to relearn it. 3) rewrite those key ideas over and over until I can write them from memory without looking at the book or the previous times I've written them.
I do that for each smaller section/topic then, when I finish an entire chapter, I go back and try to summarize/state the key parts of each subsection aloud to myself and/or try to write them out from memory again until I can reliably get them all right. If you ahve time, try to do the same thing the next day or layer in the week to make sure you remember all the old material as well as when you learned it. After that it just tends to stay in my head.

It's a lot of work but I really just need to study once - finals are usually easy since I remember the stuff so well. My philosophy is to make my studying count - learn the material the first time through and don't waste time/energy on forgetting and having to relearn things later. Play videogames, eat healthy and get plenty of sleep before/during finals week.

I love it Jaejoongfangirl! You're my new idol lol

It's funny, I can be reading something and I think I'm following along pretty well, but if you asked me what the last sentence said, I would be clueless.

I have this problem exactly as well. Everyone thinks I am an excellent reader, and I am in many ways: I am great at spelling and grammar (typos don't count when I am rushing through here and not proof-reading! ), I could read novels since grade primary, and have also been good at reading one word at a time. When it comes to reading comprehension, though, I tend to have a lot of difficulty with that.