When you're reading for your course, you need to make sure you're actively involved with the text. It's a waste of your time to just passively read, the way you'd read a thriller on holiday.
Always make notes to keep up your concentration and understanding.
Here are four tips for active reading:

Underlining and highlighting
Pick out what you think are the most important parts of what you are reading. Do this with your own copy of texts or on photocopies, not with borrowed books. If you are a visual learner, you'll find it helpful to use different colours to highlight different aspects of what you're reading.

Note key words
Record the main headings as you read. Use one or two keywords for each point. When you don't want to mark the text, keep a folder of notes you make while reading.

Questions
Before you start reading something like an article, a chapter or a whole book, prepare for your reading by noting down questions you want the material to answer. While you're reading, note down questions which the author raises.

Summaries
Pause after you've read a section of text. Then:
1. Put what you've read into your own words;
2. Skim through the text and check how accurate your summary is and
3. Fill in any gaps.

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