Photo: flickr
Have trouble remembering what you read? Or that you don’t like reading because you don’t read well? Afraid not, here are some important ways to brush up your skills.
Skim first.
Get the reading mechanics right.
Be judicious in highlighting and note taking.
Think in pictures.
Rehearse as you go along.
Stay within your attention span and work to increase that span.
Rehearse again soon.
1) Know Your Purpose
Knowing your purpose helps to keep you on task. It checks to see if your purpose is fulfilled while reading, to focus on important parts of the text. It helps you to be efficient because the relevant information are most attended to. Ask yourself “What do you want to learn from this?”
3) Get the Mechan¬ics Right
Skimming trains the eye to move without discipline. In-depth reading, your eyes need to move disciplinary, to snap from one fixation point to the next. Fixation is on several words at once. Those who tend to stumble word by word tend to have a poorer comprehension because their focus is on those stumbling words which prevents them from associating their vision with pre-existing knowledge. Make eye con¬tact with all the text not being delib¬er¬ately skimmed
4) Be Judi¬cious in High¬light¬ing and Note Taking
Almost all stu¬dents use high¬lighter pens to iden¬tify key parts of a text. But many stu¬dents either high¬light too much or high¬light the wrong things. Instead, think about the meaning of the text.
5) Think in Pictures
Create mental images of the meaning of the text, it will help to facilitate the memory.
6) Rehearse As You Go Along
To rehearse what you are mem¬o¬riz¬ing, see how many of the men¬tal pic¬tures you can recon-struct. Use head¬ings and high¬lighted words if needed to help you rein¬force the men¬tal pic-tures. Rehearse the men¬tal pic¬tures every day or so for the first few days after reading.
7) Oper¬ate Within Your Atten¬tion Span
Pay¬ing atten¬tion is cen¬tral to mem¬o¬riza¬tion. Try¬ing to read when you can’t con¬cen¬trate is wast¬ing time. Since most peo¬ple have short atten¬tion spans, they should not try to read dense mate¬r¬ial for more than 10 or 15 min¬utes at a time. After such a ses¬sion, they should take a break and quiz them¬selves on what they just read.
8) Rehearse Soon After Read¬ing Is Finished
At the read¬ing ses¬sion end, rehearse what you learned right away. Avoid dis¬trac¬tions and multi-tasking because they inter¬fere with the con¬sol¬i¬da¬tion processes that enable longer-term mem¬ory.
Category(s):Learning Difficulties
Source material from Sharp Brains
