I FORGET (EASILY) WHEN I READ, HOW CAN I SOLVE THIS
You need to always remind yourself that you have a brain so capable that you've barely used 10% of its capacity. You don't forget what you read because your brain is incapable of the information you give to it.
It often amazes us how we forget things we thought we had committed so much time to memorizing when we have barely left the library or reading hall probably a few minutes ago and we ask ourselves why we forget these things we intended to remember after committing so much time to study.
Most of us quickly forget most of the information we are exposed to. Our brains have developed to do that. It's a good thing, because most of the information we are exposed to is unimportant.
Information comes into our brain, passing through sensory memory, short-term memory, and into working memory. Working memory lasts about 80 minutes. If we do not give our brain a good reason to integrate information into our long term memory, it fades away with working memory.
To integrate new information into long term memory, we have to think about it. Learning requires two things to be effective:
1. new information is repeatedly used and
2. new information is connected to previous knowledge
So, if you want to retain what you read,
you need to stop every so often and think about what you read . Repeat it. Summarize it. Challenge it. Identify patterns. Search for relationships to ideas you already know. Yell it to the heavens. Give those neurons a reason to make those dendrites grow. Associate it with powerful memories. Associate it with emotions.
Those last two can be done in a few different ways. Emotions can be a good way to make a memory easier to recall. Quick, name all seven of your seventh grade teachers. You probably can't. You'll easily name three or four and then struggle. Why? Well look at the ones you remember. You remember the ones whose class made you happy. You remember the ones whose class made you angry. You don't remember the ones that you haven't associated with emotional long term memories.
Music can be a good memory jogger. I tested this, many years ago, by always listening to Tori Amos' album Cornflake Girl while reading Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy . Today, if I think of either, memories of the other start to flow out of long term memory into working memory.
HOW TO REMEMBER WHAT YOU HAVE READ EASILY
1. Take notes on the page .
"Never read without a pencil," says
Quora user Deniz Ateş. "Underline sentences you find confusing, interesting, or important. Draw lines along the side of important paragraphs. Draw diagrams to see the structure of key ideas."
2. Ask yourself questions about the material.
If you're reading a textbook, the question can be as simple as, "What is the main idea of this section?"
If you're reading fiction, you can ask, "What are the motives of the character?" and "If you could rewrite this reading, what would your version be like?"
3. Skim the text first.
The idea here isn't to skip the whole reading process. Instead, you'll want to skim the text for important topics and keywords beforehand so you know what to expect when you actually dig into the material. Being familiar with the general themes, Klemm says, will help you remember the particulars.
4. Impress, associate, repeat
The first part is impression. You can increase the strength of the impression the text makes on you by picturing the situation in your mind or envisioning yourself participating in the events described.
The second part is association, or linking the material to something you already know. For example, maybe one of the character's names sounds like your friend's name.
The third part is repetition. The more you read the material, the stronger your memory will be. If you don't want to reread a whole book, try highlighting some parts of the text that you can go back to.
5. Introduce the information to others.
Experts say that, if you want to remember what you experience, it's important to do something with that information.
Two Quora users listed talking about what you read as a useful means of processing new material. Venkatesh Rao suggests blogging, or otherwise trying to explain to others what you think you've learned.
Plus, if you find that you can't explain it, you might want to go back and reread.
6. Read out loud.
Another anonymous Quora user says, "I actually have to read out loud to myself most of the time to understand and remember what I just read."
Writing in Psychology Today , psychologist Art Markman, Ph.D., says this strategy might work best when there are a few key items you need to remember. That's because the sentences you speak (or even whisper) out loud take on a distinctiveness. You remember producing and hearing the items and so your memory for them is different from the memory of the words you read silently.
7. Read on paper.
E-readers are convenient tools for when you want to bring a ton of books on vacation and for downloading stories in an instant.
But research suggests that they could also undermine the strength of your memories. One study found that, when people read the same short story in a paperback or on a Kindle, the paperback readers were better able to remember the story's chronology.
Lead study author Anne Mangen, Ph.D., says that's possibly because the piles of pages in your hands creates a "tactile sense of progress" that you don't get from a Kindle. (Of course, it's possible that people who are more accustomed to reading online may not have this problem.)
Meanwhile, Mangen's other research found that high-school students performed better on a test of reading comprehension when they read a text in print instead of on a computer screen.
8. Become familiar with the topic first.
"The more you understand about a particular subject, the more 'hooks' keep the facts in there." Presumably, that's because you're able to make more associations between the new information and what you already know.
You can even start by reading a Wikipedia article on the subject as preparation.
No comments:
Post a Comment