10 Techniques That Help You Remember What You Read

We’ve all been through times when we’ve finished reading a page and have no idea what we just read. Worse, we could have finished reading a chapter but only have a vague idea about what we read. Why is it that we can’t register what we have just finished reading? The answer to this question lies in How we read. In this article, we highlight the 10 most effective techniques to address How to remember what you read.

Why Do You Forget Things Right After You Learn Them?

Let us begin by understanding why we forget things right after we read or learn them. For memories to form, our brain needs to process things in a 3-step format.

Encoding – The context it associates with any new information.

Storing – Existing knowledge that new information is bucketed with, and

Retrieval – The process of recalling the encoded and stored information.

If we don’t contextualise new information, the encoding process doesn’t take place. Subsequently, the storing of this new information and its transfer from short-term memory to long-term memory doesn’t happen, resulting in failed retrieval or recall.

A pro tip: Many studies have found that sleep helps transfer new learnings to long-term memory and a revision after sleep or a nap cements this new learning.

10 Best Way to Remember What You Read

1. Find Context:

   Whether you are reading for pleasure or studying learning material, find the context. Look for the background to the material via preliminary research. Why is important for you to study it, when was it written, what is the cultural or educational significance of the topic etc. Understanding the background of the work you are perusing gives you a topline perspective on its significance.

2. What’s the Objective:

   Understand why you are reading something. Are you supposed to learn something from it, are you reading for pleasure, what do you want to take away from it? When you know the purpose of your reading, you can focus your energies on the relevant details. For history coursework, you would want to focus on the dates and sequence of events, while for maths you would want to remember the formulas and the stages of application.

3. Take Notes:

   A key strategy to commit material to memory, note-taking helps the brain focus on the important aspects of all that you read. The process of annotation works as repetition via writing thereby accentuating the crucial information. Additionally, the act of highlighting key passages from the text helps in drawing attention to the relevant information at the time of revision.

4. Smaller Segments, Higher Focus:

   Work with smaller segments of reading to enhance your focus. You can even set yourself a timer to singularly focus on your reading for a specific duration. At the end of the segment or duration, briefly recap for yourself what you just read. Shorter segments/durations interspersed with recaps help you keep your focus aiding recall with repetition. Attempting this with larger segments or full chapters can become tedious as the recap can become very broad and lengthy in scope.

5. Mind Maps and Mental Pictures:

   A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. One of the most crucial techniques for memorisation is building a mental picture of what you’ve read. A vivid, detailed mental picture becomes easier to retrieve from memory than a passage. Building mind maps for new information helps the brain organise information by association and is another key technique for effective memorisation.

6. 3-Step Method:

   You can work with the 3-step method for memorisation. Impression, Association and Repetition. The first step in this method is forming an Impression. Similar to the mental picture, Impression is how you perceive the information. The next step is Association. Link or associate this information to something you might already know. The third step is Repetition. Repeating or revising your impression and association will strengthen your recall of the said information.

7. The PQ4R method:

   The PQ4R method entails these 6 steps. Preview, Question, Read, Reflect, Recite and Review.

   Preview stands for skimming through the topic to give you some context of what you are about to read. This could be through browsing the first few pages or going through the content page and the summary.

   Question refers to the queries that you imagine the reading will answer. These are hypothetical speculations based on your preview of the material.

   Read refers to the act of perusing the text. Taking notes or highlighting is helpful in this step.

   Reflect comes up once you’ve gone through a section and pause to synthesise what you’ve taken away. Does it answer the questions or was it different from your hypothesis?

   Recite – similar to the Feynman Technique, this step requires you to explain the gist of your understanding to another person. This could be via the topic discussion.

   Review is the last step. It involves writing a summary or a report. Highlight the key points and the main takeaways. This helps you sift through all the learnings and pick out the important points.

8. Spaced Repetitions:

   A foolproof way to ensure you remember what you’ve read is spaced repetition. When you repeat what you’ve read right after it, you are likely to remember it in detail. Give yourself a little gap and see if you still recall all the material. Revise what you might have forgotten. Repeat this process of spaced repetition to ensure you commit your reading to memory and your brain can retrieve it without any difficulty each time.

9. Right Set-up:

   The right set-up is key to maintaining your focus on what you are reading. Make sure your reading zone is distraction-free and conducive of focused attention. Put away your gadgets, and ensure the environment is pleasant, well-lit and quiet. If you like to sip a drink keep it handy. The idea is to safeguard your mind from any form of disturbances or digressions.

10. Engaging with The Material:

    The ultimate strategy to recall information is to use it. When you apply, associate, discuss, reflect or write what you’ve read you begin using it in some way. This strengthens the brain’s pathways to the stored information helping in bringing it forward whenever needed. Engage with the material you’ve read by discussing it with your friends, associating it with your surroundings or applying it in your life. You will definitely be able to recall and retain it.

The simple answer to the question How to Remember What You Read is to influence how you absorb and process what you read. Armed with these 10 strategies, you now have the perfect roadmap to commit what you read to memory.

Last Updated on June 28, 2024