How to Remember More of What You Read

How To Remember More of What  You Read It’s probably happened to to you. You’re reading You’re reading a few pages of text and then you stop to think, I can’t even remember what I just read. You read the information, but can’t remember. Think of all the novels you read in school. How many can you remember? Forgetting what you read is a common problem, but it has a simple solution. In the pages that follow, you’ll learn some simple ways to remember more of what you read. We’ll also explore how to read and remember what you read on the computer screen.

Decide To Remember Usually, the time people decide that they really want to remember something is when they can’t recall it. You want to start by making a demand of yourself that you WANT and NEED to remember this information. By doing this you are mentally preparing yourself for the information that needs to  be retained. Get Into a State of Mental Focus  You can unlock your brain’s capacity by learning to focus  while you read. If we don’t concentrate while reading, the task of remembering will be extremely difficult. The simplest way to improve your focus while reading is to use your hand or pen as a guide. When you point to something, it’s easier for your eyes to focus on it. For example, try counting all the lines on this page. If you’re like most people  you’ll probably use your hand or finger and go line-by-line to count, instead of just eye-balling it. Using your hand as a guide is even more helpful when  you have very long paragraphs. It’s very easy to get lost in a  blizzard of words when you are not using your hand. But if  you start making it a habit to read this way, you’ll find your focus will easily improve.  Another way to improve your focus while reading is to simply get rid of distractions. Think about the potential distractions you may face if you decide to read for an extended

period of time. Your phone may go off. A text message comes in. An email notification pops up. Your co-worker, friend or family member disrupts your reading by walking in and asking you a quick question. The urge to check your email, face book or anything else on the internet may arise. You may start thinking of something else that is on your mind while reading. Many of these distractions can be eliminated. If you really need to spend some time on some focused reading, try turning off your phone. Disconnect from the internet. Ask  your co-workers, friends or family members to make sure they don’t interrupt your reading. Or find a place where you can focus without distractions. These are simple solutions to remove distractions that interfere with the reading process. Select What You Wish To Remember  Are you reading with a clearly stated purpose? Many people  begin reading without clearly defining their goal in reading. Selecting what you wish to remember will help you remember it because it will force you to focus on what is most important.  You need to be selective. You can’t expect to memorize an entire book or chapter, but you can select what you seek to understand and what you need to remember. Even the greatest memory whizzes in the world have difficulty recalling an entire book. So don’t start with that expectation. Start by selecting exactly what you wish to remember and why you need to remember it. Otherwise, what’s the point in reading this information?

Organize Creatively  Taking notes while reading will help you recall the information better. But if you organize those notes creatively by using mind maps, you’ll find your ability to retain and recall greatly enhanced. Building a mind map requires that you start with a central idea and image, representing the subject or main idea. The picture below is an example of a mind map.

Using colors, images, multi-dimensional words, and curved lines will help you create the ideal mind map that will  be source of information you plan to remember. If you’d rather produce your mind map electronically, try using a web-based mind-mapping tool like MindMeister (www.mindmeister.com). Utilize the Multiple Reading Process (MRP) The Multiple Reading Process is a reading strategy that helps  you read faster with stronger retention. The process involves a minimum of three steps (for easier material) or a maximum of five steps (for harder material). Step #1: Preview  Before even starting this step, it’s assumed that you have already established your purpose. In other words, you know  why you are reading this material and exactly what you want to get out of it.

Because our brain is very good at remembering visual information, try to combine words with images when creating a mind map. This will help secure the information more strongly in your brain. The picture above is a basic example of a mind map that combines words and images.

The preview requires you to figure the main point of the information. So if you are reading a chapter in a non-fiction  book, you would start by reading the introduction and conclusion. If the introduction and conclusion are not clearly labeled  by headings your chapter, you can simply read the first and last paragraph. You can do the same thing when reading an article. By reading the introduction and conclusion of the text,  you now know what to expect and what the main point of the

information will be. At this point, if your goal is to really remember the information well, you should start your mind map with the central idea in the middle. Step #2: Overview  The overview requires that you find major concepts and ideas that are discussed in the article or chapter. If you were reading a textbook, or any other structured piece of material, you  would simply read the following: • Headings • Sub-Headings • Bold-Faced Words • Graphs & Illustrations • Bullet Points & Numbered Lists If your chapter or article doesn’t have headings, sub-headings and bold-faced words, you would read the first sentence of every paragraph. First sentences of paragraphs are usually main ideas. By reading all the first sentences you can get an idea of all the ma jor concepts involved in the text. As you are getting these ideas, you’ll want to add them to your mind map to strengthen  your retention of the material. The information that you add to your mind map should be important concepts and words that trigger you to remember ideas presented in the text.

Step #3: Read Before even starting this step, decide whether or not this material is worth reading. If the material is not required for school or work, then you need to be selective about the material you read fully. Because you’ve already previewed and overviewed the material, you now know what it’s about and can make an informed decision over whether or not you want to read the information fully.  After completing two steps in this reading process and realizing the information you already know about the subject,  you may decide that you don’t need to read this information. Sometimes, you’ll find that you originally thought the material  would be interesting, but after previewing and overviewing it,  you’ve found it to be boring. Making an information decision to not read something fully is a great way to save yourself a ton of time. Let’s assume you decide the material is worth reading. Or maybe it is required reading for school or work. Now that  you know what to expect, from the previous two steps, you can read it with more confidence. Knowing what to expect will also enable you to read faster. How does this process help you remember what you read? We know that repetition is the single most important reason we remember anything. For example, you don’t remem ber the lyrics to a song by just hearing it once. It’s only after hearing it multiple times that it gets stuck in your head. Similarly, reading requires repetition. But instead of reading this

information from beginning to end, repetitivel y, we are reading it multiple times in different ways.

ploys repetition. And as we discussed earlier, repetition helps us remember.

The preview required you to read the introduction and conclusion. The overview required you to read the main ideas. Now you are simply reading to get the detail. And because  you’ve had multiple exposures to the material, combined with creative note-taking (mind mapping), you’re more likely to remember the information better.

Step #4: Final Review 

To remember more of what you read, try utilizing the “read & recall” technique. This requires you to take a quicknote immediately after reading a paragraph. You can write the note in your mind map or in the margin if you prefer. The note that you take should be concise (one to three words at most). In other words, you are writing down a key word, or trigger word, for every paragraph. If you happen to come across any areas of the text that are very difficult, put a checkmark next to that paragraph and try to continue reading through the information. You can al ways revisit that paragraph later after finishing the chapter. The “read & recall” method allows you to immediately, and quickly, recall what you read after finishing a paragraph. By rehearsing this information right away, you embed the idea more firmly into your memory. By doing this, you are also training yourself to focus more on your reading because you know that you have to write something down at the end of the paragraph. Know this makes you pay more attention to the text. The “read & recall” method is effective because it em-

This is an optional step and should be followed only if you need to know the information very well. The final review, as the name implies, is your last chance to review the material before moving on. There are several ways to do a final review. After you finish reading the material fully, you can do any or all of the following: • Re-read any parts of the text that you think are especially important. You want to revisit the core concepts. • Re-read any paragraphs where you placed a checkmark  which indicates technical material that needs to be reread. Nine times out of ten you’ll find those paragraphs to be easier this time around because you’ve read the entire the material fully and can now connect the information to other parts of the text. •  Repeat step number two in this process (the overview).  You can re-read the first sentences of paragraphs, or look at all the headings, sub-headings, bold-faced  words, graphs & illustrations, bullet points and num bered lists.  As you are going through the information one last time, try to relate the information you just read to information you already know. Association is a memory principle. Anytime you

can associate new information with something you already know, it will help the memory last longer.

Use Spaced Learning to Optimize Your Memory 

To make the memory even stronger, try associating the information dramatically. Any exaggerated visualizations you can create will help you store the information more strongly in your brain.

 After finishing the Multiple Reading Process, you can enhance  your memory of the subject matter by utilizing the principles  behind “Spaced Learning.” This technique requires you to re view what you just learned at set intervals to optimize your memory of the subject.

 A final review of the information will help you rehearse, one last time, what the material was about and will provide the necessary repetition you need to remember the material  better.

In 60-90 minutes after you are done reading, try coming  back to your mind map or simply think about what you previously read. Doing so provides another source of repetition to help you remember the information better.

Step #5: Recite

In another 12-24 hours, try thinking about what you pre viously read again. Or re-draw your mind map from scratch. If  you mind map previously contained a combination of words and images, you’ll find it surprisingly easy to recall what you previously read.

This is another optional step in the Multiple Reading Process.  You should do it if the material is especially important to you. For example, you may need to remember what you read for a test at school or a presentation at work. The basic idea here is that you talk about what you just read. You may want to discuss the material with a co-worker, classmate, friend or family member. Putting the information into your own words requires you to activate other parts of  your brain when you explain the information. Talking about  what you just read also strengthens the connections you make to the information and thus helps you remember it better.  You can also try teaching the material to someone else.  As Stephen Covey, author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective  People, likes to remark, “Teach once, learn twice.”

 When Reading on the Computer Screen  You can still follow the Multiple Reading Process if you are reading on the computer screen. However, using your hand to guide your eyes can be problematic on a computer screen. You could use an external mouse to guide your eyes line-by-line as  you read, but this again is a problem for those reading on laptops.  We recommend that you use a free speed-reading tool like AccelaReader ( www.AccelaReader.com). AccelaReader is an application that blinks words on the screen at a speed that

 you set. To use the application, you simply highlight what you  want to read and then copy & paste it into the application. Then you set how many words you want blinked at a time (for  beginners we recommend starting with 2 or 3 words), and how fast you would like to read. After clicking the “read” button, the application will blink the words at the speed that you set. Keep in mind that you should still preview and overview the material before you set the AccelaReader to blink the  words. Doing the first two steps of the Multiple Reading Process will help you retain the information better at a faster speed. Don’t Read to Remember - Read to Understand It is important that you read to understand instead of trying to read to remember. Never, never read in order to remember! If you do the latter, a strange thing happens - you won’t remember as much as you will if you read to understand. Reading to remember is like gathering apples. When you gather a few and then reach for more, some fall out, and so on. But when you read to understand, you find the structure of the material and see how everything relates. When this happens you learn, and consequently are able to remember a great deal more.