If you’re assigned something to read, read it aloud to yourself. This engages not just the internal monologue part of your brain, but speaking and hearing parts, and your brain makes stronger pathways when more senses are engaged and working together.
Don’t buy (eta: or download) flash cards, draw them yourself. This engages sight and abstraction., plus motor skill areas.
Write your own notes, then read them aloud and highlight them yourself. So many parts of your brain make connections by doing this. Don’t just read. That’s not very helpful; you don’t have to study long if you study well.
I think there’s a name for this, but I’m tired and will rely on Cunningham’s whatever.
e: don’t forget about all of your senses – you have way more than 5.
People have different learning characteristics and there isn’t a best way that works for everybody. I Happen to be of the type where straight up reading is the best way by far. Anything lecture style takes a ton of extra effort for me to remember anything, and reading out loud or taking notes doesn’t do anything for me but complicate my information absorption.
Same here!
The reading out loud tip does worse than nothing for me. On multiple occasions, I’ve read something out loud to someone else and then had absolutely no idea what I just said. I focus so much on vocalizing the words that I’m diverting power away from the part of my brain that would be processing the meaning of them.
Similar thing for listening to the words without any visual aids - I’m just really not a verbally orientated person at all and do much better when reading/writing the information.
That’s true. This is a slightly broader method, though.
You still start with your ideal method (read it first), then study by augmenting by adding as many senses as possible: read it out loud to yourself, make flash cards for key definitions/concepts, draw concept, etc.
For people who learn best a certain way, this is meant to supplement, not replace.