How To Read A Book

For those of us whose life involves reading on a regular basis, I recommend How To Read A Book, by Mortimer Adler. While the text is somewhat dry and academic, his tips are highly useful for extracting the most from a book without reading it cover to cover.

Some of his top ideas include-

• Use the Table of Contents to get page count and learn what the author(s) wrote the most about
• Read the first and last pages of a chapter to get an idea of topics covered
• Use syntopical reading (reading several books on a subject) to thoroughly understand a topic

Website for word generation

I'm working on memorizing lists of up to twenty words. To assist with generating random words, I found the following website- http://euclid.psych.yorku.ca/cgi/sascgi

After creating a random list, I use my version of a memory peg system (re: Dominic O'Brien's Learn To Remember). The pegs for 1-20 are:

Tea
Noah
May
Ray
Law
Jaw
Key
Fee
Bee
ToeS
TaT
TaN
ToM
TaR
TaiL
TaJ
TacK
TaFfy
TaB
NoSe

The memory cycle of learning

The following information is a synopsis of the writings of James Zull, specifically his book "The Art Of Changing the Brain." It is intended to be a paraphrasing and not an attempt to infringe his copyright.

The brain moves information in a loop through various hemispheres- left/right and front/back. If you've learned something well, it will have been processed somehow in each of these portions of the brain. These portions of the brain are related to motor, sensory, and integrative (mental) activities.

In 1984 David Kolb theorized a cycle of learning: experience (learning), reflection, abstraction (generating ideas), and active testing. The following actions are often part of the "successful" learning process-

• You learn material through study or some exposure (lecture, etc)
• You think about the data learned
• You begin relating that information to other data you know and create new ideas or questions
• You put the information to active use by drawing charts or concept maps, using it in conversation, etc.

Like any memory technique, the more involved your brain is the better your recollection of the subject matter. The above four steps can be used as the foundation of teaching any material to achieve better learning by students.