Unfortunately, at school we are not taught how to correctly perceive and remember the information we read. Most teachers believe that students should read books from cover to cover and the information should be forever imprinted in their heads. If there is any sense from such a method, it is very doubtful, because at school we diligently memorized the material, told it at the blackboard and forgot it almost immediately after we left the classroom. In order for the new material to be assimilated, it is not enough to read it. It needs to be understood. If the amount of information is impressive, it can take a huge amount of time and effort to assimilate it. And during the session and exams, such a waste of time for students is an unacceptable luxury.

If I had known about this method of reading and memorizing information earlier, exam preparation would have been much easier and it would have been much more useful.

The method is called SQ3R or SQRRR — «survey, question, read, recite and review», that is «assessment, question, reading, recollection and review ». In practice, this is what all students eventually come to in the second or third year of study. I will try to teach this to my child at school.

Rating

First, we evaluate the document: we scan its contents, the introduction and the final chapter in order to get a general idea. This quick glance at a book or document will give you an opportunity to understand whether it contains the necessary information. If not, then it's not worth wasting time on it.

Question

Write down any questions that come to your mind about the topic of interest. Once again scan the document with your eyes and note to yourself the moments that may contain answers. In this case, the questions can be equated with the goals of the research for which you are reading the text, and understanding the answers will help you structure the information received.

Reading

Now read the text. Read slowly and carefully the passages that contain up-to-date information. This can take quite a long time, especially if the text is complex and in itself is almost entirely important information. While reading, make notes to yourself, creating your own memory card (Mind Map). With excerpts that contain insignificant information, you can just cursorily familiarize yourself.

Memory

After you have read the desired passage from the text, scroll through it in your head several times. Highlight for yourself the main facts or processes that relate to the object you are studying, and see how the rest of the information fits around them. That is, you just sort out all the studied material in your head: these are the main points, and this is the information that supports them.

Review

After you have once again scrolled through the information in your head and sorted everything out, it's time for the final stage of the review. This can be a re-reading of the document, and the addition of notes made, and a discussion of what was read with someone else. But the most effective method of securing information is to present it to someone else, as a teacher explains a new topic to a student.

It would be interesting to know how you assimilate the text you read. Especially when you need to read a large volume, and there is little time for this.