Education & Work Speed reading and retaining knowledge

Keen to hear any tips or techniques that people have used to increase their reading speed or books/articles that they have used to help with this. And also what do people do to hammer home what they are reading, do you highlight, circle, read the book a second time, write notes, use sticky tabs, make your own index of helpful phrases or techniques? When i first started reading about property a few years back i was all about getting through as many books as I could. I've come to realise that what value you get out of a book and retain and implement is more important than being able to say "i've read 20 books so far this year on property". Reading books is a bit like property I guess, its not how many you've got, but the value you have got in them!

 

It will depend upon your personal learning style. What works best for one person may not help you.

Some people get most out of listening to audio, others prefer visuals with pictures, graphs and highlighted summaries. A few more retain info from moving about or dancing while they read. Do you know which learning style you have?

 

Yep you’re right, still working out how I learn best really, in the last three months I’ve been listening to podcasts during my commute to work and I’ve been really surprised at how well I am retaining the information. I can’t be doing too much while listening otherwise I don’t take it in tho! Listening is a great way to get thru loads of material while doing mindless activities

 

Sticky notes and a highlighter on the computer screen did not work too well for me.

 

nor the liquid paper.

 

I'm a bit of a book purist, so highlighter/underlining in a text book is a definite no-no.

I always found actually writing the info the best way to retain/learn. I'm good at summarising!
- Write it out. Rewrite in a condensed format - don't write what you already know! Get it down to dot points in your final summary.

I'm sure i've seen something that said in order of memory retention the best is: writing then reading then listening is the worst.

Writing and Remembering: Why We Remember What We Write

 

Nor trying to scratch a word out lol.

 

I was just about to suggest this. Beat me to it

 

If you read more, your comprehension should improve. Find someone to talk to about what you read as it helps reinforce the information and gets the brain thinking.