Whenever I run an Effective Reading course I am always asked this question:

Q - "How do I remember what I read?"

I also get asked this by subscribers and visitors to the site too so I thought I would spend a little time explaining this rather short and succint answer:

A - "Buy a Memory Course"

Now I am not being awkward, I am not trying to be funny, I am being absolutely serious.

If you want to remember what you read, you need to take a memory course so you can learn how to remember.

You see most people's expectations of the reading process is this:

1. I see the characters on the page 
2. I recognise them as letters
3. I formulate the letters into words
4. I read the words and make sense of what is written
5. I understand what is written
6. I remember what is written
7. At a later date I recall what was written
8. I use the recall of that information for my own needs or for communicating to others

Unfortunately our reading development in school only takes us up to step 4 (reading the words and making sense of them).

Hopefully the rest of our education takes us through to step 5 but unless you have any formal training in memory development, that is where your reading skills stop.

So the reading skills the majority of people have don't match their expectations of what they feel they should get from reading a page.

Because in order for you to be able to remember something from a page of text, you actually have to memorise it.

Now some stuff will naturally stay in your memory for a variety of reasons (outstanding, unusual, association, something of interest etc) but if you want to recall the specifics you have to memorise the specifics.

Just reading them once is usually not enough.

Reading them through over and over again (the repetition approach) will help a little but is not recommended as a memorisation strategy.

The trouble is, most of us were not taught HOW to memorise when we were at school.

So what techniques do you use if you want to remember what it is you are reading?

Well the first thing you need to get very clear on is what is it specifically do you want from the material you are reading.

When you know that it becomes much easier to choose the right technique to use.

I am a big fan of Mind Mapping and so would always recommend using that as a note taking device when reading any content you want to commit to memory.

If you want to remember a sequence of facts then I would use the Journey Technique (using locations on a journey you know well as a form of mental filing system).

If you need to recall numerical data then you could choose either the Major System or the Dominic System.  Both of these are great ways to turn numbers into more memorable images.

Another very useful strategy is to create mnemonics like the "Richard of York Gave Battle In Vain" method of remembering the colours of the rainbow.

The key to successfully remembering the stuff you read is the clarity of what is important.  Then the rest is easy.

Of course we then start getting into long term and short term memory issues…

Maybe another time…