10 Effective reading tips

So, this is my first post on this blog and I have decided to start on an educative note. A lot of teenagers in Nigeria right now have one examination or the other in front of them, be it UTME or for those already in tertiary institutions, semester exams. So, have you been reading hard or reading smart? I will be showing you certain tips to upgrade your reading and catapult you into the stratosphere of success. Follow me.

-Understand Yourself and Develop Your Own Pattern

Well, this is the biggest tip of them all. Many people underutilize their potential by either not discovering their best reading pattern or adopting the wrong system. Understanding yourself entails knowing such things as your reading speed and speed of assimilation among others. Some people can read faster than others; as such, they can start and finish reading what they need to cover within a short span. However, a slow reading speed does not necessarily translate to a lower level of intelligence. Some of the most brilliant people I know are slow readers who only need to read a book once to understand it forever.

Also, some people only read in total silence while others understand better with soft music playing in the background, I read certain calculations better while listening to fast rap. Some people (even some fast readers) like reading well ahead of examinations while others only thrive under pressure. Quite a number of people don’t like reading in libraries and I know a classmate who has to find space under a tree before he can read. Just experiment with different styles and combinations and find out what you are most comfortable with.

-Read a little at a time

A lot of people leave a lot of their work to be read until the last possible moment and end up needing to read a lot at once to catch up. Other people set a particular time or day(s) to read and then go about reading all they can lay their hands on. This works for some people, however, the human body needs rest and does not function well under stress or fatigue. Chances are when you read hard for 8 hours at a stretch, you will understand much less than if you read for 8 hours in total with breaks (of maybe half an hour) in between. The brain will have a chance to get refreshed, relaxed and will be ready to take and process information at a much faster rate.

-Avoid panic-reading

Are you in a situation where you have an exam or test and you still have a lot to cover? Well, everybody has been in that situation before. A lot of people tend to go off their handles and panic but let me tell you; worrying or panicking has never solved a problem before. Calm down, pick out the most important aspects, read them thoroughly. If after reading them, you still have time, go through the remaining materials. Keep cool, don’t lose your head and you will be fine.

-Consult wide

This tip is very important. It is the main difference between average and A-students. This works well when you start reading early for an examination. Go outside the basics given to you, read as many textbooks as you can find, surf helpful websites, consult people ahead of you and your teachers or lecturers and go through past questions. This gives you an edge over those that have read only the basics; you will have a much larger knowledge base to draw upon to prove your points or tackle a tough or applied question.  Wikipedia is especially useful for more in-depth explanations.

-Check pictures and pictorial representations

Learn to check diagrams or other pictorial resources that explain a particularly knotty concept. Many a times while I was in medical school, I have been saved the embarrassment of not knowing how to explain my point by diagrams. Also, associating diagrams with explanations spares you the time you would otherwise have used to revise. Come revision time or shortly before entering the exam hall to take an examination, a simple glance at the diagram will refresh your mind and send you on the way to success.

-Encode information in Mnemonics

A mnemonic is a device or prompt assisting the memory (Microsoft Encarta 2009). If you have passed through secondary school within Nigeria, you surely know of MR NIGER D. MR NIGER D is a most famous mnemonic that holds the characteristics of living things. Think back to how easy it was to hold 8 characteristics with that simple code. I want you to know that you can hold almost every list in such a code. It makes work much easier and fun to recall and has no limit to the number of individual entities it can hold. I have held as much as thirty-five separate things in a mnemonic while schooling.  Try holding things in funny or memorable codes that can be easily remembered and take care to ensure you can recall what each part of the mnemonic means. It is a cardinal sin if you remember the mnemonic and not what it stands for.

A mnemonic is not compulsorily a word, it can be a whole sentence or sometimes, a collection of words that are just about pronounceable and can be recalled. Let me refresh our minds with another famous information held in mnemonics all over the world; the names of planets in the universe. When I was much younger, I stored the names of the planets with “Mr Victor Emmanuel Must Just See Uncle Now, Please”. Look around you, practice with mnemonics before the D-day and watch how you waltz through any question that requires you to list.

-Jot down

This is yet another powerful but ignored reading tool. As a rule, always read with a jotting pad and a pen in your hand. Regularly jot down salient and important points as you read on. Allow your jottings to cover every section of the material you have just read. Jotting keeps what you have just read fresh. The simple act of writing down what you have just understood makes it very difficult for you to forget it. It is also a very powerful revision tool. Running low on time and you want to go through your materials once again? Just read your jottings; it takes less time and covers the most important sections of the exams.

-Group discussion

I discovered the power of group discussions in my second semester in school and I never let it slip through my hands again. Well, do you have some bulky material or handout to go through before the exam period? Get three to four like-minded and serious students like yourself. Divide the material into four or five parts as the case may be and ask everybody to read a portion thoroughly, then, fix a time where everyone explains his own part to the others while they jot down. Then, watch the magic when you come to read the entire material on your own. Believe me, nothing is more effective against bulky materials than group discussions. However, group discussions need extra effort and dedication to work. Every member must be equally determined and serious and it helps when you all pay extra focus. Get good students into your group discussion and watch as your grades take an upward trajectory.

-Steer clear of stimulants

Well, being humans, we love quick fixes and taking stimulatory substances to prepare for an exam is just one of those fixes that work almost all the time but is quite dangerous when they fail. People take different substances, most especially coffee (Nescafe is quite common) to get their bodies into a sleep-denying state to enable them cover as much ground as possible without feeling sleepy. This is another effect of unpreparedness or panic-reading.

While they may work in the short term, getting addicted to them can produce less-than-desirable short and long-term effects. Let me share a personal experience. It was my second year in school and I had this massive biochemistry examination the next day. Well, I had almost finished reading but I was scared I wouldn’t be able to finish revising. So, I succumbed to the pressures of my friends who urged me to take a sachet of Nescafe to stay awake. Well, I did stay awake but I achieved nothing as I wasn’t able to concentrate. I kept fidgeting until I had the good sense to lie down to bed around 2 a.m till the effects wore out. I then woke up around 6 a.m to rush my revision. Well, I didn’t get the grade I felt I should have gotten and that episode taught me a lesson not to indulge in stimulatory products to deprive my physical urges.

Nescafe and other such products mostly contain caffeine as a major constituent. Accumulation of caffeine in the blood stream as a result of habitual use can lead to an inability to sleep even when the products are not taken. This comes with attending physical and mental issues. So, we should be careful and shy away from overdependence on stimulatory substance.  

-Watch your diet and Exercise well

Eat well and eat right before reading and during exams. Food provides nourishment, satisfaction and energy to complete your reading task as reading is an energy-consuming process. Eating the correct food also involves not eating food that produce such effects as flatulence or persistent bowel movement and emptying. Eat a lot of vitamins, fruits and vegetables. They keep the body sharp, prevent infections and provide antioxidants that boost the immune system.

Exercise keeps the body fit, sharpens the brain and increases concentrating ability. Exercise often to upgrade your mental ability and keep your health at optimum level.

-Pray

Bonus tip; prayer is very important. Regardless of your religion, speaking to God before anything is a vital component that determines the success or failure of the enterprise. Prayer also puts you in a mentally and psychologically-buoyant mood as you are expectant and hopeful that your prayers have been answered. This adds a spring to your step and confidence that the control of the situation is in the hands of He whom you serve. Let me add this oft-repeated cliché; pray as if you haven’t read and read as if you haven’t prayed.

So, guys, remember to read smart. Some read hard but successful people don’t need to read hard, they just need to read well and read smart. Cheers.