1. Walter Pauk, author of How to Study in College, claims that forgetting is the "biggest single problem faced by most students." He feels that learning relies on "decelerating forgetting" and "accelerating learning."

2. H. F. Spitzer studied the retention of meaningful material over time. The students in his experiment read articles and were tested on the material. He also concluded that forgetting takes place quickly, especially after a single exposure to the information.
   In the first 2 weeks you will lose 80% of information from a lecture. If you review those same notes from a lecture, you can retain 80% of the information for 2 weeks.

   Review class notes within 24 hours of taking them will dramatically increase your retention. Reviewing means looking over, finding missing information and posing questions. Done daily this does not take much of your time but is worth every minute !!

   It is usually more difficult to remember information that you have heard than information that you have read. While you can pause and re-read printed material, you only hear spoken material once. You have to take notes and review in order to remember information from a lecture.

   Reviewing or learning information as close to the lecture as possible will make studying over a long period of time much easier !
   
   Additional Strategies to Enhance Memory:

   • Make a concentrated effort to remember.
   • Be selective: control the number and form of your memories.
   • Organize smaller bits of information into groups.
   • Reinforce new information through:

   1. association.
   2. mnemonic devices.
   3. recitation.

For more information contact The Learning Skills Specialist at
(610) 660-1846