6. Ask yourself lots of questions
Students could practice asking questions to themselves after reading once. By making up their own questions or quizzing themselves at the back of a textbook chapter. Retrieving information is what will actually produce robust memory and learning.
At times, you get the questions wrong or you can’t retrieve it. This gives you an accurate diagnostic of what you don’t know and what you should go back and study. This would ultimately help guide your studies.
Your understanding also gets deeper when you ask questions. For example, you are learning about the ancient history of trades between Rome and Greece. Stop. Now ask yourself ‘why they were trading partners?’, ‘how did they learn to navigate the seas?’ etc. Asking questions causes better understanding of the topic leading to better memory and learning. So, instead of just skimming and reading, stop and ask yourself about the material.