026607K Study Skills for Higher Education

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Reading comprehension and reading strategies

As per the view of (Assiter, 2017) reading comprehension can be understood as that level in which person has full capability to understand text or a message. Author has also described that reading skill and vocabulary are merged together. A person’s ability to pronounce words properly, and capability to decode summarises that the student have a good reading comprehension skill. On the other hand, there are wide range of reading strategies which help the students to grab knowledge about various aspects and thus helps them to take effective decisions. This makes them acquainted with the topic which they are going to read.

Deep learning & Deep reading

Deep reading is basically the active process which mainly includes deliberate reading as well as thinking to a great level in order to enhance the comprehension as well as learning skills of an individual. Deep learning on the other hand is the function of artificial intelligence which imitates and duplicates working of human brain within processing data as well as creating patterns in effective decision-making. Thus, for a student in order to achieve the success in life and give a direction to the career. High order thinking skills plays an important role. The high order thinking skills like comprehension, analysis helps the student to not only learn the different concepts but also assist them to apply knowledge beyond classroom. It plays the role of raising awareness among students for different concepts and theories. It mainly helps the students to move their knowledge level from low to high and thus evaluate things from different perspectives.

Methods for attaining information retention

There are numerous ways for attaining the information retention and these are

Focus the attention

This is one of the most important method which helps students to retain information for long period of time. For moving the information from short-term memory to long-term, it is highly essential that the students actively focus on the given subject and thus avoid any distraction.

Structuring and organize

According to Cottrell (2019)This is the another proven method which helps in retaining data for extended period. When the information is structurally organized in form of clusters according to priority then the students are able to focus and concentrate more deeply on that subject. This eventually grab the information in their minds for long time.

Role of memory

Memory plays an important role in retaining the information within mind of an individual. There are basically two compartments in brain short term as well as long term. When the information is retained within mind for long period that means it has been transferred from short term to long term. Short-term memory is mainly concerned with storing information for brief time while long term memory is concerned with storing information for long time sometimes even for lifetime. Thus, their role in information retention is imperative as some information is retained for short time while some are retained for long time.

Memorisation techniques

There are various memorization techniques which helps students to memorize various learning concepts.

Memory devices

As illustrated by Wilson (2018)These are predominately the devices which helps the students to memorise and learn different concepts and gather information electronically. These are devices like acoustics, chinking, flash cards which in their own way assist students to easily memorize the various subjects.

Rote learning

This is one of the most important memorization technique which mainly focuses on memorization through repeating words rather than understanding them. In this technique, students normally recall the things by repeating its name or any aspect associated with that in order to derive its meaning.

Spaced repetition

This is another most significant memorization technique which is performed with the help of flashcards. This is newly introduced technique wherein the difficult flashcard are shown frequently whereas less difficult ones are shown at less rate and less frequently. This induces a series of learning and memorization within minds of students.

Role of comprehension and retention in enhancing learning quality

According to Rodriguez and Armellini (2017)The role of comprehension as well as retention is imperative in improving the quality of learning and increasing success of students in their academic life. Retention as well as comprehension helps the students to increase their effectiveness in learning and reading and thus not only help them to grow academically but also increases their personal experience. When students have good comprehension skills then they are able to understand meaning behind the subject more intellectually which helps in their academic life. Besides this, increased retention power help students to easily relate the various concept to the real life and thus increases their knowledge about various aspects.

Techniques for building comprehension and retention

The various techniques for improving and building retention and comprehension are

Storytelling

The great route to bump the knowledge retention and comprehension within students is to encourage them to make an emotional connection with subject being learned. This is the most important technique which for building retention and comprehension in students. When teachers will narrate a story, scenario or characters related to the topic then students will understand the subject and concepts more deeply and hence will build emotional connection.

Ask, Ask and Ask

As per the view of Ryan and Zuber-Skerritt (2017)The simplest and apparent technique for building comprehension as well as retention in students is to incorporate a series of quiz in their learning content. The teacher can make to go through various rounds of quiz related to their subject which will enable them to apply brainstorming and think deliberately. It will also help learners or students to track their performance and oversee as to what they have retained or learned.

Difficulties in building comprehension and retention

Although there are various strategies for building retention as well as comprehension within students but there are also some challenges and problems which teacher face while building these.

Setting goal

This is the most common difficulty which is being faced by students while building retention and comprehension. Most of the students are unaware of their goals and thus does not understand what they need to achieve in their life due to which they are not able to set a clear goal in their life. This eventually leads to reduced learning and their retention power decreases as they are not aware what they have to learn. For achieving success in life, each and every individual needs to have a clear goal in life which leads to final destination thus sometimes students fails to do so due to which their learning is hindered.

Reading

According to Hung and Chen (2018)Sometimes students face difficulty in reading the text and deriving meaning from it. Some of the students who due to improper attention are not able to comprehend what they are reading and thus does not remember lines or text which eventually affects their learning capability. This in turn affects their retention power because when they are not able to comprehend meaning from text, the information does not pass to their long-term memory and hence is not retained for long period of time. This also affects their comprehension skills as due to improper reading students are unable to derive meaning from text.

Memorizing the things

Many students who suffers from some form of mental disability lost their power to memorize things. They are not able to memorize the text even after reading it a thousand times due to which they began to feel frustrated and demotivated. This emergence of demotivation reduces their comprehension and retention ability and they are not able to recall subject or things which they has read. Therefore, poor memorizing ability is the biggest difficulty in building comprehension and retention.

Recommendations

According to Vaughn and et.al.,(2015)The students in order to overcome the various difficulties in comprehension and reading should adopt various strategies like connecting with story. Students should while learning any topic should try their best to relate that topic which some scenario, story or case in their real life. Having this connection will help them to understand the background of that topic and will increase their retention power. When students relate any topic with their real life then there are more than 85% possibility that they retain that knowledge for long time. Besides this, for overcoming these obstacle's student should continuously engage themselves in asking questions related to topic or subject. When they will frequently ask questions from teacher or other than their learning capacity will increase as they will think deliberately about the topic. This deliberate thinking will eventually increase their comprehension and retention power. Thus, students should continuously undergo quiz and ask questions.

CONCLUSION

It has been summarized that comprehension and retention plays an important role within life of the students and thus helps in building their academic life. There are various strategies in comprehension and reading which helps students to gain an in-depth knowledge of topic. Besides this, in order to achieve retention brains plays an important role where information is transferred from short-term to long-term memory and thus stay in minds of students for long period.

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