Biggest Mistake Every Reader Makes. Distinction Between Reading and Memory / Comprehension and Recall

Read this lesson only after doing action steps mentioned in the previous lessons.

One challenge which almost every student who start with speed reading training is not able to recall what they have read.

The first question in questionnaire was “What frustrates you most about reading /studying? What problem(s) do you face while reading? Almost every member who filled the questionnaire has these 2 issues or variation of them:

1. “Not able to recall information after reading”.
2. “Not able to focus/ concentrate for long period of time.”

Not only the students of this course, almost everyone who takes my coaching, both online and offline, has these issues.

In this lesson, I am going to give you solution to first issue i.e. not able to recall information after you have read a book. I will give you clarity on comprehension and recall.

Many people get confused between comprehension and recall. Many think that comprehension and recall are same. If you are one of those, then you are mistaken. Both are two different concepts all together.

To put it in simple words:

Comprehension = understanding what you are reading.
Recall = recollection from memory.
Comprehension ≠ Recall

Comprehension happens during or after reading and recall happens after memorizing the information. 
You can’t recall much information after reading because you have not made any effort to memorize the information in first place.

The purpose of reading is to understand the material and the purpose of memorization is to recall afterwards. Problem arises because we combine both of them as single process and eliminate process of memorizing. 

This challenge arises because we have wrong expectations while reading.

 Wrong expectation:

While reading we want to both understand the material as well as recall it afterwards. This is not how our brain works and is not going to happen.

Right expectation:

While reading you have to focus only on understanding the material you are reading. That’s it. Don’t expect anything more.

I hear you. That’s cool but understanding the text won’t be useful to me unless I recall it when I need. I know that. So, here is the solution

 Solution:

Separate reading and memorizing as two separate steps. Don’t combine them.

Here is what I expect you to do from now:

1. Start with reading the book. When you are reading, focus only on understanding the text.
2. After you have finished with reading the book, come back to it again and memorize the important information using the techniques I will be sharing in later modules of the course.

In this way, you will be able to understand the text as well as recall it whenever you need.

I now hear you saying, if I follow this solution, it will take me more time to read and memorize the books. It won’t.  The techniques and strategies which I will be sharing in this course are designed to reduce your studying/reading time. I ask you to trust this system.

To summarize:

• Comprehension and recall are two different things.
• Comprehension happens during or after reading and recall happens after memorizing the information.
• Read for comprehension not for recall i.e. Read to understand the text and don't have the expectation of recalling it.
• If you want to recall the information you have read in the future, you need to spend some time memorizing it.

This is a huge insight and many of the readers and speed readers don’t know about it. Read the lesson twice and think on it for some time.

Action steps:

1. What do you think about this distinction? Is this eye opening for you? Share your thoughts, opinions and questions about this distinction below.
2. Read any book for 5 minutes with zero expectation of recall and focus only on understanding it. Does the reading seem different / better now? How is your reading different now? Share your answers below.

~Srinivas Reddy