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(c) Read rapidly through your assignment first, to get a bird's-eye view of the whole.

To learn to read rapidly:

(1) Keep forcing yourself to speed up by continual effort. (2) Read phrases and sentences, not words.

(3) Skip wisely; read only parts of sentences and paragraphs.

(d) Read your assignment a second time more slowly, thoroughly, and thoughtfully. Some specific rules are:

(1) Keep the purpose and plan of the reading in mind as
you read.

(2) Stop at the end of each paragraph and think about
the point. Look at the ideas from all sides. Be sure
you have a clear understanding of the thought.
(3) Read important and difficult points slowly. Read the
familiar and unimportant points rapidly.

(4) Think critically while you read.
clusions. Go beyond the book.

Draw your own con

(e) Make note of the important points in your reading. Mark your book or take notes. Summarize the principal thoughts and jot them down. Use your notes in review each day. (f) Make a mental or written outline of the whole reading. Think over this organized outline of the topic before leaving the book or reading.

(g) Be certain your knowledge is clear and "thought through." Avoid vague and muddy thinking. Get a few fundamental ideas clearly, whatever else you get or fail to get.

7. Develop effective methods of classroom work.

(a) Ascertain the teaching method in each of your classes and guide your classroom activities accordingly.

(b) Think about the subject-matter for the day, before class. Prepare your mind. Review the work of the preceding day.

(c) During the class period, think all around the points raised in the lecture or discussion. Go beyond that which is presented, but―

(d) Concentrate on the general topic of discussion.

Check

every tendency toward mind-wandering or daydreaming. (e) Take notes on the important points. But remember that the first thing is to understand the ideas; getting them down on paper is secondary.

(1) Where the class period is devoted to questions and discussions, take relatively few notes and fit these into. your reading notes.

(2) Where the lecture method is used, get a skeleton out

line of the lecture or a set of notes covering the main points. Rewrite and organize your notes while the subject-matter is still fresh in your thinking.

(f) Use your notes after class each day. Think over points which are not clear and seek further light from books and from your instructor.

8. Improve your ability to remember by adopting better methods of learning. Specifically

(a) Get the meaning of the idea to be remembered.

(b) Go over the material to be remembered again and again. (c) Keep actively attentive; avoid mechanical repetitions.

(d) Learn with the intention of recalling.

(e) Stop frequently during your studying and make yourself recall the things you are learning.

(f) Have confidence in your ability to remember.

(g) When facts have no logical connection, form some arbitrary associations to help remember them.

9. In reviewing for examinations

(a) Review the main points; get a skeleton view of the subject; avoid memorizing scattered details.

(b) Do your reviewing early. Avoid high-pressure cramming at the last minute.

10. In taking examinations

(a) Be cool and self-confident. Reassure yourself. Trust your

memory.

(b) Read over the whole set of examination questions and think about each one long enough to understand it.

(c) Read each question very carefully before beginning to answer it.

(d) Make mental or written outlines of your answers.

(e) Go over your answers if you have time and make necessary changes.

11. Study actively. Use your knowledge by thinking, talking, and writing about the things you are learning. Apply your knowledge as much as possible and as soon as possible.

3. How to Study

[WHIPPLE, G. M., How to Study Effectively, Bloomington, Public School Publishing Co., 1916, and KITSON, H. D., How to Use Your Mind, Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Co., 1921.] (Adapted.)

1. Keep yourself in good physical condition.

2. See that external conditions (temperature, light, chair, etc.) are favorable to study.

3. Form a place-study and a time-study habit.

4. When possible, prepare the advance assignment in a given subject directly after the day's recitation in it.

5. Begin work promptly.

6. Do your work with intent to learn and intent to remember for a long period of time.

7. Get rid of the idea that you are working for the teacher. 8. Have a clear notion of the aim of what you are attempting to accomplish.

9. Before beginning the advance work, review rapidly the previous lesson.

10. Make a rapid preliminary survey of the assigned material. 11. Carry the learning of all important items beyond the point necessary for immediate recall.

12. Make the duration of your periods of study long enough to utilize "warming up," but not so long as to suffer from weariness or fatigue.

13. When drill or repetition is necessary, distribute over more than one period the time given to a specified learning.

14. When you interrupt work, not only stop at a natural break, but also leave a cue for its quick resumption.

15. After intense application, especially to new material, pause for a time and let your mind be fallow before taking up anything alse.

16. Form the habit of working out your own concrete examples of all general rules and principles.

17. Don't hesitate to mark up your own books to make the essential ideas stand out clearly.

18. Whenever you desire to master material that is at all extensive and complex, make an outline of it. If you wish to retain this material, memorize the outline.

19. In all your work apply your knowledge as much as possible and as soon as possible.

20. In memorizing a poem, oration, etc., do not break it up into parts, but learn it as a whole.

21. Learn to take notes on the suggestions given by the teacher when the lesson is assigned. Take down any references given by the teacher. Star important references. During recitations take a moderate amount of notes, using an outline and a system of abbreviations. After the recitation or the lecture, rewrite the notes and enlarge them.

22. Make out a study program and then follow this schedule religiously.

23. Read always with a problem in mind. Ask yourself

What am I looking for? What is the author going to talk about? Search for the answer.

"Read not to contradict, nor to believe, but to weigh and consider."

4. Supervised Study

[PROCTOR, William M., "Supervised Study on the Pacific Coast," School and Society, 1917, Vol. 6, pp. 325-327.]

In 1917 Proctor made a study of supervised study on the Pacific coast. Of the forty-two high schools that employed it in one form or another, thirty-one reported the use of a lengthened period distributed as follows:

(a) 60' period, divided 30–30, No. of cases....

60' period, divided 35-25, No. of cases.
60' period, divided 40-20, No. of cases.
60' period, divided 45-15, No. of cases...
63' period, divided 33–30, No. of cases.

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Regarding the effects of supervised study, Proctor reports

that:

Twenty-six of the 31 principals employing the lengthened period said that study habits had been improved; one could discover no apparent effect; two said that only the slow students had been helped, the brighter ones were not; and two had no data on which to base their opinions.

Wherever the plan had been in use long enough to make possible the compiling of statistics as to the effect of supervised study on scholarship, there was practically unanimous agreement that the number of failures had been reduced and the standards of scholarship had been raised. The high school at Snokomish, Washington, reports that the average percentage of failures in elementary algebra for the two years prior to the adoption of

supervised study was 28 per cent. But for the two-year period following the adoption of supervised study the failures in the same subject were reduced to 17 per cent. Hoquiam, Washington, reports that the average marks of the students range 10 per cent higher and that the number of honor pupils has been doubled since supervised study was introduced. The principal of the Arcata High School, California, reports that the average mark of the freshman class has been raised from 78 per cent to 822 per cent during the first year of supervised study. Santa Cruz, California, comparing the year 1914-15, the last under the old plan, with the year 1916-17, the second year under supervised study, finds that the increase in the total number of high marks has been 157 per cent; the decrease in low failures, 188 per cent. Reno, Nevada, reports a decrease of 45 per cent in the number of failures, and an increase of 24 per cent in the number of students making excellent marks.

5. Directed Teaching and Learning

[BURTON, William H., Supervision and the Improvement of Teaching, pp. 53-97. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1922.] (Adapted.)

In all teaching the past experience of the learner is a vital factor. Care should be taken that the children understand all new words. Difficult words appearing in advanced assignments should be explained. The more ground to be covered, the more ideas to be met, the more complicated the thinking to be done, the more careful the teacher must be in preparing the class for the coming work. The teacher should supply information necessary for the understanding of the assignment as effectively as possible. Often the teacher struggles to explain some item of geography or other subject without realizing that simple experiences in the every day life of the pupils afford adequate illustration.

Children's "funny sayings" sometimes afford the very best clues to the pupil's ideas and thought processes. A knowledge of the content of children's minds and the specific things in the pupil's environment or outside activity can be often turned into schoolroom use. The principle of apperception should be borne in mind when reading textbooks designed for grade classes.

A baby learns to walk by actually trying to walk, which

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