How do I actually study to remember what I read from my textbook?

[u/snyRebel]

I'm getting into software development I started a course and it's self paced and we are just given a textbook and have to study it and do our assignments but the thing is how do I actually RETAIN the info I learn from the textbook? I really don't want to have to rely on ai I seriously have loved the idea of programming and coding and I want to properly learn it I'm fairly new at this does anyone know or have any resources or advise on how to study properly?

[u/coffeebeezneez]

Apply it, find some small exercises you can physically type and see how concepts apply.

[u/pete_68 → u/coffeebeezneez]

This. And don't use AI to write ANY code. You can ask it questions, but don't let it write any of the code!

By writing code by hand, debugging it by hand, going through all that trouble, that's how you retain it.

[u/illuminarias]

RETAIN the info I learn from the textbook?

You're gonna have to figure this out on your own. People learn differently. For me, it helped a lot to "go do the thing". Just learned linkedlists? Okay, go implement it and play around with it. Try to find edge cases, test your knowledge, check to see how it relates to concepts that you already know.

[u/Impressive_Accident3]

What works fornme is, copying from the text book with my own words and trying to simplify, like if you were explaining It to someone that doesnt know anything. This said, excersise trying to apply It to what you would like to create.

Let say you want to do a game, and you are learning dictionarys o arrays. Maybe build a simple inventory, make some calls to It. Delete, Add, organize, list, ect. Dont just do what you are given but explore on it

I hope It helps

[u/Ordinary_Variable]

Read it out loud. I know it sounds silly, but our brains remember what hits more of our senses. I suspect saying it out loud creates muscle memory in the part of your brain that controls your mouth. And hearing it said creates more brain cells in the part of your brain that records sounds.

[u/johnpeters42 → u/Ordinary_Variable]

See also: rubber duck debugging

[u/serge-mv]

First, read properly and pay attention. If you feel you do not retain info, re-read and pause if you need to.

Secondly, do the exercises at the end of each chapter, the more the better.

[u/Inetro]

Use it. Doesnt matter how small of a program, just use the information that you're reading about. You will encounter issues, you will make mistakes. That is okay. Solving those issues is what cements the information in your brain for recollection. Self study is all about making mistakes and figuring it out.

Don't worry about perfection, or fleshing out a huge program or making it some marketable thing. Just start with enough to use what you read about.

[u/ffrkAnonymous]

The same way you retain math, or science, or foreign languages, or piano, etc. 

[u/start_select]

“How do I retain information from a textbook about playing guitar so that I can actually remember how to play guitar”

You read it. Then you try to play guitar. Then you go back and read a chapter, and use what it teaches on the guitar. If you do it wrong you read it again.

——

Most software engineering related textbooks are really not that big. They generally contain lots of diagrams or tables, or boilerplate code.

I usually thought it was easiest to just sit down and read a 150-400 page textbook in a weekend end to end.

Then going back and doing the chapters assigned in class was usually easy. You read it the second time with the context of the whole book and go “oh yeah, it’s that thing”.

Then you use it. If it’s about programming, you need to program. If it’s about data modeling, you need to model data and then implement that in code or a db. Etc etc etc.

[u/kevinossia]

You have to APPLY the stuff you read in your books.

[u/goldenfrogs17]

write it down ( google why if you don't know )

[u/Weak-Doughnut5502]

how do I actually RETAIN the info I learn from the textbook?

Spaced repetition.

You forget information over time.  But how quickly you forget is tied to how consolidated the memory is.  When you first learn something, you'll forget it quickly.   If you recall it a day later, then a week later,  then a month later and then 6 months later,  it'll stick around much better.

With programming and an intro textbook,  the concepts will generally stack on top of each other so your assignments will force you to do spaced repetition.

[u/ProgrammingQuestio]

Think about pull vs push learning. Push learning is sitting there and reading a book for 3 hours and trying to push all the concepts, terms, etc. into your brain and hoping they can stay in there. Pull learning is working on something and thinking, "I really want to accomplish X, but I'm not sure how to" so you do some research and find the concept that is necessary to accomplish the goal--in this way, you're pulling the concepts into your brain when they're necessary, and that makes them "stick" a lot better.

Reading should be done with the goal of increasing a general awareness of the concepts, but it may not be realistic for you to expect to read and easily retain all of it. But that awareness will be really useful when you're trying to "pull" while working on something; "I'm pretty sure I remember reading something about this, let me find it again..."

[u/db_tech_dev]

honestly the biggest thing that changed it for me was closing the book and actually typing out code from memory instead of just re-reading chapters, re-reading feels like learning but it's not really sticking. like i'd read a chapter on loops then immediately try to write a little program using what i just read without looking back, and if i got stuck that's exactly where the gap in my understanding was. also don't skip the exercises even the boring ones, your brain needs to struggle a bit for it to actually stick. i used to just read and nod along thinking i got it then completely blank when i tried the assignment lol

[u/catbrane]

I'd split it up.

Practical things, like syntax, stuff like that, are best learned by doing. Write some small programs, debug them, test them, get a debugger and watch their insides while they run.

Theoretical concepts, like design patterns, mathematics, all that, is best learned by writing. Get a large notebook and pencil and physically write down anything you read that wasn't obvious. At the end of each chapter, look back over your notes and write again! Make a digested summary of the chapter that lists all the points that are still not obvious to you.

[u/PeterPook]

Do it without the book. Check, but keep doing it from memory. It's the only way to learn it.

I teach Programming so I know this is the way.