Studying While Reading Aloud Or Silently, What Works Best?
How do you find it more efficient to study? Many people study by reading silently, while others study by reading aloud. If you are in the latter case, it is likely that you are walking in the place where you are studying while reciting what you have read or learned. Sometimes you can even strike up a conversation with yourself. But what is more effective: studying while reading aloud or in silence?
What we suggest is to use both options, because as we discover later, whether read to aloud or silently, different aspects will be strengthened. Although we prioritize and give more importance to one of them, we will see what each brings and takes away.
Study by reading silently and visual memory
When we study while reading in silence, it is ideal to do a first reading in which we clearly perceive the subject of the text we are reading. However, we cannot stop there. After this first reading, it is important to highlight the important ideas, spend time on what is not clear, and think or seek information that will dispel the questions.
It is important to underline and take notes, even using colored highlighters as this promotes our visual memory (remembering the location of a piece of information makes the process of recalling our memory easier: retrieving). Also, the use of colors causes us to pay more attention, to pay attention to what we have already judged to be important.
Studying by reading aloud strengthens knowledge
When we study by reading aloud, something happens and hearing begins to be part of this experience, so that the cognitive abilities related to memory, attention, comprehension are awakened. This act activates the ability. to retain and store the information that our brain has.
However, as we have mentioned about silent reading, there is something else … Is it not true that it is much easier for us to listen to an explanation from others than to read our words? own notes? This is so because what has been read receives personal value, is explained in different terms, that we can ask questions, raise doubts, raise debates. It strengthens study and promotes our memorization process.
When we study by reading aloud, we make connections. We are suddenly linking what we say to something that we have already read or that is on another page. We are making a mind map that can help the silently drawn pattern or that reading we did without speaking aloud. It is an ideal supplement that strengthens knowledge and inscribes it in our minds.
The benefits of listening to yourself
Colin MacLeod and Noah Farrin are leading researchers who have dedicated themselves to studying the effect of producing aloud and its relationship to learning. This is why they began to work on it from 2010, and why one of their research, titled “The Benefits of Listening to Self”, was published in the journal Memory .
In this research, they described that they benefited from the collaboration of 100 students from the University of Waterloo, Canada, who were given 80 words which they were to reproduce aloud. The vast majority of them wrote down the words they remembered on a piece of paper, just in case.
Then they moved on to another test. But before realizing it, the students had to choose between 4 different ways of remembering words. One was to read them silently, another to hear the words someone recorded on a tape, another to hear the words recorded in their own voice, and the last to read them aloud.
The results were very revealing, and the authors called it “production effect”. Two weeks after the test, participants were given a series of words that they were asked to identify as or not part of those they had read or memorized. Those who had read the words aloud answered better.
However, it has also been found that listening to our own recordings helps us. In contrast, recordings made by someone else had an efficiency that was placed in third position. So the more personal the recording, the better we will remember it.
While studying by reading aloud is a great option, we cannot exclude others – we usually try to memorize material through its meaning and not isolated words. A combination of all of these methods can provide very satisfying results.
Some people will prefer to study by reading silently, recording themselves reading the text and then listening to it. Others will choose to read aloud from the start and then study silently by writing down or drawing diagrams of what they have learned. C ach person must adopt the methodology with which it obtains a better return.
Our thoughts Reading opens the doors to a world infinitely rich in knowledge, it stimulates our imagination, our feelings, and our emotions.
