Cody Grimm

Reading Secret Formula= #1 Remove Distractions+ #4 Take Notes+ #6 Set Time Aside to Read=Success

I came out of High School, with my eyes set on becoming a councilor of some sort. I think I’m on my way to doing that. Little did I know, readings going to take a big part of my career. With reading updated studies and study reports and just reports in general. There are all kinds of things you have to read when becoming any kind of councilor. Just to keep one’s self updated on the current events of the world, there is a lot of reading. I do find, though, when I do read, I take plenty of notes and ask about things I may be confused about. To activate my schema and access my prior knowledge, yet, add to it. I set aside my time to read and in the process remove my distractions that I may have, so I may better understand the material and remember more. So with this all in mind, my goal is to really get involved in HDFS and Sociology (etc). I want to further what I know, so I can make more sense out of the world and continue to help people in it.

My oh shiitake moment was when I realized that I couldn’t use the same study tactics I used in High School. Well the main reason I couldn’t use them is because I never studied. I just took the information, remembered it and dispersed it when the test came. When you taking five colleges level classes, that method of not studying is a lot harder to do; especially when you have multiple chapters you have to remember, and you may even have two or three other tests that day (Which always seems to happen). So from my first Bio test on, I had to study. I had to figure out what worked for me again. I remembered that flash cards really worked for me and you can bet I stuck with them. Almost every test or quiz, I had an ample ready pile of flashcards to study from. My brain never gets bored of them, which is good, because it really works for me.

To change how I studied, I had to perform a drastic change. I had to slap my brain across its brainy face and tell it to listen up; this is how we do things now. I slowly studied a chapter over a course of a week and got faster and faster at remembering the information. So I arrived at my first quiz, and read over the paper and for the first time in five years. I could pull the information readily from my head and put them down on the paper. That quiz in fact, I received an A-. Which was great for me, because no matter what; I always set my expectations to at least a B or high C. So with that small study session, my memory, motivation, focus and graders were higher!

All and all, it all comes back to reading. Everything seems to always come full circle back to reading. When I’m stuck in a situation next semester, my mind will sift through the files of my Reading Secrets to find an answer. The things I’ve learned in LLED and my Reading Secrets will probably stick with me for a long time. The methods I’ve learned, the methods the class as a whole learned, sets them on the right path for excellent success in college and life.