The Science of Self-Learning: How to Teach Yourself Anything, Learn More in Less Time, and Direct Your Own Education (Learning how to Learn Book 1)

by Peter Hollins

Strategically Skim

not all information is created equally, and this can be true even within sentences and paragraphs. There are some things that are destined to waste our time in reading, so we should learn exactly what is okay to skip, what to focus on, and how to manage all of that.

you can start on the third word from the left and stop three words from the end, and your peripheral vision just might pick up the first two and last two words automatically.

Learning how to read faster is all about eliminating the small, unnecessary words that fill up a page.

Not every word is created equal. There are plenty of small, obscure little words that don’t help you, and trying to force yourself to read them can only hurt.

scan for important words.

if you scan through a paragraph and don’t completely grasp the meaning, you just go back, slow down, and add the words back in until it makes sense. Then take off again.

skimming is learning how to parse information and only read what is needed to get the meaning and understanding.

Focus and Attention

Avoid unplanned and unwelcome distractions.

create a game. How fast can you read a page of text while still maintaining a high level of comprehension?

Games motivate us and engage parts of the brain tied to our need for entertainment and challenge.

have a stopwatch or watch, and you can attempt to see how much you can write, absorb, or read every five or 10 minutes.

The four levels of reading were developed by philosopher Mortimer Adler in his suitably titled publication How to Read a Book.

These are Adler’s four levels of reading, from simplest to most complex: elementary inspectional analytical syntopical

The elementary stage also applies to an adult who’s learning a new language and has to be trained to understand new alphabets, vocabulary, and pronunciation.

Inspectional reading actually has two mini-stages of its own:

Systematic skimming. This is casually examining certain elements of a book apart from the body of the text: skimming the table of contents

Systematic skimming gives you enough information to know what the book is and how you would classify it:

Superficial reading. This stage is actually reading the book but in a very casual way. You start at the beginning and take in the material without consuming it or thinking too much about it.

In superficial reading, you’re getting a sense of the tone, rhythm, and general direction of the book rather than absorbing every single element of the narrative.

Inspectional reading is something like a recon mission or a survey. You’re just getting a sense of what the book is about and the reading experience.

Analytical. The third level of reading is the deepest level for consuming a single book or volume of work—it’s full digestion of and interaction with the material at hand.

Analytical reading can be described as taking the book out of the author’s hands and making it your own.

You don’t just read the text; you highlight or underline key points and you make commentary or ask questions.

The goal of analytical reading is to understand the material well enough so you can explain it to someone else

You’re able to list its parts in order and say how they connect with each other. You’re able to understand and specify the issues the writer’s concerned with and what problems they’re trying to resolve.

This kind of interaction with reading makes learning proactive—instead of just listening to what some person’s telling you, it’s more like you’re extracting the information yourself.

Syntopical. In the final level of reading, you work with multiple books or pieces of material covering the same subject.

You analyze the differences in the ideas, syntax, and arguments presented in the books and compare them.

In the inspectional phase, you’re getting an overview of the framework and structure and gauging your interest.

In the analytical phase, you’re committing to an extensive effort to understand as much of the subject as you can from as many viewpoints as possible.

In the syntopical phase, you’ve “graduated,” in a sense, from a single or limited perspective of the subject to a holistic study of all its elements.

Takeaways:

This chapter is geared toward imparting how to read faster and also retain more information at the same time.

You must stop subvocalizations. This is when you mentally read words out loud. You can think and process faster than you can read out loud. This means instead of sounding out and pronouncing words, you must imagine their meaning in their place.

You must train your eyes in two ways: to move less and to look wider with peripheral vision.

you must learn how to strategically skim by avoiding useless words, focusing on important words, and ignoring words at the edge of the pages.

you must learn how your focus and attention works in regard to reading.

four levels of reading as articulated by author Mortimer Adler. The levels are elementary, inspectional, analytical, and syntopical.

Benjamin Franklin. He’s still the supreme example of an autodidact: a statesman, inventor, philosopher, writer, and polymath whose curiosity knew no limits.

Although he used the 13 virtues for self-improvement—or, as Franklin put it, “attaining moral perfection”—they serve as a strong example of how to mindfully track progress and keep records of anything you want to develop, including self-learning.

Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation. Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing. Industry. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions. Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly. Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty. Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve. Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation. Tranquillity. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable. Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation. Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Franklin took out this card, reviewed the matrix, and put a black dot in each square for every instance during the day that he felt he “fell short” of maintaining that virtue.

In any given week, Franklin primarily focused on the virtue he entered at the top of each card.

Intentional planning, honest self-monitoring, and devotion of time without distraction is the name of the game.

You can also use it to track progress and chart your tasks in anything, including individual subjects of self-learning.

Instead of focusing on a “Virtue of the Week” as Franklin did, maybe you’d pick a certain aspect of Spanish studies to focus on—“food,” “history,” “politics,” “sport,” “art,” “manners”—whatever you know you’ll be covering and could organize in a weekly cadence.

Progress and learning in any regard require a steady march, even one that is tracked by weeks and years as Franklin’s 13 virtues were.

Any kind of study system is extremely dependent on how well you nurture positive habits, and this is exceptionally true with self-learning since you’re in charge of monitoring everything