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Is It better To Read One Page Over and Over Until You Understand And Know Everything On the Page Or Is It better To Read The Whole Book and Then Go Back?

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Question is in the title.  You are reading a textbook about accounting/singing technique, how is it best to learn and know what is in the book?  The latter or the former?  Your goal is to be able to talk without the information in front of you.  I've heard of the spiral of knowledge but I'm not sure if that comes into play here.

Edited by dadmonson
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21 hours ago, dadmonson said:

Question is in the title.  You are reading a textbook about accounting/singing technique, how is it best to learn and know what is in the book?  The latter or the former?  Your goal is to be able to talk without the information in front of you.  I've heard of the spiral of knowledge but I'm not sure if that comes into play here.

Reading a book by proceeding a page at a time front to back until done is not the best technique.  I would suggest something more like:

Look at the front cover, look at the back cover.  See how big it is by page count.  Look at the table of contents, read the chapter titles.  Flip through the book looking at the pictures.  See if there is an index or a section of notes.  Read the introduction.  Skip ahead to the most interesting chapter and see if what is there depends upon what is covered in earlier chapters and if so go read those.

After you've done all that, then you are prepared to commence a page by page intensive study, and even then you will probably still learn something new with a second page by page intensive study.  Subjectively it can be difficult to judge when "you know everything on a page" so that could make for frustratingly slow progress.

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It depends on your situation. If not understanding a section prevents you from understanding the next section and so forth, you're wasting your time until you grasp the first section. If there is no snowballing effect, and it's not a critical part, you could skip it and return later if necessary.

Also, you might have to do more than repeatedly read a page to understand it. You should look up confusing words or ask an expert. Maybe you forgot something in a prior chapter and refreshing your memory will help.

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On 2/23/2020 at 1:53 AM, dadmonson said:

You are reading a textbook about accounting/singing technique, how is it best to learn and know what is in the book?

Accounting and singing technique both involve learning skills which are best acquired by extensive practice. So, the best way to learn those particular subjects would presumably be to practice the relevant skills repeatedly rather than to (only) read about them.

Edit: I can think of other subjects that I know for a fact are like this (I'm not that familiar with accounting or singing). Reading about how to program without actually doing any programming is almost a waste of time, for example.

Edited by William O
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