Project Report: Comprehension, Retention, and Academic Performance

This report examines the critical roles of comprehension and retention in enhancing learning quality and academic success. It defines these concepts and explores reading comprehension, strategies, and the importance of deep learning and higher-order thinking skills. The report reviews various methods for information retention, including attention, organization, and the role of memory, along with memorization techniques. It discusses the impact of comprehension and retention on academic performance, offering techniques to build these skills, such as effective reading and note-taking. The report also identifies difficulties students face in building comprehension and retention and provides recommendations, emphasizing the need for careful reading, understanding text meanings, and employing effective learning strategies. The conclusion reinforces the significance of comprehension and retention in achieving successful academic outcomes, drawing from secondary sources to support the analysis.

PROJECT 2

Executive summary-
Comprehension is interpretation and understanding ability of what is read and retention is
action of continuing and absorbing to keep substance. The present report has been explained the
role of both components to achieve and improve learning. Furthermore, has been define the
difficulties in building retention and comprehension that is solved by applying the best methods.
Different types of methods help to retain information in which memory plays effective role in
this process.

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................4
DISCUSSION..................................................................................................................................6
RECOMMENDATION...................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Comprehension and retention skills is very essential for students, comprehension means
what people understand as they read material in that recent time (Nurpahmi, 2015). Retention is
what individual remember later on. Person might be reading book or novel and enjoying that
current moment that is comprehension. Retention and comprehension of skills is quite beneficial
for person or students as it helps to learn new things and increase their abilities to gain
knowledge rather than before. The aim of this report is to define the concept of retention and
comprehension, explain reading comprehension and reading strategies. It clarified role of
building comprehension and retention in improving learning quality in academic life. It also
justified role of higher order thinking, different methods to achieve information retention and
role of memory in their procedure. This study explains the several memorization techniques,
difficulties in building retention as well as comprehension. Furthermore, it also justifies the
recommendation based on above analysis to overcome obstacles in achieving retention and
comprehension that lead to successful academic life.
LITERATURE REVIEW
A- Description of current research on comprehension
Description of reading comprehension and reading strategies-
As per view of Trapman and et.al., (2014) reading comprehension is the power to
understand text meaning, process text and to combine with what reader already knowns. Work
recognition is too difficult for students for which they use its processing ability to read single
words, which interfered with their capability to understand what is read. Text comprehension and
vocabulary knowledge are the two components that support to make up procedure of reading
comprehension. Summarizing, inferencing, contrasting, drawing conclusion, relating background
knowledge and other abilities are considered as reading comprehension skills that students were
uses in order to enhance their academic life. van den Brook and et.al., (2017) contradict that
reading comprehension is important when child is able to understand text.
To improve the reading comprehension, 3 strategies of effective reading is described that
helps student to read text effectively. As per view of Buehl, (2017) questioning is one of the best
reading strategy that encourage students to frame questions after and before reading to maximize
their understanding. Individual is able to point on three main questions, namely, an analytical
question, right now and research question. Oczkus, (2018) stated that monitoring- clarifying and

searching and selecting is the best reading strategies. It is wider term used to define explicit and
planned activities that help person translate print to meaning. Strategies improve reading
comprehension and decoding skills benefits every student.
Deep learning and reading-
According to Brooker and Stone, (2019) deep reading is progressive procedure of
deliberate and thoughtful reading carried out to increase student comprehension of text and
enjoyment it. It is very essential for students to read paper carefully by considering all the texts.
Kooi and et.al., (2017) elucidated that deep learning is important as deep reading. It is subset of
machine learning where algorithms inspire by human brain, artificial neural networks, learn from
big amount of information or data.
Role of higher order thinking skills-
Higher order thinking abilities plays vital role in life of person, it helps to think better and
learn different things, it just not memorizes, their role is to improve student’s cognitive ability
rather than before.
B- Description of current research on information retention
Various methods to achieve information retention-
According to Liu and et.al., (2014) information retention includes holding knowledge in
mind so that it can be uses for further research or study. Different types of methods available for
students that they can use to achieve knowledge retention. Attention is one of the main element
or method of retaining information, by focusing on text students is able to retain information in
mind for longer. They can study in place where no one can distract their mind and diverse them
towards other activities.
Hatch, (2018) stated that by organizing and structuring materials that students want to
study is another method which they can use to achieve information retention. When material is
well organised, it is easy to understand and retain in mind for longer.
Role of memory in information retention process-
As per view of Sweller, (2016) memory plays crucial role in procedure of information
retention; it refers to short term or longer-term process of knowledge retention over time.
Memory is essential part of human cognition; it permits persons to draw and recall upon past
activities to frame their comprehension of behaviour within present movement.
Different memorization techniques-

According to Namjoshi, (2015) memorization is the procedure of committing something
essential to learning or memory something by heart. Different types of memorisation techniques
accessible for students which they can choose based on action. Students elaborate on what they
apply and learn knowledge to something essential for them with the help to assign
meaningfulness to things they can memorize many things from past. Learning general and
particular later is good method that helps with retrieval things, when students known piece of
essential information falls within wider category it is easy for them to access by applying this
method.
DISCUSSION
Role of building retention and comprehension in improving quality of learning-
Discussed by Renukadevi, (2014) comprehension plays important role in improving
quality of learning and also help to increase success in academic life. By having the ability to
understand text and new things in course of work students is able to learn and gain more
knowledge about different subject in their academic life. Along with this retention of knowledge
is also essential for people as it helps to enhance quality of learning various topic related to their
academic course.
Retention and comprehension are beneficial for students as it helps to increase their
academic life better than before. By retaining knowledge and understanding text students is able
to gain more information about new things that they can use in academic life appropriately. With
the help of building retention and comprehension individual is capable to deal with difficult
situation.
Techniques on how to build retention and comprehension-
To build comprehension and retention, there are different types of techniques that person
can use in their academic life to improve quality of learning better than earlier. According to the
Allen, Snow and McNamara, (2015) when students read books and articles related to their course
work as much as they can it help them to understand text. They can retain knowledge by dividing
long sentences into small parts which helps to understand its actual meaning easily without any
difficulties that impact on academic life. Through Keeping notes is one of the best techniques
that build retention as well as comprehension systematically. Whenever individual find
interesting words or text that is use in order to define something more effectively, will write

down in notebook. Writing words of sentence down will help students to remember and
comprehended.
Difficulties in building retention and comprehension-
According to Vaughn and et.al., (2015) some student and individual facing difficulties in
building comprehension because they are not been able to derive the actual meaning from
material that they read at present movement. Without knowing the meaning of text person cannot
be able to build comprehension as well as retention in their life that impact on growth and
success of career. Lack of strategies to effectively engage with reading materials is reason behind
not building comprehension and retention of knowledge effectively in regard to students.
Decoding difficulties hinder comprehension and retention of essential information that is quite
beneficial for further study. When person is unable to comprehend, reading complex words is
useless. Lot of efforts will use to decode word in sentence, it is likely that person will not be able
to understand what they are reading.
RECOMMENDATION
From above analysis it has been summarized that comprehension and retention is
significance in life of person. With the help of deep learning, reading and higher order thinking
skills' person is able to retain knowledge for longer time in their memory. To overcome above
challenges facing to achieve retention and comprehension students are recommended to read
sentence carefully and understand the meaning of each text that is valuable for them. As it allows
individual to gain better knowledge and make able to understand sentence properly. Furthermore,
to overcome another challenge faced by person in building retention and comprehension is lack
of strategies to connect with text. So, for that they are highly suggested to make strategies that
help to engage with reading source more closely.
CONCLUSION
From above evaluation I am able to addressed the current topic that is comprehension and
retention from secondary sources, where number of information is available at different sources
that help me to obtain deeper knowledge and allow to understand the difficulties facing for
building comprehension as well as retention. Both elements are crucial for students as it help to
improve their learning skills better than before. The aim of this study is to investigate the
comprehension and retention strategies, the objective it to identify difficulties and methods to

achieve information retention. Furthermore, by applying or adopting different techniques person
is able to gain retention & comprehension that support to lead successful academic life.

REFERENCES
Book and Journals
Allen, L.K., Snow, E.L. and McNamara, D.S., 2015, March. Are you reading my mind?:
modeling students' reading comprehension skills with natural language processing
techniques. In Proceedings of the fifth international conference on learning analytics and
knowledge (pp. 246-254). ACM.
Brooker, G. and Stone, S., 2019. Re-readings: 2: Interior Architecture and the Principles of
Remodelling Existing Buildings. Routledge.
Buehl, D., 2017. Classroom strategies for interactive learning. Stenhouse Publishers.
Hatch, M.J., 2018. Organization theory: Modern, symbolic, and postmodern perspectives.
Oxford university press.
Kooi, T and et.al., 2017. Large scale deep learning for computer aided detection of
mammographic lesions. Medical image analysis. 35. pp.303-312.
Liu, Y and et.al., 2014. The effect of mind mapping on teaching and learning: A meta-
analysis. Standard Journal of Education and Essay. 2(1). pp.17-31.
Namjoshi, K., 2015. Study of the effectiveness of memory techniques and memory model for
memorizing spellings (Doctoral dissertation, Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth).
Nurpahmi, S., 2015. IMPROVING LISTENING SKILL BY ACTIVATING
STUDENTS’PRIOR KNOWLEDGE. ETERNAL (English, Teaching, Learning, and
Research Journal). 1(1). pp.28-38.
Oczkus, L.D., 2018. Reciprocal teaching at work: Powerful strategies and lessons for improving
reading comprehension. ASCD.
Renukadevi, D., 2014. The role of listening in language acquisition; the challenges & strategies
in teaching listening. International journal of education and information studies. 4(1).
pp.59-63.
Sweller, J., 2016. Working memory, long-term memory, and instructional design. Journal of
Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. 5(4). pp.360-367.
Trapman, M and et.al., 2014. Linguistic knowledge, fluency and meta‐cognitive knowledge as
components of reading comprehension in adolescent low achievers: Differences between
monolinguals and bilinguals. Journal of Research in Reading. 37(S1). pp.S3-S21.
van den Brook and et.al., 2017. Preparing for reading comprehension: Fostering text
comprehension skills in preschool and early elementary school children. International
Electronic Journal of Elementary Education. 4(1). pp.259-268.
Vaughn, S and et.al., 2015. Improving reading comprehension for high school students with
disabilities: Effects for comprehension and school retention. Exceptional Children. 82(1).
pp.117-131.