Study Skills for Higher Education: Reading Comprehension and Retention

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of reading comprehension and information retention strategies, essential for academic success. It begins with an introduction to the topic, emphasizing its importance and outlining the report's purpose. The literature review delves into current research on comprehension, reading strategies, deep reading, and the role of higher-order thinking skills. It also explores methods for achieving information retention, the role of memory, memorization techniques, and the impact of deep learning. The discussion section examines the importance of building comprehension and retention in improving learning quality and academic success, along with an evaluation of the obstacles students face. The report concludes with recommendations to overcome these obstacles, drawing on the findings from various sources, and offering practical strategies for students to enhance their reading comprehension and retention skills.

REPORT

Executive summary-
The current report is based on retention and comprehension of reading materials, by
applying different methods students is able to retain information for long in memory. This report
has highlighted the importance of comprehension of reading and the obstacles which is faced in
comprehension of reading. In the end the report has highlighted recommendation to improve the
comprehension of reading.

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................4
Description of current research on comprehension-....................................................................4
Current research based on information retention-.......................................................................5
DISCUSSION OR ANALYSIS......................................................................................................6
Role of building retention and comprehension in improving quality of learning-......................6
Provide an overview and evaluate the obstacles in building comprehension and retention........6
RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
The present report is based on comprehension and retention of information which is very
essential in academic life. Comprehension is all about what person are understanding while they
are reading books (Rosenshine, 2017). In addition to this, retention is what individual remember
later on, when students read novels and understand each text easily that is comprehension. By
using different types of methods and techniques students are able to understand reading
materials, it also supports to retain knowledge in mind. This study explains the concept of
comprehension and retention, reading strategies, role of higher order thinking aptitudes and
several approaches to achieve information retention. Furthermore, this report justified the role of
memory in information retention, justifies memorization methods and define the role of deep
learning in building retention. It also clarified the role of building retention and understanding in
improving learning quality as well as increase success in academic life. It explains the obstacles
in building both elements and recommend better solution to overcome.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Description of current research on comprehension-
As per view of Cui and et.al., (2016) reading comprehension is activity of understanding
what people are reading, it is considered as intentional, interactive and active process that occurs
after, earlier and during person read book or piece of writing. It is one of the pillars of action of
reading, when individual reads text they engage in difficult array of cognitive procedures.
Reading comprehension is incredibly challenging and multifaceted.
According to Roehling and et.al., (2017) reading strategies is wide term will use to
represented planned actions that support readers interpret print to meaning. It helps to improve
reading and decoding understanding skills which is essential for struggling readers as well as
beginning ones. As discussed by Mokhtari ed., (2016) visualization is one of the best reading
strategy, to read text effectively person is able to encouraged to form visual display in their mind
as they read text, that help in better understanding. Students will visualize text as structural
diagrams or images instead of mere pictures it has tendency to fade as time goes.
Demiröz, (2017) stated that analysing text structure is a appropriate way or reading
strategy that students can use to read text.
According to Gildersleeve, (2019) deep reading is the continuous procedure of deliberate
reading carried out to boost one's understanding of text. As per view of Chollet, (2017) deep

learning is subset of technical learning in AI that had networks abilities of learning unattended
from data that is unlabelled.
Higher order thinking skills plays crucial role in deep reading and learning, as well as it is
quite essential for comprehension and retention. It is considered as concept that notes on various
kinds of learning in amount of cognitive procedures.
Current research based on information retention-
Information retention is the process of keeping things in mind for longer term period,
which person can used in further. Retention of learned data is defined as having info stored and
prevent in longer period memory in way that it readily regain. Different types of methods
available for students and other people that help to achieve information retention. As per view of
Singh and Bhalla, (2018) individual avoid cramming they study and read text regularly that help
to remember reading materials easily. They do not study materials ij one marathon session
because it gives negative results as failure.
O'Donnell, (2019) contradict that mnemonic devices is one of the best approach or
methods that person can use to retain information in mind for long. It is considered as technique
often uses by students to help in recall, it is simple and easiest way to remember data which is
essential. The best mnemonics are those that apply humour, positive imagery and novelty.
According to Cairney, El Marj and Staresina, (2018) memory play significant role in
information retention, short term and long term memory retain greater amount of knowledge in
mind of person which they can use anywhere at any time without thinking too much. It is site of
keeping information safe, it helps to encoding and retrieval of important information for
procedure of learning. In simple word, learning and understanding new things is totally
dependent on memory procedures.
Lin, Liang and Tsai, (2015) stated that memorization is process or act of learning new
things so that person can remember it exactly. Learning general later, teach someone and recite
out loud in own words are the different types of memorization techniques. Deep learning help in
building retention it plays essential role in this procedure as help to keep things in mind. Deep
learning support to understand each text easily that person can retain in memory for long. As per
view of Lee and et.al., (2015) student build retention and comprehension when they keep reading
books and journals in their academic life. Glenberg, (2017) contradict that when person read text

loudly they can understand the actual meaning of reading materials rather than using other
techniques.
DISCUSSION OR ANALYSIS
Role of building retention and comprehension in improving quality of learning-
Comprehension and retention play important role in improving quality of learning, for
example when individual is able to understand text they can read big sentence easily as it also
help to retain information. When student keep data in their memory they can recall it at required
time such as exam period. With the help of information retention person can improve learning
and gain success in academic life effectively.
Provide an overview and evaluate the obstacles in building comprehension and retention
Retention and comprehension is not that easy task for the student to develop as there are
many obstacles which used arise for the student in the process of improving the retention and
comprehension. Dix (2018) highlights that Disinterest toward the subject is one of the biggest
obstacles which used to be seen by the author. As student always love to do the thing which they
are good at. So at the time of reading a disinterest-full subject the student feels short hearted to
build the comprehension. Oral language deficit is the another issue which is faced by the student
as per the Dougherty and et.al., (2016) . As the student with the limited vocabulary and oral
reading always find it difficult to relate understanding with the reality which eventually prove as
a biggest obstacles at the time of building the good comprehension and retention in the student in
the organization.
Babiker (2018) has an opinion that Decoding individual words and working memory deficit
is the biggest combination which used to be one of the biggest obstacles for the student at the
time of building good comprehension and retention. As if the student gets the document which
used to contain the good amount of difficult words which is not known by the student and at the
same time the memorising power of the student is also not that good then it proves to be one of
the biggest obstacles in the process of building comprehension and retention. Visual processing
disorder is the another obstacles for building comprehension and retention as Zabidin (2015)
highlights that Visual processing disorder affects students’ reading comprehension if they skip
words or lines. Also the student used to have the poor hand eye coordination in them which used
to prove as an obstacle in building comprehension and retention.

RECOMMENDATIONS
 After going through the opinion of the different author it can be said that there are many
ways through which comprehension and retention can be built by the student. One of the
best way is the mediation. Meditation will eventually help the student in building a strong
and enhance the memorising power of themselves. This will help the student in building a
comprehension and reading.
 Another way through which student can improve the comprehension and retention is by
reading loud as it will help the student in memorising the information for the longer
period of time. As explained in the above para that decoding individual words is another
big obstacles which is faced by all the student. Making the notes of the learning and
memorising the same on the regular basis will eventually help the student in getting out
the best out of the learning and building a good comprehension and retention skill in
themselves.
 There are some other ways also such as keep a reading journal, Stick to physical books
and take the help of the tutor in reading and understanding the learning.
CONCLUSION
From above, it has been concluded that comprehension and retention is important
components in increasing growth in academic life. With the help of deep reading students are
able to understanding text effectively. By applying different methods' person can achieve
information retention, memory play main role in this procedure as it allow recalling stored data.
Furthermore, memorization techniques retain information in mind, by reading contiguously
students remember text and understand its meaning. Several obstacles arise in procedure of
retention and comprehension information, but with help of taking evidence based action students
easily remove it.

REFERENCES
Book and Journals
Babiker, A. A. W. O., 2018. Improving Reading Comprehension Skills in EFL Class: A Case
Study of Secondary Schools, EL-HasshiEsa Locality, Gezira State, Sudan (2018)
(Doctoral dissertation).
Cairney, S.A., El Marj, N. and Staresina, B.P., 2018. Memory consolidation is linked to spindle-
mediated information processing during sleep. Current Biology. 28(6). pp.948-954.
Chollet, F., 2017. Xception: Deep learning with depthwise separable convolutions.
In Proceedings of the IEEE conference on computer vision and pattern recognition (pp.
1251-1258).
Cui, Y and et.al., 2016. Attention-over-attention neural networks for reading
comprehension. arXiv preprint arXiv:1607.04423.
Demiröz, H., 2017. Reading Development and Teaching. The Reading Matrix: An International
Online Journal, 17(2).
Dix, S., 2018. Student advancement in tertiary learning environments:: Shift from the obstacle
course to the dancefloor. Australasian Marketing Journal (AMJ). 26(3). pp.289-291.
Dougherty, K. J and et.al., 2016. Looking inside the black box of performance funding for
higher education: Policy instruments, organizational obstacles, and intended and
unintended impacts. RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences,
2(1), pp.147-173.
Gildersleeve, J., 2019. Deep reading: teaching reading in the writing classroom.
Glenberg, A.M., 2017. How reading comprehension is embodied and why that
matters. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education. 4(1). pp.5-18.
Lee, S.P and et.al., 2015. Effects of audio-visual aids on foreign language test anxiety, reading
and listening comprehension, and retention in EFL learners. Perceptual and motor
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Lin, T.C., Liang, J.C. and Tsai, C.C., 2015. Conceptions of memorizing and understanding in
learning, and self-efficacy held by university biology majors. International Journal of
Science Education. 37(3). pp.446-468.
Mokhtari, K. ed., 2016. Improving reading comprehension through metacognitive reading
strategies instruction. Rowman & Littlefield.

O'Donnell, K., 2019. # 28-Testing the Effectiveness of Mnemonic Strategies in Learning and
Retaining New Information.
Roehling, J.V and et.al., 2017. Text structure strategies for improving expository reading
comprehension. The Reading Teacher. 71(1). pp.71-82.
Rosenshine, B.V., 2017. Skill hierarchies in reading comprehension. In Theoretical issues in
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Singh, D. and Bhalla, U.S., 2018. Subunit exchange enhances information retention by CaMKII
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Zabidin, N. B., 2015. The Use of Humourous Texts in Improving ESL Learners' Vocabulary
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