Recitation and Students
Reciting to oneself after having read a section of material is a widely recommel,ded study procedure, yet one that is much neglected because it is time-consuming. You can easily fool yourself into believin!; that what yeu have just read is understood and remembered, but generally this is not true. To make certain that you remember and understand, stop periodically and check yourself bi trying to recall what you have just read. In other words, recite When this is done, errors and omissions should be carefully noted. Then a little later, recitiltion is once more in order. In preparing for examinatiolls. recitation should be paramount in one's study procedure.
Experimental studies have shown thnt recitation is a great help in preventing forgetting and thlls increasing rememoer:ng. Actually it is profitable to take time away from "studying" and spend it en recitation, for learning is better when part of the study timp. is spent on recitation then when all of it is given to reading. In one well-known experiment, when all the subjects devoted all their time to reading, recall of the facts in five short biographies averaged 16 percent after four hours. When 60 to 80 percent of the learning time was devoted to self-recitation, recall after fcur hours was nearly twice as great. Check by a fellow student helps.
The advantage of recitation over passive reading is that the stuoen\.ls forced to maintain an active attitude- -to react and become involved in the subject matter rather than merely trying tc absorb it. Recitation serves to keep his attentio~ on the task. He cannot let his attention lapse by daydreaming if he is trying to recall something.
