Do you know it is normal to forget? That the majority of forgetting occurs immediately after learning? That you can improve your ability to remember?

Remembering is a three-stage process:

TIPS TO IMPROVE YOUR MEMORY

• Decide to remember. This puts you in an active frame of mind.
• Review new information right away even if only for a brief period of time.
• Review on a regular basis.
• Use your senses and learning styles to facilitate reception, retention, and recollection.
• Combine review with physical activity.
• Sing it, rhyme it, dance it. Make it silly.
• Record the information and listen to it.
• Draw it--graphs, charts, pictures, flow charts, colors--whatever.
• Use acronyms-such as ASAP for As Soon As Possible.
• Associate or relate new information to your experience or what you already know.
• Review in small segments.
• Emotional associations are the strongest memories we have. Use them.
• Recite and repeat - out loud and in writing, if necessary.
• Relax and visualize.
• Organize information in meaningful patterns.
• Create visual and/or physical prompts and place them where you'll see them.
• Use key words to remember series and processes.
• "Chunk" information into small parts that you can remember.
• Learn more about how memory works. It will help you identify more ways to improve.

Improving your memory takes effort and active practice on your part. Developing good study skills in other areas, such as active learning, concentration, time management, and relaxation, will help you remember and retrieve information for college.