No 4 - Smart Ways to Improve Your Verbal Study Style

Nikki Clarke • June 11, 2020

Can you remember things more easily if you write down information using your own words?

Do you enjoy reading about and discussing topics that you are studying?

A student with a Verbal Study Style learns best when reading, writing and speaking. If you are verbal learner, these five study strategies will help you improve your studying at High School.

1 Read out loud when you study

As a verbal learner it is important that you both see and hear words when you study. For this reason, reading your work out loud is particularly helpful. The dual action of speaking and hearing yourself has been shown to be a more effective way of remembering information than either silently reading work or listening to a recording of the content. Read this article to find out more about how reading information out loud to yourself improves your ability to remember content.

If you have a verbal study style , you must both see and hear words to improve your studying at high school.

2 Restate or script your lessons or notes

It is extremely helpful for a verbal learner to rework their lessons or notes using different words and sentence structures. When you restate information in your own words, you fix it in your mind because you have now put it in a style of language that makes sense to you.

Scripting is when you rework the information into a story. Our brains love stories and find them far more entertaining and memorable than lists of facts. As a verbal learner, you have the language skills to take information and transform it into an entertaining story. The following YouTube video by Story Greenlight identifies three tips on how to write good stories.

3 Read around a topic

Reading around a topic will help you to get to know the subject on a deeper level so that you are not dependent on simply learning the facts. The wider and richer your knowledge on the topic, and the more background information you have, the easier it will be for you to remember the content without having to “study” it.

The best way to read around a topic is to read up online, particularly looking at recent news and journal articles. Always check the date of the web page or when the article was written to make sure you are not reading out-of-date material. And remember, you can ask your teacher to recommend suitable websites, articles, or books for you to read.

4 Create a personal dictionary of important terms and concepts

Knowing the meaning of words and using terminology correctly to describe concepts is important to a student with a Verbal Study Style. You may therefore find it helpful to create a personal dictionary or glossary of terms, concepts, and words that you want to remember. Here is a template that you may want to copy.

Term	Definition	Synonym	Antonym
Symmetry	When a shape can be divided into two or more identical, mirrored parts (usually around an axis).	uniformity	asymmetry
	When two shapes are identical after a flip, slide or turn.	equilibrium

5 Form a Question and Answer study group

Invite like-minded verbal learners to form a study group with the specific aim of asking significant questions on difficult topics so that you can come up with model answers.

You may want to follow this methodology:

• Pose a critical question.

• Invite the group to suggest ideas on how best to answer the question.

• Now ask each other probing questions about the suggested answers, including the simple question, “Why?” and “Are there any other possible answers?”.

• Refine your answer by asking additional questions until you all agree that you have created a model answer.

• Write down the question and the well-formulated, well-considered answer.

If you have a Verbal Study Style, try out these five study strategies and adapt them so that they work best for you. These study strategies will make learning easier, more fun and improve your studying at High School.