The biggest shift is to stop rereading and start retrieving. Before you read, scan the headings, bold terms, figures, and any learning objectives, then turn those into questions you want to answer. Read a section with those questions in mind, close the book, and explain the key ideas out loud or on paper as if teaching a friend. Do a quick blurt at the end of the chapter where you write everything you remember for five to ten minutes, then check the book and fill the gaps in a different color.
Lock it in with spaced repetition. Make short flashcards right after you study using cloze deletions and clear Q and A that force you to recall, not recognize. In Anki, use one deck per course, tag cards by chapter, keep each card to one fact or step, and use learning steps like 10 minutes, 1 day, and 3 days with daily reviews. For diagrams and processes, make cards that prompt you to draw or list steps from memory, then check against the book. Mix in questions from older chapters so you interleave topics instead of cramming one block.
Keep the rest light and consistent. At the end of each subsection, write a one sentence gist in the margin and sketch a tiny diagram if it helps. Only highlight after a recall pass and cap it to one line per page so you are choosing the core idea. The next morning, do a five minute closed book recall of the chapter, then a longer check on the weekend, and if a chapter is dense, split it over two or three days with a quick test between chunks.
