Our brains are designed to take input from a variety of sources and match them with previously-recognized patterns. Even if not all of the necessary information is there, our mind fills in the blanks to make sense out of what we see and hear. :f w: r:pl:c: :ll :f th: v:w:ls :n th:s s:nt:nc: w:th c:l:ns, :t’s st:ll :nd:rst:nd:bl:. In fact, if you were reading very quickly, your eyes might have skimmed over the odd spelling without realizing it – your brain would have supplied the missing pieces without your conscious direction.

The learning process is as much unconscious as it is conscious. Things we learn during the day aren’t immediately stored in our long-term memories; instead, those bits of information appear to be processed when our brain is in “sleep mode” and not taking in any new input. This is an excellent argument both for breaking down your vocabulary word list into small groups of words that you work on daily, and for getting a good night’s sleep.

One way to bring together unconscious and conscious learning is look for and create patterns. By grouping the words on your vocabulary study list together in some way, you’ll help your brain organize the information so that it’s easier to learn and remember. One good way to group words is by letter pattern. This might seem counterintuitive at first, but the similarities in the words will work in your favor, creating a “cluster” of information for your brain to hold on to. As an illustration, look at the following four words:

– inequity
– antiquity
– propinquity
– ubiquity

Notice how your eye immediately jumps to the end of the words, and the cluster -quity. Right away you’ve got a tag that your brain mentally attaches to the words, making them more memorable. Just the fact that you’ve read those four words in a group, in the process of reading this post, has put the words in your memory – but moving them to long-term memory takes a little more work. We’ll talk about that in the next post.

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