Retaining Information

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. What is the best way to retain everything of a subject you are beginning to learn? Before you can retain any information, you first need to be able to comprehend the information. Do you need to understand what you are learning before you can expect to retain any knowledge? My goal is to preserve the knowledge of the Rails syntax, the built-in operators and libraries, and "how to use it."

I have always thought that if I read a bunch of books on a certain subject I would comprehend and retain all of the information. I have come to find this is not true. After finishing reading any material, we retain about 50%. But, 48 hours later we lose 90% of what we retained. So if we don't continue reading the material, we will forget most of what was learned.

The only thing I can think of to retain knowledge is to use it everyday. Put it into practice at least an hour a day. If you want to retain information read, immediately take action and put it to practical use.

What about reactivating old knowledge you have but have not used in a while. Will it come back when you need it or would you need to start back at the beginning.

I am working on getting better at retaining what I learn. I'm still in search of the answer.