Research on memory has shown that our short-term memory holds only five to seven bits of information at a time.

As Carolyn Hopper states in her college learning strategies course (http://www.mtsu.edu/~studskl), and in her book, "Practicing College Learning Strategies" (Houghton Mifflin), "If you read an entire piece without processing bits of information into long term memory, you will probably have to go back and reread most it in order to process it.

Each paragraph in a reading normally holds five to seven bits of information.  To control the amount and form of the information you gather, you should read no more than one paragraph at a time before you process that information.”

In order to help students effectively process text information that they read into long term memory, Hopper has developed the “Label in the Margin” system.  The Label in the Margin system applies memory principles that have been found to be very effective in helping us to remember and learn important information from what we read.

The P³ Reading Tool is a digital application of the Label in the Margin system.   It applies this system to processing information that you read on the web, in digital textbooks, and in text documents so that you can understand it, study it, and learn it.  It focuses on the steps involved with Processing each paragraph, Practicing using the questions and answers from each paragraph, and writing summary notes for each piece to Pack what you have learned into long term memory.