I don’t like sites like Codecademy and Code School because they coddle you too much. There’s actual science behind what I mean when I say coddle. The experiment Comprehension and Recall of Sentences was performed at Stanford in 1969 by Bobrow and Bower.

Here’s the gist of the study:

Control Group:

Experimenter: “Remember the pair Cow-Ball”

Subject: “Okay”

Months pass

Experimenter: “When I say Cow, you say…”

Subject: “I dunno. Forgot.”

Experimental Group:

Experimenter: “Remember the pair Cow-Ball. Make up a sentence to remember it.”

Subject: “Okay. The Cow plays with a Ball.”

Months pass

Experimenter: “When I say Cow, you say…”

Subject: “Ball.”

Experimenter: “Nice Bro”

Yoked* Group:

Experimenter: “Remember the pair Cow-Ball. A sentence to help you remember it is: ‘The Cow plays with a Ball.’”

Subject: “Okay.”

Months pass

Experimenter: “When I say Cow, you say…”

Subject: “Can’t recall.”

The Experimental Group used more mental effort than the other groups. So the lesson here is that the harder you think about a problem, the better you learn it. So the next time you are reading a book and skipping the exercises, remind yourself that you’ll learn it better if you put in some mental hustle.

*Yoked means paired to a response from the Experimental Group.