"It's as if some of the information just doesn't... stick?"
I think the problem is that it's very easy to read the lesson, solve the exercise and move on to the next one without internalising anything. Active learning will help: ask yourself "What do I need to remember from this?", write down your own notes, make drawings if it helps, make the content yours.
You don't need to remember everything. When presented with a new function, you don't need to remember the parameters but it would help you in the future to know what it's called and what it does, so you can look it up.
In any case I believe that those lessons are just the first step. What you need to become a programmer is to write your own code. Your programs don't have to be complicated or long, but you need to define what you want to happen and then write the code. Going through the problem solving is what is going to make things stick.
If you don't know what to program, there are many websites where you can practice coding. I was on CodeWars for a bit, they have exercises ranked from 8 kyu (beginner) to 1 kyu (expert).
The projects are what I like most about freeCodeCamp. Don't feel that you have to wade through all the lessons before you try them. You might not be able to do a whole project up front but switching between lessons and working on a project will break the monotony, not to mention allow you to apply what you've learned. And go on the forum, it's full of people who are going through the same thing and it's a great way to get unstuck.
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+1 for sure for writing notes. It doesn't work for everyone, but some people do have a better time passively integrating what they write into their memory.
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I think the problem is that it's very easy to read the lesson, solve the exercise and move on to the next one without internalising anything. Active learning will help: ask yourself "What do I need to remember from this?", write down your own notes, make drawings if it helps, make the content yours.
You don't need to remember everything. When presented with a new function, you don't need to remember the parameters but it would help you in the future to know what it's called and what it does, so you can look it up.
In any case I believe that those lessons are just the first step. What you need to become a programmer is to write your own code. Your programs don't have to be complicated or long, but you need to define what you want to happen and then write the code. Going through the problem solving is what is going to make things stick.
If you don't know what to program, there are many websites where you can practice coding. I was on CodeWars for a bit, they have exercises ranked from 8 kyu (beginner) to 1 kyu (expert).
The projects are what I like most about freeCodeCamp. Don't feel that you have to wade through all the lessons before you try them. You might not be able to do a whole project up front but switching between lessons and working on a project will break the monotony, not to mention allow you to apply what you've learned. And go on the forum, it's full of people who are going through the same thing and it's a great way to get unstuck.
+1 for sure for writing notes. It doesn't work for everyone, but some people do have a better time passively integrating what they write into their memory.