Find a study partner.

Your partner should be a friend or significant other, not a competitor.

Read through an entire book or tutorial together. Work through the parts you each get stuck on — the parts that would’ve discouraged you or driven you to distraction had you been studying the material by yourself.

Schedule an hour every day to work on the material in tandem. Don’t skip ahead; don’t let your partner skip ahead.

If you can’t meet in person, talk on skype and use Skype’s free screenshare feature in turns so that one or the other can “drive” the code.

Make sure you both type out any code passages in the book/tutorial. Complete the exercises. Ask questions about the same passages. Quiz each other on whether you can explain new concepts.

If something doesn’t make sense, find external help. Start typing out questions on stackoverflow, and realize 90% of the way through that you already knew the answer. Use each of your respective googling skills. Find someone to take a look at your question at a programming meetup if all else fails.

Talk out loud. Constantly ask each other questions. Program individually, and then review each other’s code.

Make it a habit. Do this an hour a day.