Retrieval practice vs rereading: which helps students remember?
Retrieval practice wins clearly for anything students need to remember beyond the next few minutes. In a classic experiment, students who reread a passage did better on a test five minutes later, but students who took recall tests remembered substantially more two days and a week later. Two meta-analyses found practice testing beat restudying, and a review of ten study techniques rated practice testing high utility and rereading low. Rereading feels better because the material looks familiar; that feeling is misleading.
| Question | Retrieval practice | Rereading |
|---|---|---|
| Evidence rating in the Library | Strong Practice card | No card yet |
| What students do | Close the book and recall: answer questions, write what they remember, use flashcards, explain without notes. | Read the textbook, notes or highlighted passages again. |
| How it feels | Effortful; students notice what they've forgotten. | Easy and familiar; students feel they know it. |
| Short-term result (minutes later) | Can be lower than rereading. | Can be higher than retrieval. |
| Long-term result (days and weeks later) | Substantially better retention in the studies cited here. | Worse retention than retrieval in the studies cited here. |
| What the 2013 review rated it | High utility (practice testing). | Low utility. |
| Best use | The main way to study and review. | A quick check after self-testing, to fix what you got wrong. |
The studies that bear on the choice
Students who took recall tests on a passage, without feedback, remembered much more of it two days and a week later than students who spent the same time rereading it. Rereading won on a test five minutes later, and it made students more confident, even though it helped them less over time.
Sample Two experiments with students reading prose passagesWho College studentsRead it at the source (opens in a new tab)Practice tests helped learning more than restudying and more than every other comparison condition; how much depended on the test, the learners and the outcome.
Compared testing with restudying directly, and found testing helped retention, with recall tests (writing the answer) helping more than recognition tests (choosing it).
Rated practice testing high utility and rereading low utility, and suggested practice testing in place of rereading.
Sample Ten study techniques, each reviewed across learners of different ages, materials and testsWho School and collegeRead it at the source (opens in a new tab)
Why rereading loses
Rereading puts the information in front of the student again. It doesn't make them practice the thing they'll need on the test: bringing it to mind without the page. Each successful recall makes the memory easier to find next time, and a failed recall shows exactly what to study.
Rereading also misleads. In Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke's experiment, the students who reread were more confident they'd remember, and remembered less a week later. The familiarity of a page you've seen before feels like knowing it.
Christopher Rowland's meta-analysis adds a detail that matters in class: recall tests helped more than recognition tests. Writing an answer from memory beats picking it from a list.
How to switch a class over
- Start lessons with a short no-stakes quiz on earlier material instead of a recap.
- Replace "review your notes" homework with "close your notes and write what you remember, then check".
- Teach students to turn headings into questions and to make flashcards they answer before flipping.
- Run the demonstration on our myth page about rereading, so students see the difference for themselves.
- Keep rereading for one job: checking answers after self-testing.
What it looks like in a week of lessons
A rereading week: each lesson opens with the teacher recapping yesterday, students reread their notes before the quiz on Friday, and the Thursday homework is "review chapter 4". Everyone feels prepared on Thursday night. By the next unit, much of chapter 4 has faded.
A retrieval week: each lesson opens with three questions students answer from memory, one from yesterday, one from last week, one from earlier in the year. Thursday's homework is "write everything you remember about chapter 4, then check your notes and add what you missed in a different color". Friday's quiz goes about the same, but more of chapter 4 is still there a month later.
The minutes are the same. What changes is that students spend them pulling information out of memory instead of looking at it again.
The teacher's work changes too. Instead of preparing a recap, you prepare a handful of good questions and keep them in a bank for the unit, so they can come back later in the year. Reading students' answers each morning also tells you, in two minutes, which idea most of the class has lost, which a recap never does.
Limits worth knowing
The best-known experiment used college students and short prose passages, and the meta-analyses found the size of the benefit varies with the kind of test, the learners and the material. The direction is consistent; the size isn't one fixed number. For classroom evidence specifically, see the systematic review of classroom experiments on our retrieval practice card.
Questions teachers ask
- Is rereading ever useful?
- As a check after self-testing, yes: reread to find and fix what you got wrong. As the main way to study, it's weak compared with retrieval.
- Why do students prefer rereading?
- It's easier and it feels productive, because familiar material feels known. Roediger and Karpicke found rereaders were more confident and remembered less.
- Will students resist?
- Often, at first, because retrieval is harder and they get things wrong. Keep it ungraded, keep it short, and show them their own results over a few weeks; seeing their own scores rise is the most persuasive argument.
- Does this apply to young children?
- The classic experiment used college students, but the classroom review on our retrieval practice card found benefits across education levels. With young children, retrieval is oral and quick: "What do you remember from yesterday's story?" before you reread it, rather than rereading first.
- What's the simplest retrieval method for students?
- The brain dump: close everything, write all you remember about the topic for two minutes, then check your notes and add what you missed in another color.
Related in the Library
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Written by Peabody Teach from the sources above, read at the source. Something wrong? Tell us.