Habits That Feel Good but Fail

Highlighting, rereading and summarisation were rated low utility — here is how to convert each into a retrieval event.

Highlighting, rereading and summarisation were all rated low utility in the Dunlosky review of ten techniques. They are not useless, but they do not reliably produce durable recall on their own.

The 2006 numbers explain the trap. Rereading creates familiarity, and familiarity feels like knowledge; yet restudiers forgot 56% of the material within 2 days, against 13% for retrieval practisers.

Conversion is straightforward. A highlighter mark becomes a question written in the margin. A reread becomes a closed-book recall of the section just read. A summary becomes a from-memory outline checked afterwards against the source.

Each conversion adds a retrieval attempt, which is the ingredient the original habit lacked. The habit stays familiar; the mechanism underneath changes.

The test of whether the conversion worked is simple: at the next spaced slot, can the material be produced from memory before the source is opened?

• Highlight → write a question in the margin.
• Reread → close the book and recall the section.
• Summarise → outline from memory, then check.

Further reading

• The Two High-Utility Techniques
• Building a Spacing Schedule