Rereading, highlighting and copying out notes feel productive because the page looks familiar, but familiarity is not the same as being able to produce the answer, which is what an exam asks for. A major review of ten study techniques rated highlighting and rereading as low utility, and testing yourself and spacing revision out as the best.
If your child has a neat, colour-coded set of notes and still blanks in the test, this may well be why. The effort was real. It was just spent on the wrong activity.
The review in question
In 2013, John Dunlosky and four colleagues published a long review of ten learning techniques, asking of each: how well does it work, for whom, and on what kinds of task? Their conclusions are widely cited. Practice testing and distributed practice (spreading study out) were rated high utility. Highlighting or underlining, and rereading, were rated low utility, and the review notes that students commonly rely on these ineffective practices anyway.
Please read that with a sense of proportion. "Low utility" does not mean "worthless" or "harmful". It means that for the time spent, better options exist. The findings also come from research on learners in many settings rather than specifically on English Year 8s, so treat them as a strong steer, not a law.
Why they feel so good
Three things conspire.
1. Fluency is mistaken for knowing. Read a page three times and it reads smoothly. Smooth reading feels like mastery. But recognising a sentence on a page is far easier than writing it from nothing, and the exam hands you a blank space, not the page.
2. They are comfortable. Highlighting is calm and visible. It gives you a pretty result. Testing yourself is slightly uncomfortable because it exposes what you do not know. The discomfort is useful information, but it feels like failure, so pupils avoid it.
3. They look like work to a parent. A full notebook is reassuring evidence of effort. It is much harder to see the quiet, slightly frustrating effort of trying to recall something.
The EEF's guidance on metacognition stresses that learners benefit from monitoring how well their strategy is working. The trouble with rereading, in my reading of that point, is that it gives very poor information to monitor: you cannot tell from it whether you would pass.
What to do instead: a swap table
| Instead of... | Try... |
|---|---|
| Rereading the chapter | Close the book and write what you remember, then check |
| Highlighting the textbook | Turn each highlighted point into a question, then answer it from memory |
| Copying out neat notes | Condense them onto one page from memory, then fill gaps |
| Doing all of one subject in one sitting | Three short sessions over a week |
| Reading the mark scheme after | Attempt the question cold first, then mark yourself |
Notice the pattern. Each swap keeps most of the material and changes one thing: the pupil must produce something before seeing the answer. The full method is in active recall for 11 to 14 year olds, and the timing side is in spaced repetition explained for parents.
A parent's script for the switch
Pupils resist changing methods that feel fine. Try a small, low-pressure experiment:
"Let's test it. Read this page the way you normally do for five minutes. Now shut the book, and I'll ask you five questions. Tomorrow we'll do the same with another page, but this time you'll quiz yourself for the five minutes instead. See which one you remember on Friday."
Two things may happen. The second page may well be remembered better, and if so the pupil notices it for themselves, which persuades more than any lecture.
What is still allowed
None of this bans reading. You have to meet the material before you can practise recalling it, and a first read, or asking the teacher to explain, is the right starting point. Highlighting can also be a useful way of deciding what to turn into questions later, as long as it is not the end of the job. The change is about what counts as revising: revision is the part where you pull answers out, not the part where you look at them again.
Heddy's review room is built on the same principle. It shows the front of a card and asks you to try to answer before you flip it, then grade yourself honestly. But a stack of paper cards does the same job. The aim is simply to spend the minutes where they buy the most memory. For a whole-term routine, see how to revise for KS3 exams.
Updated 30 Sep 2026. Written by Duke Harewood, who builds the tutors at aitutors.me.
Questions people ask
Does highlighting help you revise?
Research suggests little. A major review of study techniques rated highlighting as low utility. It is fine for marking things to come back to, but it does not test memory, so it is not revision on its own.
Is rereading notes ever useful?
As a first pass at unfamiliar material, yes. As your main revision method, no. Rereading builds a feeling of familiarity without showing whether you can produce the answer, which is what an exam asks for.
Why do these methods feel so effective?
Because the material looks familiar, and familiarity feels like knowing. The mistake is reading that feeling as proof that you could answer the question with the page closed.
What is the best way to revise instead?
Test yourself with the book shut, and spread it over several days. Practice testing and spaced practice were the two techniques rated highest utility in a major review.