Why is rereading important

Why Rereading is an Important Reading Strategy for Comprehension

16 December 20196 November 2020 Kirsten

There are many advantages to rereading books including increased vocabulary, comprehension skills and confidence building. Find out why rereading is an important strategy for reading comprehension, particularly for struggling readers.

Rereading Books IS an Important Strategy for Reading Comprehension

Does your child repeatedly read the same books over and over again? In my role as a teacher and librarian, I have met many parents who despair at their child repeatedly choosing the same book to read. They start to dread storytime because they cannot read that book one more time!

They wanted advice on how they could encourage their children to switch up their reading. My response wasn’t always what parents wanted to hear!

Is Rereading Books Benefical for Older Children?

Interestingly, research shows repeated reading doesn’t benefit secondary aged students. It claims “secondary pupils are falling behind in their reading because they are not moving on from writers they first met in primary school.” However, Andrew McCallum argues in The Guardian the research is missing the point of what reading is about. He argues for the benefits of older children rereading their favourite books. Find out more about using picture books with older children.

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4 Reasons Why Rereading Books is an Important Strategy for Reading Comprehension

There are many benefits to rereading books, particularly for young children learning to read. Here are 4 reasons why.

1. Increased Vocabulary

A great reading strategy for comprehension is increased vocabulary. It makes sense that increased exposure to reading increases vocabulary. However, when a child rereads the same text, they memorise more than when exposed to many new words. 

The key to learning new vocabulary is through familiarity with those words. Research with 3-year-olds shows those who repeatedly rereading books increased their vocabulary more than those who read a variety of books. Not that the children with the choice of text didn’t improve, they did, but the increase was not as great as those with multiple exposures to the same text.

2. Phonemic Awareness Development

Rereading books strengthens an understanding of the pattern, rhythm and pronunciation of the text. Developing a deeper understanding of phonemic awareness involves identifying, hearing and manipulating separate sounds in words, an important early stage of learning to read.

Reading aloud promotes the connection between correct pronunciation and spelling. This will only grow through exposure to the same vocabulary.

3. Comprehension Skills

Rereading books provides an opportunity to develop a deep understanding of a book’s plot or character development something not possible reading a book once. Exploring the text and illustrations helps children delve into the story’s message and make new connections, preparing them for more complex narratives.

As a key reading strategy for comprehension, rereading books provides an opportunity to answer more complex and elaborative questions and offer judgements and opinions.

4. Confidence Building

Memorisation is an important reading strategy for comprehension to develop increased vocabulary, reading fluency and accuracy. Reading a book without pausing or waiting for an adult to reveal an unknown word is confidence-boosting. Often, when a child gets to this point, they will move onto new books with new challenges. Remember, greater confidence develops into a lifelong love of reading.

What Next?

Rereading books without judgement help children further develop their reading skills, vocabulary and confidence, even if it is frustrating for you! As a reading strategy for comprehension do you actively encourage your students to reread books? If not, why not?

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Latest from the blog

3 main benefits of rereading books

In For the Love of Reading by Alison DohertyNovember 18, 2021

Booklovers can be split into two categories: People who love rereading books, and people who don’t. With hundreds of thousands of new books being published every year, it’s understandable why some readers hesitate to pick up books they’ve read before. Even without rereading, there is not enough time in the day to read all the books we want to read. However, there are several benefits to rereading books and returning to our favorite stories.

1. Rereading helps us become better readers. 

Sometimes we miss things one the first pass because there’s so much to take in, and reading something again fills in those gaps. “Rereading texts helps children and adults strengthen and build their reading fluency,” says Kelly B. Cartwright, a psychology and neuroscience professor at Christopher Newport University and research scholar at the Center for Education Research & Policy. She elaborates on the neurologically complex process of reading and how rereading can help: “Our brains are doing – and flexibly coordinating — many things at the same time when we read, like processing letter-sound connections, ‘sounding out’ and identifying words, accessing meanings of words, processing the grammar and syntax of sentences, and making inferences.” With so many tasks happening at the same time, rereading helps establish connections between different areas of the brain to help people become better readers.

Former neurologist and Oxford professor John Stein agrees that rereading was especially essential for beginning readers to make the connection between symbols on a page and the sounds we hear when speaking. He explains, “Rereading a favorite text again and again helps these processes become effortless and automatic so [the reader] can understand it better and better. ”

2. Rereading deepens our understanding. 

Having a fuller understanding of the words and the ideas in books is another major benefit of rereading. Speaking from his personal experience as a reader, Stein adds, “The main benefit of reading a good book again, particularly many years later, is that your added experience of life enables you to understand what the author had in mind much more clearly.” 

Understanding the author’s intent and major themes from a story is something that comes with repeated readings. Additionally, we often pick up on more details and nuance in texts when we read them more than once. Italo Calvino wrote about this in his 1991 book Why Read the Classics?: “A classic is a book which with each rereading offers as much of a sense of discovery as the first reading.”

3. Rereading is comforting and enjoyable.

Another advantage of rereading is that returning to a beloved book can be fun and meaningful. It can feel like returning to an old friend and creates a sense of nostalgia for the first time you read the book. Not only do you remember who you were, but you also can see how much you’ve changed since the last reading. Author and podcaster, Anne Bogel advocates for rereading favorite books again and again. In her book, I’d Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life, she writes, “A good book, when we return to it, will always have something new to say. It's not the same book, and we're not the same reader.”

Even with so many new books to read coming out every week, there are neurological, intellectual, and emotional benefits to rereading books. Of course, reading the new books is great, but it also makes sense to spend some reading time returning to books you’ve read before.

About the Author: Alison Doherty

Alison is a writing teacher and part time assistant professor living in Brooklyn, New York. She has an MFA from The New School in writing for children and teenagers. She loves writing about books on the Internet, listening to audiobooks on her way to work, and reading anything with a twisty plot or a happily ever after.

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Why is it important to re-read books - Lifehacker

December 22, 2016 Books Productivity

While reading, we often note important ideas for ourselves, but then, no matter how much they sink into our souls, we forget and do not put them into practice. This can be avoided by rereading books.

Most people think that once they hear or read about an idea, they will immediately absorb it and change. The problem is that our subconscious doesn't work that way. Many different factors are competing for his attention at the same time. It's only when you encounter certain information over and over again that it manages to cut through all the noise. Then your subconscious mind begins to understand that it is really important.

This principle applies to books, courses, seminars, and just about anything we learn and learn in an attempt to change our behavior.

We all have books that we have read more than once. We rustle the pages of some regularly, using them as a source of inspiration. And there are special works that would be nice to re-read once a year.

So why is it good to reread books?

1. This way you are more likely to remember information

Everyone knows that the best way to remember what you just read is to write down a summary of what you read from memory. Another good way to remember is to read the book or material again. The goal, of course, is not to mindlessly re-read something over and over again.

You can use the method of media strategist, marketing expert and writer Ryan Holiday.

While reading a book, Ryan makes bookmarks on those places that he especially likes, and then writes out thoughts from the bookmarked pages on separate cards. These cards are stored in an organized manner, each one being assigned to a specific topic (category), so that at any time he can review the most important points for him from any book he read.

You can also use the method described by business and communication author Cal Newport.

Cal suggests that as you read the book, write down the most interesting ideas and put pages opposite them where you can find quotes that illustrate these ideas. So you can at any time find a quote on the desired topic and recall the content of the book without rereading it completely.

2 .

Re-reading the book, you will be very surprised why you did not turn the corner on some pages during the first reading. And there can be many such pages. You may have missed the exact phrase or paragraph that you needed the most.

3. You are more likely to take action

If you both hear a thought and read about it, you are more likely to put it into practice.

Zig Ziglar

writer, network marketing expert

Do you like audio books? A good recording will no doubt brighten up a long car ride. Sometimes you want to know what will happen next so much that you even spend an extra few minutes in the car waiting for the denouement.

You can first listen to the audio version of the book, and then, if you found its content useful, re-read it. This is especially true of non-fiction, which is harder to hear. After one listening to such a book, you are unlikely to understand anything. Turn it on again and again.

The more often you hear the same idea, the more it penetrates your consciousness. The repetition literally screws it into your brain. As a result, the likelihood that you will follow it and take any real action grows with each new listening or rereading of the book. Repetition is the mother of learning. And the sister of action.

4. The effect of the learned information will last much longer

If you have ever attended conferences, seminars or other rather motivating events, you know the feeling of emotional uplift that comes after them. On the last day of the conference, you feel that now you will radically change your life, write a book whose idea has been spinning in your head for a long time, or start a new mind-blowing campaign.

A day or two after returning to your usual working channel, all your fuse is hopelessly spent, you fall from heaven to earth. One of the reasons for this is your environment and the environment in which you are. At the events, everything is organized in such a way as to motivate you as much as possible. After this effect inevitably disappears.

The implication of all this is that we can change our environment and thus achieve optimal performance and increase our creativity. Surround yourself with useful books, re-read what motivates you. The impact of such motivation lasts much longer than the effect of activities.

According to Zig Ziglar, some people say that when things get really bad for them, they turn on his motivational tapes. This helps them to cheer up a little and be inspired to further work. In response, he asks them why the hell are they waiting until their business gets really bad? As if in order to fill the tank, it must first be completely empty.

Don't wait until you turn into a squeezed lemon. Let the repetition of useful information become your good habit.

How to reread books better

• You can simply pick up the desired book and reread a certain paragraph. Get yourself a special shelf for books that you can constantly refer to in this way. Let them give you the dose of inspiration you need every day.
• Read the entire book a second time. This works well when you first read it a very long time ago. You may find yourself perceiving its content in a very different way.
• Put an audiobook on repeat and listen to it until it makes you sick. Sounds like torture, but once you experience the results of those repeated listening sessions, they won't scare you that much anymore.

Do not underestimate the importance of rereading books. Each new reading carries something new and useful. It's hard to predict exactly how rereading will help you, but why not give a good book a second chance to surprise you and maybe even change your life.

Why re-read your favorite books

By Jack Heimbigner

“Why do you have all these books on the shelves?” - asked the guest to whom I showed the house.

We stopped in an office where I have a few stocked bookshelves. Books vary in size, shape, color and subject matter, but each deserves its place.

“Well, some of them are reference books. And the rest is simply because I love books and I like to reread them. Some I have read several times."0072, I answered casually.
"Do you read some books over and over again?" - followed by an astonished question.
“Of course I like to reread books. This is an absolute plus. In addition, reading other authors helps me improve myself, because I see how they write” , I explained.