Reading/Writing Learning Style: Learning by Writing It Down
What the reading/writing style describes
People who identify with the reading/writing style say they understand and remember better what they read and, above all, what they reorganize in writing in their own words: notes, summaries, lists.
It is the R (for Read/Write) in the VARK model, which Neil Fleming and Colleen Mills introduced in 1992. It often combines with the visual style, in notes that mix text and diagrams, and our learning style quiz helps pin down how it combines with the other three.
As with the other styles, two questions are worth separating. The first, whether someone prefers text, is easy to answer. The second, whether that person learns more when everything is presented in writing, has not found experimental support: the review by Harold Pashler and colleagues (2008) found no well-designed studies demonstrating that match between style and method. What has been studied in detail is what to do with a text so that it sticks.
How it usually shows up
Faced with a new tool, someone with this style will probably prefer to read the documentation and take their own notes rather than watch a video tutorial explaining the same thing. The pattern repeats on several fronts:
- They prefer reading to listening to or watching a video on the same content.
- They take extensive notes naturally, even when they don’t need them to remember something.
- They organize their ideas better in writing than out loud.
Rereading is not reviewing
The most common strategy among students who rely on text is rereading. It is also one of the least effective.
Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart (1972) proposed that what determines recall is not how many times something is seen, but how deeply it is processed: paying attention to meaning and connecting it with what you already know leaves a deeper trace than staying on the surface.
The following year, Craik and Michael Watkins (1973) put this to the test with maintenance rehearsal, repeating something to keep it in mind without elaborating on it. The time participants spent repeating a word did not improve their later recall. Rereading notes by “running your eyes over them” looks very much like that.
The review by John Dunlosky and colleagues (2013) of ten study techniques agrees: rereading and highlighting were rated low in utility, and retrieval practice and spaced review the highest.
Rephrasing: the generation effect
Writing in your own words works better than copying for a reason documented decades ago. Norman Slamecka and Peter Graf (1978) showed that words participants generated themselves from a cue were remembered better than the same words read ready-made. They called it the generation effect.
A summary written with your notes closed combines that effect with retrieval practice: it forces you to pull the information out of memory and decide what matters. Copying out highlighted sentences, by contrast, demands almost neither.
By hand or on a laptop?
Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer (2014) published a widely cited study: students taking notes on laptops wrote more words, copied the lecturer’s words more verbatim and did worse on conceptual questions than those writing by hand. The proposed explanation was that the slowness of handwriting forces you to summarize and rephrase.
The story didn’t end there. Heather Urry and a large team at Tufts University (2021) repeated the first experiment with the same procedure. They again found that laptops produced longer, more verbatim notes, but there was no difference on the test, and a small meta-analysis of eight similar studies showed the same pattern.
Our reading of that debate: the medium matters less than was claimed; what makes the difference is whether the notes are a transcription or a reformulation.
Writing to make sense of experience
Writing also helps people learn from what they live through, not only from what they study. Investor Ray Dalio describes in Principles (2017), a popular business book, how he made a habit of writing down what had gone wrong after each mistake and what general rule he could draw from it. It is a personal account, not a study, but it captures the same mechanism well: rephrasing in writing to turn something isolated into a reusable idea.
An example of what does work
A law student who describes herself as a reading/writing learner is preparing a topic in administrative law for the bar exam. If her method is to reread her highlighted outline three times, she is working with the feeling of familiarity that research links to weak retention.
If, after reading each section, she closes the outline, writes a summary from memory in her own words, compares it with the original and does it again a few days later, she is combining generation, retrieval and spacing. All three techniques would work just as well for a classmate who sees himself as an auditory learner; for her, they are also comfortable, and that comfort helps sustain the effort.
This article summarizes research on learning for informational purposes; it does not replace guidance from a professional if there are reading or learning difficulties.
Sources
- Craik, F. I. M., & Lockhart, R. S. (1972). Levels of processing: A framework for memory research. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 11(6), 671-684. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5371(72)80001-X
- Craik, F. I. M., & Watkins, M. J. (1973). The role of rehearsal in short-term memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 12(6), 599-607. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5371(73)80039-8
- Dalio, R. (2017). Principles: Life and Work. Simon & Schuster.
- Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4-58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100612453266
- Fleming, N. D., & Mills, C. (1992). Not another inventory, rather a catalyst for reflection. To Improve the Academy, 11, 137-155.
- Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychological Science, 25(6), 1159-1168. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614524581
- Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9(3), 105-119. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6053.2009.01038.x
- Slamecka, N. J., & Graf, P. (1978). The generation effect: Delineation of a phenomenon. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 4(6), 592-604. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.4.6.592
- Urry, H. L., Crittle, C. S., Floerke, V. A., Leonard, M. Z., Perry, C. S., Akdilek, N., et al. (2021). Don’t ditch the laptop just yet: A direct replication of Mueller and Oppenheimer’s (2014) Study 1 plus mini meta-analyses across similar studies. Psychological Science, 32(3), 326-339. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620965541
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Frequently asked questions
What is the reading/writing learning style?
It is a stated preference for learning through text: reading, taking notes, making lists and summaries. In the VARK questionnaire it is the letter R (Read/Write). It describes how someone likes to learn; it does not show that they learn better that way.
What study strategies are associated with this style?
The VARK model links it to taking extensive notes, rewriting in your own words and building summaries or lists. Of these, active rephrasing has the strongest support; rereading, by contrast, gives a feeling of mastery but leaves little trace, and that holds for every style.
Is this the most common style in traditional academic settings?
There's no solid data to confirm it, although much of formal teaching relies on written text, and people who enjoy reading and writing may feel more at ease with conventional exams and assessments.
Is it better to take notes by hand or on a laptop?
It isn't clear. Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014) found that students taking notes on laptops copied more verbatim and did worse on conceptual questions, but a direct replication by Urry and colleagues (2021) found no difference in performance. What does seem to matter is rephrasing rather than transcribing.
