Effects of repeated readings on bilingual and monolingual memory for text

Repeated readings is a recognized method for improving students′ memory for text. In this paper, we investigated the variables that influence the effectiveness of repeated readings. Across four experiments, college students read narrative or expository texts and answered comprehension questions about the texts. The time interval between the repetitions (massed or spaced repetitions), the language of repetitions (same or different) as well as the type of activity between the two repetitions (interfering or noninterfering passages) were manipulated. These variables affected performance only on text-based questions that asked for details rather than on questions that asked for main ideas and inferences. A spaced repeated reading led to better performance than a massed repeated reading. However, a bilingual presentation could overcome the disadvantages of a massed repetition.