Highlighting text is often not an effective way to learn. Highlighting the material is a commonly used learning method that can be useful, but often this method is used ineffectively. Highlighting forces students to distinguish between main and secondary points. This way, they are actively engaged with the material, which allows them to process it more deeply and thus retain it better. Additionally, highlighted sections of text stand out more than non-highlighted sections. And the fact that they stand out more makes these sections better remembered. The problem, however, is that students often do not know how to effectively highlight a text. For instance, students often highlight too much text, causing the highlighted text to no longer stand out among the surrounding text. Additionally, students spend less time thinking about which information is important: the result is that they process the text less effectively. Finally, highlighting can cause students to focus too much on isolated facts, making it harder to understand the connections between them. The best approach is to teach students to use highlighters primarily to indicate structure and connections within the text. Help them, for example, with recognizing main and secondary points, or with making connections between different parts of the text. Colors can help to indicate the main and secondary points: students can also give the same color to text parts that are related. Additionally, have them think critically about what they need to highlight. Teach them to read through the entire text once (before they start highlighting) so they better understand which text is important.
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