The Highlighter Trap: Why Highlighting Alone May Not Help Your Child Learn (And What to Do Instead)
You know the look textbooks lit up like a highlighter party. Yellow, green, pink... sometimes whole pages are glowing. For a lot of students, grabbing a highlighter is the go-to move when it's time to study. It's quick, it feels productive, and hey, it’s what everyone else seems to be doing too.
But here’s the thing: all that color? It might not be doing much at all. In fact, research shows that the way most students highlight doesn’t really help them learn, at least not in the way they think it does.
Why Students Love Highlighting
Highlighting is popular because it feels easy and satisfying. It gives the illusion of progress. You’re doing something. The page looks different. Your brain feels like it’s “working.” But feeling busy isn’t the same as learning deeply. One of the most well-known studies on the topic compared three groups of students: one read a text, one highlighted it themselves, and one read a version someone else had already highlighted. A week later, there was no major difference in test scores between the groups. In fact, students who highlighted too much tended to do worse.
So... Does Highlighting Ever Work?
Yes, but only under certain conditions:
If students carefully choose what’s actually important
If they limit how much they highlight (think one sentence per paragraph)
If it’s paired with deeper processing (like summarizing or explaining out loud)
In fact, students who actively chose their highlights remembered that information better than students who passively read highlighted text. But here's the catch: if you highlight everything, nothing stands out. It all blurs together and your brain tunes out.
What Happens When Highlighting Goes Wrong?
Research shows over-highlighting leads to:
Less recall of unmarked (but important) information
Difficulty making connections and drawing inferences
Shallow engagement with the material
In one study, students who underlined actually scored worse on inference questions compared to students who simply read the text.
A Better Way: Train the Brain, Not Just the Highlighter
Here’s what you can try at home:
Use the “One-Sentence Rule”
Only highlight the most important sentence in each paragraph. Make this a challenge for your child—it trains them to evaluate meaning, not just scan for keywords.
Explain What You Highlighted
Ask your child: “Why did you choose that sentence?” or “Can you explain this in your own words?” That quick reflection deepens memory.
Combine Highlighting with Active Reading Strategies
Use self-testing, summarizing, and teaching-back. Highlighting plus one of these methods turns passive reading into real learning.
Practice “Less is More”
Turn it into a game: if your child can summarize a page using just 3 highlights, they get a point. Bonus: it’s way easier to review later!
Bottom Line: Highlighting Isn’t Bad, But It’s Not Enough
Most students will keep highlighting. That’s fine. But let’s teach them how to do it better. Highlighting should be a starting point for deeper thinking, not the entire study strategy.
Want to learn more study methods that actually work? We’d love to talk.
