(2018-12-13) Udell Highlighting Passages Doesnt Aid My Memory But Speaking Them Does

Jon Udell: Highlighting passages doesn’t aid my memory, but speaking them does. The annotation software I help build at Hypothesis is ideal for personal note-taking. Close to half of all Hypothesis annotations are private notes, so clearly lots of people use it that way.

even when my private reading happens online, I don’t find myself using our annotation tool the way so many others do.

Recently, when I read a passage in a book or magazine that I want to remember and contemplate, I’ve been dictating it into a note-taking app on my phone.

review of the history of literacy. At this point we have arrived at 600 AD. To be a reader was not to be the receiver of information, it was to be the transmitter of the information, because it was not possible to read silently. So things that were written were written as memory aids to the speaker. And the speaker would say the words to the listener.

Silent reading, once thought impossible, had to be invented. But just because we can read silently doesn’t mean we always should, as everyone who’s read aloud to a young child, or to a vision-impaired elder, knows. It’s delightful that voice recognition affords new ways to benefit from the ancient practice of reading aloud.