Memory

Which ways of memorizing vocabulary are backed by research?

Testing yourself and spacing your reviews over days and weeks have the strongest evidence: a 2013 review of ten study techniques rated only these two as highly useful. The keyword method speeds up first learning, but in several studies its words faded faster. Rereading and copying words out without trying to recall them add little; saying a word aloud and pairing it with a picture or a gesture help in some studies.

By the Readlang Mobile team · Updated 2 November 2026

Which vocabulary techniques have the most evidence?

Two: retrieval practice, which means trying to recall a word's meaning or form before you see it, and spaced practice, which means reviewing it again over days and weeks rather than many times in one sitting. In a widely cited review of study techniques, Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan and Willingham (2013) rated ten techniques by how well they work across learners, materials and tests. Only practice testing and distributed practice received a high utility rating. Elaborative interrogation, self-explanation and interleaved practice were rated moderate. Summarization, highlighting, the keyword mnemonic, imagery use for text learning and rereading were rated low.

The other techniques on this page, such as the keyword method, copying, saying words aloud, pictures and gestures, are tricks for the first meeting with a word. Some of them help in some studies. None replaces recalling the word again later. This page is about memorizing a single word once you have chosen it. Where the words come from, whether reading, flashcards or lists, is compared on the home page.

What does the research say about each technique?

Only the first four rows were rated by Dunlosky and colleagues. Their imagery rating is about forming mental images while reading texts, not about pictures shown next to a word. The ratings in the table are theirs; the summaries of the word-learning studies are ours.

Why do self-testing and spacing come first?

Because they help learners of different ages and abilities and improve results on many kinds of test and in educational settings. Those were the reasons Dunlosky and colleagues (2013) gave for rating practice testing and distributed practice high. Both have also been tested on foreign-language words specifically, and in those experiments the benefit shows up weeks and months later, which is when vocabulary has to be remembered. Our hub on spaced repetition sets out the experiments: why recalling beats rereading, whether spacing works for vocabulary and how far apart reviews should be.

In practice the two come together on a flashcard: you say or write the meaning before turning the card, and the card comes back days or weeks later. The other techniques below can make that first recall easier. They are additions to self-testing and spaced reviews, not replacements.

Does the keyword method work?

Yes for learning a word quickly; less clearly for keeping it. The keyword method links a foreign word to a familiar word that sounds like part of it, then to an image of that keyword together with the meaning. For Spanish pato, "duck", you might use the keyword pot and picture a duck sitting in a pot.

• The classic study. Atkinson and Raugh (1975) compared the keyword method for learning Russian vocabulary with an unconstrained control procedure, in which learners could study the words any way they liked. On the study's main test, the keyword group scored 72% correct and the control group 46%.
• Studies of the delay. Wang, Thomas and Ouellette (1992) argued that comparisons within the same learners mix up how much was learned with how fast it was forgotten. In four experiments where immediate and delayed tests were given to different groups, keyword learners consistently forgot more over time than learners who used rote rehearsal. Wang and Thomas (1995) found the same for obscure English words and for foreign-language words: the keyword method won on an immediate test and lost to a strategy based on meaning two days later. In their third experiment, extra chances to study helped the keyword learners more, and the authors concluded that keyword memories are fragile and need repeated testing.
• The review's verdict. Dunlosky and colleagues (2013) rated the keyword mnemonic low utility: hard to use in some contexts, and helpful only for a limited range of materials and for short retention intervals.

The practical reading: a keyword can get a stubborn word into memory. It does not remove the need to recall the word again on later days. Use it for the few words that refuse to stick, not as a method for every word.

Does writing words out help?

Copying a new word while you study it does not help, and in two experiments it hurt. Writing it from memory is a different thing: that is self-testing.

• Barcroft (2006) had English-speaking learners of Spanish study 24 new nouns as word–picture pairs, copying 12 of them and writing nothing for the other 12. Their ability to produce the words, tested straight away and 2 days later, was higher for the words they had not written. Barcroft's explanation is that copying uses up the attention needed to take in the new word form.
• A follow-up with 24 Spanish nouns compared writing the whole word, writing a fragment of it and not writing. Scores were highest in the no-writing condition (Barcroft, 2007).
• Webb and Piasecki (2018) repeated the comparison with and without a time limit. When time on task was the same, writing and not writing gave similar scores; when learners could write for as long as they needed, they did better on both tests. Writing without a time limit also means more time with each word, so the gain may come from the time as much as from the pen.

The practical reading: writing out rows of the same word is a poor use of time. Writing the word or its meaning from memory before checking, as you would on a flashcard, is retrieval practice and has strong support (see the hub).

Does saying words aloud help?

Yes, a little, mainly for the words you say aloud compared with the ones you only read. The memory advantage for words produced aloud is called the production effect.

• MacLeod, Gopie, Hourihan, Neary and Ozubko (2010) named the effect in eight recognition experiments. When students read some words of a list aloud and others silently, they later recognised noticeably more of the aloud words than of the silent ones. Mouthing the words without sound worked too. When one group read every word aloud and another read every word silently, there was no reliable difference between the groups. The authors explain the effect by distinctiveness: a spoken word stands out against the silent ones around it.
• With foreign words, Icht and Mama (2022) had Hebrew-speaking students learn new Esperanto words either aloud or without speaking, and tested them straight away, a week later or two weeks later. Words said aloud were remembered better at every delay and faded less.

The practical reading: say a new word aloud when you first meet it and when you answer a card. It costs nothing and practises pronunciation. Do not expect it to replace recall and spacing, and remember that its clearest benefit is for spoken words relative to unspoken ones, not for a learner who says everything aloud against one who says nothing.

Do images help?

Sometimes. A picture can help, but learners tend to trust it too much and study less.

• Carpenter and Olson (2012) ran four experiments in which people learned Swahili words paired either with pictures or with English translations. In the first three, words were not learned better from pictures. Learners were more overconfident about the picture words and judged them easier to process. When that overconfidence was reduced, by retrieval practice in one experiment and by a warning against overconfidence in another, the picture words were learned better than the translated ones.
• With children, Andrä, Mathias, Schwager, Macedonia and von Kriegstein (2020) trained 8-year-old German pupils on English words over 5 consecutive days and tested them 3 days, 2 months and 6 months later. Words learned with pictures were remembered better than words learned without enrichment, for concrete and for abstract words, for up to 6 months.
• Dunlosky and colleagues' low rating for "imagery use" (2013) concerns forming mental images while reading texts. It is not a verdict on pictures next to single words.

The practical reading: a picture on a card is worth adding for concrete words, if you still make yourself recall the word before you look. Seeing the picture and feeling that you know the word is not the same as recalling it.

Do gestures help?

In the studies that exist, yes. Macedonia and Knösche (2011) taught 32 sentences of an invented language over six days, half with a symbolic gesture for each word and half heard and seen only. Words learned with gestures were remembered better and were used more often in a later transfer task. In the study of 8-year-olds above, words learned with gestures were remembered better than words learned without enrichment, for up to 6 months, and gestures helped about as much as pictures (Andrä et al., 2020). The evidence is limited: Macedonia is a co-author of both studies, and neither tested adults learning on their own with flashcards.

How to put it together for one new word

1. Meet the word in use. A word from something you read or heard comes with a sentence that shows how it is used. Our page on learning words from reading explains why one meeting in a book is rarely enough.
2. Say it aloud once or twice. It takes seconds and helps the word stand out (above).
3. Add a picture or a keyword only where it helps. A picture for a concrete noun; a keyword for a word that will not stick. Do not copy the word out in rows.
4. Recall before you check. On every review, say or write the meaning, or the foreign word, before you look. Mark the card as failed if you could not, however familiar the answer looks afterwards.
5. Space the reviews. Let the card come back after a day, then after longer gaps. A flashcard app does the scheduling; the hub explains how far apart reviews should be, and our first-week plan turns it into a daily routine.

How we chose the studies

We took the ratings from Dunlosky and colleagues' review (2013) and, for each technique, looked for experiments with foreign-language or new words that report what learners remembered. For Atkinson and Raugh (1975), MacLeod and colleagues (2010), Wang and colleagues (1992), Wang and Thomas (1995), Barcroft (2006, 2007), Webb and Piasecki (2018), Icht and Mama (2022), Carpenter and Olson (2012), Macedonia and Knösche (2011) and Andrä and colleagues (2020) we worked from the published abstracts, and report only what those abstracts state. Where we give no percentage for a study, the abstract did not give one.

References

1. Andrä, C., Mathias, B., Schwager, A., Macedonia, M., & von Kriegstein, K. (2020). Learning foreign language vocabulary with gestures and pictures enhances vocabulary memory for several months post-learning in eight-year-old school children. Educational Psychology Review, 32(3), 815–850. doi:10.1007/s10648-020-09527-z
2. Atkinson, R. C., & Raugh, M. R. (1975). An application of the mnemonic keyword method to the acquisition of a Russian vocabulary. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 1(2), 126–133. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.1.2.126
3. Barcroft, J. (2006). Can writing a new word detract from learning it? More negative effects of forced output during vocabulary learning. Second Language Research, 22(4), 487–497. doi:10.1191/0267658306sr276oa
4. Barcroft, J. (2007). Effects of word and fragment writing during L2 vocabulary learning. Foreign Language Annals, 40(4), 713–726. doi:10.1111/j.1944-9720.2007.tb02889.x
5. Carpenter, S. K., & Olson, K. M. (2012). Are pictures good for learning new vocabulary in a foreign language? Only if you think they are not. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 38(1), 92–101. doi:10.1037/a0024828
6. Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58. doi:10.1177/1529100612453266
7. Icht, M., & Mama, Y. (2022). The effect of vocal production on vocabulary learning in a second language. Language Teaching Research, 26(1), 79–98. doi:10.1177/1362168819883894
8. Macedonia, M., & Knösche, T. R. (2011). Body in mind: How gestures empower foreign language learning. Mind, Brain, and Education, 5(4), 196–211. doi:10.1111/j.1751-228X.2011.01129.x
9. MacLeod, C. M., Gopie, N., Hourihan, K. L., Neary, K. R., & Ozubko, J. D. (2010). The production effect: Delineation of a phenomenon. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36(3), 671–685. doi:10.1037/a0018785
10. Wang, A. Y., & Thomas, M. H. (1995). Effect of keywords on long-term retention: Help or hindrance? Journal of Educational Psychology, 87(3), 468–475. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.87.3.468
11. Wang, A. Y., Thomas, M. H., & Ouellette, J. A. (1992). Keyword mnemonic and retention of second-language vocabulary words. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84(4), 520–528. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.84.4.520
12. Webb, S., & Piasecki, A. (2018). Re-examining the effects of word writing on vocabulary learning. ITL – International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 169(1), 72–94. doi:10.1075/itl.00007.web