Researchers wanted to examine different writing exercises on the effectiveness of retaining information from reading comprehension. They performed a synthesis and analysis of existing research to answer two research questions:
- Are some writing activities more effective than others in improving reading comprehension outcomes when treatment-inherent measures were eliminated and the remaining treatment-independent measures were averaged?
- Do writing activities improve reading comprehension differentially, dependent upon how closely the reading comprehension measures are aligned with the type of writing students complete? 

Comparing effects of different writing activities on reading comprehension: A meta-analysis

- "Comparing effects of different writing activities on reading comprehension: A meta-analysis"
- "Sources of variance in reading comprehension research: The role of measures and interventions"
- "Understanding the cognitive processes involved in writing to learn" 
- "Trends in research on writing as a learning activity"
- "A comparison of techniques for measuring sensemaking and learning within participant‐generated summaries"

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

After being exposed to a stimuli, subjects are asked to report back what they observed.

Recall

- Free recall
- Cued recall
- Change detection
- Digit span
- Repeated recall

Types of recall

A curve that displays how well respondents recall words depending on how long ago they were displayed.

Serial position curve 

Long-term recall is improved when studying is broken up into many short sessions rather than long concentrated ones (memory consolidation is improved). 

Spacing effect

Participants are presented with pairs of words (house-car, person-hat). Later they are given one of the words and asked to recall the word that was paired with it.

Paired-associate learning

Literature on the Effects of Writing on Reading Comprehension Recall

The ability to recall information from short-term memory can be influenced by the nature of the stimuli. Generally, recall is more accurate for random numbers compared to random letters. Furthermore, information processed through hearing (acoustic encoding) tends to be recalled slightly better than information processed through sight (visual encoding).

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