Tell me once,tell me slowly: repetition versus speaking slowly as methods of improving children's learning

Abstract

The effectiveness of two simple methods of improving the learning of information presented in spoken prose form was compared. The methods were repetition of the prose, and slowing the rate of speaking to half the normal rate. Different groups of high and low learning ability eleven-year-old children received either one or two tape-recorded presentations of a 216 word prose passage at either normal (158 wpm) or slow (79 wpm) speech rate. One week after hearing the passage the children were given a sixteen question recall test. While repetition did not improve recall, slowing the speech produced a substantial and significant (P < 0·001) increase. As expected, the high ability subjects performed better than those of low ability, but there were no significant interactions with type of presentation.