I think you're partially right, but I think there's also something else going on here. The key about the memory is recall. Just writing multiple times (ie reading the book over and over) doesn't increase the reliability of memorization as much as reading the address. It seems the act of forcing the brain to find the information makes it put more effort into indexing that piece of info. I think that's apart from the effect you are talking about which is about how you integrate information when forced to explain it in a coherent way.
Maybe a way to think about it is that practicing placing it into memory makes you get better at placing it into memory; and practicing recalling that information from memory makes you get get better at recalling it from memory.
I've noticed that I know I lot of things that are difficult for me to recall: there's not much point having something in memory if you can't recall it, so maybe that's the important thing to practice?
