Spaced Practice: A teacher's guide
How can you use spaced practice in your classroom to promote long-term knowledge retention and advance student outcomes?
What is Spaced Practice?
Spaced practice refers to a study schedule that involves studying material over a period of time, with breaks in between, to promote better retention of information. This technique is often used in educational settings and is considered one of the most effective study strategies for long-term learning.
Retrieval practice is a key component of spaced practice, which includes regular practice questions or other assessments designed to aid in the recall of previously learned material. By using a spaced practice study schedule with regular retrieval practice, students can experience the benefits of retrieval practice such as better memory retention, improved recall, and more effective learning overall.
Spaced practice is one of the most effective study strategies, in which learners review the learning material over an extended time. This provides time for their minds to make connections between different concepts and ideas so the learners can build upon learning and easily recall the knowledge in future. How does spaced practice work?
The main purpose of the spaced repetitions is to give a chance to the learner to (nearly) forget the previous learning before revisiting the same material. It may sound like a bad idea, but forgetting something to remember leads to long-term retention of learning.
After having to almost forget something, a human brain works even harder to recall the same information. Spaced learning and effective retrieval practice offer a workout to the learners' brains each time they revisit the material.
When a person crams in frequent study sessions, all the knowledge is saved in his short-term memory (which he quickly forgets). The use of gaps between study sessions is an effective learning strategy that, allows the material to store in the pupil's long-term memory instead.
This is the main reason for spaced retrieval practice to work. Ultimately, the learners won’t need to work harder to recall the information leading to the intense period of learning —they will be able to recollect the information quickly from their long-term learning.
In the first few learning sessions, the learner's mind would be working hard to recall the information. As he revisits the information, it will become easier to recall and build upon.
What are the steps of using spaced practice?
Spaced repetition can practiced in the following four steps:
- Planning: Plan the regular intervals of study sessions;
- Study and review: The information must be studied and reviewed for the first time.
- Recalling: Recall the learned material at the first spacing interval.
- Continue to recall: The learning material must be recalled at adequate spacing intervals.
Cognitive science has seen a resurgence in recent years as curriculum content in schools has placed larger demands on memory. If your colleagues are interested in building robust knowledge as the basis for memory consolidation that you might be interested in learning about our graphic organisers and building block methodologies. Educators need to consider careful curriculum design when thinking about the retention of knowledge. Many of the schools we work with are thinking about the encoding process more carefully. As Daniel Willingham points out, memory is understanding in disguise.
Curriculum subjects are full of complex ideas and students now have to embrace the science of learning in order to remember the important information. The Education Endowment Foundation now hosts hundreds of studies in this field and our own repository of landmark research will prove a good starting point for any educator interested in effective study skills.
Best Ways to Plan a Spaced Repetition Schedule
Spaced repetition is a powerful tool to help students retain knowledge over time, and planning an effective schedule is key. Here are practical steps for teachers to implement spaced practice in secondary school classrooms.
1. Plan Frequent and Short Review Sessions
Instead of relying on cramming, regular and short review sessions spread throughout the school year are more effective. These sessions give students repeated opportunities to recall and apply what they've learned. Incorporate spaced retrieval practice into your classroom reading practices—this ensures that knowledge is reinforced consistently, not just during exam preparation.
Tip for Teachers: Schedule small review sessions at the start or end of lessons. A 5-10 minute recap or a short quiz on previous material is enough to keep the content fresh.
2. Gradually Increase Time Between Reviews
The key to spaced practice is gradually increasing the gap between review sessions. For example, after teaching a new concept, plan a review session the next day, then after three days, and then again after a week. Continue to extend the intervals over time.
Practical Example:
- Day 1: Teach new material.
- Day 2: Review and revisit the content.
- Day 5: Another review.
- Day 10: Further review.
- Day 14: Continue spaced review over the next few weeks.
This pattern helps students not only retain the material but also build content knowledge gradually and effectively.
3. Mix Old and New Information
When reviewing material, it’s important to mix old concepts with new ones. Encourage students to connect past lessons with new topics to help deepen their understanding and improve long-term retention.
Tip for Teachers: As you introduce new topics, weave in questions about older material to strengthen connections between topics. This will help students see how previous learning supports current knowledge.
4. Use Summaries and Checklists
After each review session, have students create summaries or checklists of key points. This helps them process the material in their own words and creates a quick reference for future review.
Tip for Teachers: Have students maintain a revision journal or digital checklist where they can add a brief summary of each concept after review sessions. This encourages reflection and self-monitoring.
5. Incorporate Retrieval Practice
Encourage students to actively recall information rather than passively rereading it. Retrieval practice challenges students to remember what they've learned, which strengthens memory over time. You can use quick quizzes, flashcards, or oral questioning to prompt retrieval.
Tip for Teachers: Begin lessons with a brief retrieval quiz on previous topics. This keeps older material fresh and encourages active engagement with the learning process.
6. Review Older Material First
Start each review session with a recap of older material before moving on to newer content. This reinforces the importance of building on prior knowledge and keeps earlier lessons from fading away.
Practical Application: When reviewing a topic like Science, start by asking students to recall key points from previous units before diving into the current lesson.
7. Provide Opportunities for Feedback
Regular feedback is critical in spaced practice. Use assessments or informal quizzes to provide students with constructive feedback. This not only helps students stay on track but also reinforces spaced repetition by revisiting weaker areas.
Tip for Teachers: Create a system of quick check-ins—such as exit tickets or self-assessments—that allow students to evaluate their grasp of the material and adjust their revision strategies accordingly.
By incorporating these strategies into your classroom, students will develop stronger study skills and lay a solid foundation for future success in assessments and learning. Spaced practice isn't just about remembering content—it's about creating a deeper understanding of how knowledge fits together over time.
What is Leitner System?
The Leitner system is one of the retrieval based educational practices involving a basic flashcard to perform spaced repetition. In the 1970s, a German Science journalist, Sebastian Leitner proposed 'The Leitner System for classrooms with flashcards involving the act of reviewing flashcards from a Leitner Box in extended intervals. For example:
Level 1: cards every day;
Level 2: cards every 2 days;
Level 3: cards every 4 days;
Level 4: cards every 8 days, and so on.
According to an independent study, providing students with retrieval opportunities through flashcard apps improve recall and retention. Flashcards are considered to be ideal for practising the foreign language vocabulary, retrieval of facts, terms, and concepts. For some topics, like foreign languages learning, some specialized flashcards apps will help learners through digital flashcards (e.g. Quizlet, Memrise ). Regular retrieval practice and spaced repetition are two of the most effective study techniques students may use but, manually planning retrieval-based and spaced practice can be very overwhelming. Flashcard apps and software provide an effective learning method and an ideal opportunity for the learners to recognise the sweet spot of optimal learning. Whenever a student's forgetfulness increases to a certain level, these flashcard apps pop up and bring their mind back on track.
There is no doubt in the effectiveness of retrieval practice and spaced learning. Clearly, the spaced regular retrieval practice is much better than cramming the learning material in just one study session. Learning and memory go hand in hand, and the main objective of every learner is to transfer the classroom material of learning into his long-term memory which leads to an increase In memory recall. When a learner can absorb the information better, he can build a deeper understanding and use these learned concepts in meaningful ways.
Embracing spaced practice for effective student revision
Spaced practice is a highly effective learning strategy that can help students master a wide range of subjects. Teachers can harness the power of spaced practice by giving their students regular retrieval practice over a period of time. This means that instead of cramming for a test or exam, students should study a little each day over a longer period of time to ensure better long-term retention of the material. Teachers can also help their students focus on single topics or themes, rather than trying to tackle too much at once, which can be overwhelming and unproductive.
To implement spaced practice in the classroom, teachers can incorporate regular retrieval practice sessions into their lesson plans, where students are given the opportunity to recall and apply what they have learned in previous lessons. This can be done through quizzes, worksheets, or other interactive activities that encourage active engagement with the material. Teachers can also encourage their students to reflect on their learning by asking them to write short summaries of key concepts or create concept maps of related ideas.
Overall, embracing spaced practice as an effective learning strategy can help teachers facilitate better learning outcomes for their students. By encouraging regular, intentional practice over a period of time, students will be better able to retain what they have learned and apply it in new contexts.
Further Reading on Spaced Practice
These studies collectively demonstrate that spaced practice significantly enhances long-term retention and performance, offering effective strategies for learning over massed practices, especially when retention intervals are optimized.
1. Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger, H. L. (2007). Expanding retrieval practice promotes short-term retention, but equally spaced retrieval enhances long-term retention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 33(4), 704-719.
Summary: This study compares expanding retrieval and equally spaced retrieval practices. It found that equally spaced retrieval over extended periods improved long-term retention more effectively than expanding retrieval, making it a superior strategy for building storage strength and enhancing initial learning experiences.
2. Izawa, C. (1978). Effects of two retention interval components on performance differences between study-test and anticipation methods in paired-associate learning. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 19, 151-158.
Summary: This research investigates the effects of retention intervals and massed practices on learning performance. Spaced practice with longer intervals was shown to yield better long-term retention, especially in complex forms of learning where initial learning is critical for building stronger memory foundations.
3. Arthur, W., Day, E. A., Villado, A. J., Boatman, P. R., Kowollik, V., Bennett, W., & Bhupatkar, A. (2010). The Effect of Distributed Practice on Immediate Posttraining and Long-Term Performance on a Complex Command-and-Control Simulation Task. Human Performance, 23, 428-445.
Summary: This study examined distributed practice for a complex cognitive task. Results showed that longer retention intervals between training sessions improved both immediate and long-term performance, offering evidence that spaced practice is one of the most effective strategies for enhancing learning in cognitively demanding tasks.
4. Schendel, J. D., & Hagman, J. D. (1982). On sustaining procedural skills over a prolonged retention interval. Journal of Applied Psychology, 67(5), 605-610.
Summary: This research shows that spaced practice helps sustain procedural skills over long retention intervals compared to massed practices. The findings highlight the importance of refreshing training over spaced intervals to maintain high performance levels on procedural tasks.
5. Pyc, M. A., & Roediger, H. L. (2014). Between-list lag effects in recall depend on retention interval. Memory & Cognition, 42, 965-977.
Summary: This study explores how spacing effects vary based on retention intervals. The results indicate that longer retention intervals benefit from more spaced learning, suggesting that inter-study intervals should be optimized to improve long-term retention and learning outcomes, even after extended periods without practice.