Retrieval Practice

The steps

1. Fix two retrieval slots into your week. The first is a short quiz at the start of most lessons. The second is one longer activity each week, such as a brain dump or a past-paper question. Write both into your planning before any new content goes in.
2. Open lessons with questions answered from memory. Put about five questions on the board at the start of the lesson. If you already run a Do Now (a short written task waiting as students arrive), use that slot.
   Pens out, books closed, five questions on the board. Answer from memory, even if you have to guess. We do this every lesson, because trying to remember is what makes it stick.
3. Match the form to the knowledge. Use a quiz for facts, definitions and dates. Use a brain dump when you want everything students can recall about a topic. Use past-paper questions when students need to apply their knowledge, and flashcards for vocabulary and formulae. Two or three familiar forms are enough.
4. Keep every retrieval activity low-stakes. Students mark their own answers, and nothing goes into the mark book. The benefit comes from the attempt itself, so a wrong answer should cost nothing.
5. Check the answers together, straight away. Confirm the correct answers within a few minutes of the attempt. Note any question that most of the class missed, and bring that material back within the week (see Spaced Review).
6. Teach students to self-test at home. Show them cover-the-page testing: read, cover, say the answer from memory, then check. Show flashcards used the same way: attempt the answer before turning the card. Explain the reasoning once a term.
   Reading your notes feels comfortable, and testing yourself feels harder. The harder feeling means your memory is doing the work that makes it stronger.

How you’ll know it’s working

• In an ordinary week, students answer from memory several times, with books closed and no notes on their desks.
• Scores climb when questions return: a question that a third of the class got right in October is answered by most of the class when it returns in November.
• Students begin the opening questions without needing to be told. Pens come out and books close as the questions go up.
• During revision lessons you see self-testing in place of silent rereading: covered pages, flashcards turned after the attempt, quiz questions swapped between students.

Weigh it up

Why it’s worth it

• It is one of the best-evidenced uses of five minutes in teaching. Practice testing sits at the top of Dunlosky and colleagues' utility ratings, and the benefits appear across ages, subjects and ability levels.
• Every retrieval activity doubles as a check for understanding. Five questions can show you what thirty students have actually retained, in time to reteach well before any assessment.
• It exposes the illusion of knowing. Rereading raises confidence faster than it raises recall, so students who feel ready often are not; a low-stakes quiz shows them the difference while the cost is still low. Over time this can change how they revise on their own.
• A predictable retrieval opening helps settle the room. The same five minutes that strengthen memory also give you the calm, self-starting entry of a good Do Now.
• Most forms cost almost nothing. Self-marking removes the marking load, a brain dump needs nothing more than a blank page, and question banks grow year on year.

The costs

• It spends lesson time on old material. Five minutes in most lessons is a real slice of a crowded course, and coverage slows a little as a result.
• The questions have to come from somewhere. Writing them, and keeping track of what has already returned, takes planning time every week for as long as the routine runs.
• Early results can be dispiriting. Normal forgetting can look like failed teaching in the first weeks, and some students will push back against the effort. Expect both.