Spaced Practice and Retrieval Practice for Families

By Laura Lurns · Reviewed by Philip Weaver · Last reviewed 2026-10-18

Two ways to practice

This page is about how to practice, not what to practice.

Spaced practice means spreading practice out. A little on several days, not all of it on one night.

Retrieval practice means pulling something back from memory. Your child says the word, or writes it, without looking. Then they check.

The opposite of retrieval is looking at it again. Rereading notes is looking again. So is copying a word over and over.

You can do both at once. Pull it from memory, and do that on more than one day.

Why rereading feels better than it is

In one study, students read passages of text (Roediger and Karpicke, 2006). Some read them again. Others took recall tests with no answers given. On a test five minutes later, rereading looked better. Two days and one week later, the tested students remembered more.

That is one study. The summary we hold does not give the students' ages.

Rereading feels easy, so it feels like it is working. The harder way is pulling it back. In that study, it held up better days later.

Researchers call this the testing effect. A later review found it again in many settings (Karpicke, 2017). We hold only a short summary of that review.

Here, "test" means a way to practice. It does not mean a grade.

Spreading it out

One review pooled 317 experiments on recalling words and other verbal material (Cepeda and colleagues, 2006). What was practiced in spread-out sessions was remembered longer than the same practice done all at once.

The review also looked at the gap between sessions. The best gap grew with how long the thing had to be kept.

The review gives no gap for your child. It looked at memory for words and similar material. It did not look at school grades.

Cramming the night before may get a child through Friday. In our view, it is a poor way to keep a word until June.

Spelling words from memory

In three small studies, first and second graders heard a word, wrote it from memory, then checked it. That beat copying the words over and over (Jones and colleagues, 2016). Those children were not picked for spelling trouble.

Each group was small. The studies measured spelling. They did not measure reading.

Copying a word looks like hard work. In those studies, writing it from memory did better.

Our page on spelling difficulties has more on spelling.

How to use this at home

This part is our suggestion. It is how we would set up practice at home.

Keep it short. In our view, a few minutes is enough. Stop while it is still going well.

Spread it out. Do a little on several days, not all of it the night before.

Pull it from memory, then check. Your child says it or writes it without looking. Then they look and check. Fix any slip, and move on.

Spelling words. Say the word. Your child writes it from memory, then checks it against the list. Our page on spelling difficulties has a routine for a word that will not stick.

Math facts. Ask the fact. Your child says the answer, then checks. Our page on forgetting math facts covers one small study of fact practice.

A story. After a chapter, ask your child to tell it back to you. Then look back at the page together.

That routine is ours. Two parts have been tested in the studies above: pulling it from memory, and spreading it out. We hold no study of this home routine as a whole.

In our view, practice the real school work itself. Spelling words, math facts, the book. Practice reaches the thing it is practice at.

What the research we hold does not show

This part covers the limits of the studies on this page.

Roediger and Karpicke, Cepeda and colleagues, and Jones and colleagues measured memory for what was practiced. None of them measured how well a child reads. None of them looked at school grades. We hold only a short summary of the 2017 review. We cannot say whether it looked at reading or grades.

Jones and colleagues studied first and second graders. The summaries we hold of Roediger and Karpicke, and of Cepeda and colleagues, do not give ages.

We hold no study of these two ways to practice in children with dyslexia or ADHD. That is a gap in what we hold, not a finding that it does not work.

No study of any Learning Success program exists.

If your child has lost a skill

Some children could do something and now cannot. That is different from a child who has not built the skill yet. Our position is that a lost skill goes to a doctor first, not a tutor.

When to ask for help

Each of these is a reason to ask for help on its own.

• Little change, even with steady practice and good teaching.
• Schoolwork well below what school expects.
• A teacher who raises a concern about learning.
• Extreme upset about schoolwork.
• Complete avoidance of school or learning.
• Hopelessness about learning.
• Sadness or worry that lasts.
• Significant delays in speech, language or motor development.
• A skill that was there and has gone. Our position is that a lost skill goes to a doctor first, not a tutor.

If no skill has gone, start with the teacher. Say what you are seeing at home, and what you have tried. Beyond the teacher, the right person depends on what it turns out to be about. If the work is too hard, someone who works on that school skill. If worry or mood is the thing, someone who works with children's mental health. In our view, delays in speech, language or movement are worth raising with your child's doctor. In our view, if you are worried enough to ask, a professional evaluation is worth asking about.

Any talk of hurting themselves is a same-day call to your doctor or a crisis line.