Forget Before You Retrieve

The strategy, as published

Exactly as it appears on the card

Part of Desirable Difficulties in 01 Retrieval Practice, where it sits alongside its neighbouring strategies, the infographic and the thinking for the whole area.

Why you might use it

The problem it may help with

The instinct after teaching something is to check it immediately, while it is fresh. Freshness is the problem. Quizzing straight after teaching mostly confirms what was said minutes ago, and the card is direct about the alternative: wait a day, then quiz. Wait a week, then quiz again.

A little forgetting first makes the retrieval effortful, and the effort is what strengthens the memory. The gap between learning and retrieval is where consolidation happens.

What it might look like

One version of it, in a classroom

A teacher finishes explaining photosynthesis and, instead of quizzing on it in the plenary, quizzes on last week's respiration work. Photosynthesis gets its first quiz tomorrow and its second the following week.

Try it

A way to begin

Move one end-of-lesson quiz to the start of the next lesson. Nothing else changes except the gap.

What to notice

Reading what happens

• Scores dropping compared with same-lesson quizzing. That drop is the point: the quiz is now measuring memory rather than echo.
• Whether the week-later quiz shows the material coming back more securely than the day-later one did.

Things to think about

Before and while you use it

• Explain the delay to pupils. The gap is a design choice, and knowing that can make the harder quiz feel fair rather than punitive.
• Checking understanding within the lesson still has its place; that is formative assessment doing a different job. What waits is the retrieval practice.

Related strategies

Where this connects

• 📅 Distribute Practice Over Time Spread retrieval across days and weeks rather than cramming it into one session. Build review points into your medium-term plan. The calendar is part of the pedagogy. 01 Retrieval Practice · Spacing & Interleaving
• 🔄 Yesterday, Last Week, Last Month Three questions per lesson: one from yesterday, one from last week, one from last month. These intervals are a starting point; complex topics may need revisiting more frequently. 01 Retrieval Practice · Spacing & Interleaving
• 🧔 Embrace the Struggle Bjork coined desirable difficulties for conditions that slow apparent learning but improve long-term retention. Effortful retrieval is the clearest example. Resist the urge to make it easier. 01 Retrieval Practice · Desirable Difficulties
• 📅 Review Little and Often Begin every lesson with a brief review of prior content: yesterday's, last week's, last month's. The most effective teachers check understanding constantly. If most students cannot answer, adjust the pace of teaching. 02 Formative Assessment · Students as Owners of Their Learning

The wider thinking

Where the evidence sits

Bjork's work on spacing and Roediger's on the testing effect meet here: a test strengthens memory most when some forgetting has been allowed to happen first. The card’s attribution stands as published: R. Bjork; Roediger.

The fuller picture, sources included, is in further reading and evidence for Retrieval Practice.