Review Little and Often

The strategy, as published

Exactly as it appears on the card

Part of Students as Owners of Their Learning in 02 Formative Assessment, 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

Rosenshine begins his principles with review for a reason: in the classroom studies, the most effective teachers opened lessons with it and checked understanding constantly. A brief review of prior content, every lesson, keeps older learning warm and gives you a running read on what has stuck.

The card carries its own decision rule: if most pupils cannot answer, adjust the pace of teaching. The review is evidence collection with a consequence attached, not a settling activity.

What it might look like

One version of it, in a classroom

Five questions on the board as pupils arrive: two from yesterday, two from last week, one from last month. Answers on paper, self-checked, a show of results for each. When the last-month question is right in six books out of thirty, that topic goes back on next week's plan.

What to notice

Reading what happens

• Which time horizon fails first: yesterday's content, last week's or last month's.
• Whether the results ever change your plan. A review that never alters the pace has become a ritual.
• Which pupils are consistently caught out only by the older material.

Things to think about

Before and while you use it

• Little means little. Ten minutes that grow into twenty crowd out the teaching the review exists to serve.
• Keep the stakes low. The information dries up as soon as the review starts to feel like a test.

Related strategies

Where this connects

• 🔄 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
• 📋 Low-Stakes Starter Quizzes Five questions per lesson on prior content; nothing in the gradebook. Agarwal found routine quizzing reduces test anxiety rather than causing it. The quiz is not the assessment. It is the learning. 01 Retrieval Practice · The Testing Effect
• 🔁 Spaced Retrieval Practice Low stakes quizzing on prior content, not today's lesson. Returning to older material at increasing intervals is one of the most robust findings in memory research. Re-reading notes is not the same as retrieving. 02 Formative Assessment · Students as Owners of Their Learning
• 🔗 Cumulative Review Plan retrieval into your medium-term planning, not just lessons. Bring back earlier content in starters and assessments. When it never reappears, students conclude it no longer matters. 01 Retrieval Practice · Spacing & Interleaving

The wider thinking

Where the evidence sits

The daily, weekly and monthly review pattern comes from Rosenshine's principles of instruction, distilled from observation of the most effective classrooms. The card’s attribution stands as published: Rosenshine.

The fuller picture, sources included, is in further reading and evidence for Formative Assessment.