Yesterday, Last Week, Last Month

The strategy, as published

Exactly as it appears on the card

Part of Spacing & Interleaving 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

Spacing retrieval out over time is one of the most robust findings in memory research, and one of the hardest to do consistently, because it needs the calendar as much as the lesson plan.

This routine solves the consistency problem by making the spacing automatic. Three questions per lesson, at three distances, and older material keeps reappearing without you having to track anything.

What it might look like

One version of it, in a classroom

A geography teacher's starter slide carries the same three headings every lesson: yesterday, last week, last month. Writing tomorrow's slide is quick work with the medium term plan open. Pupils answer from memory before any books come out.

Try it

A way to begin

Add the three headings to your existing starter template and fill them for one class tomorrow. The routine matters more than the perfect choice of questions.

What to notice

Reading what happens

• Which distance fails. If yesterday's question lands but last month's does not, that is the spacing doing its diagnostic work.
• Whether the same older topic keeps failing. The card is explicit that the intervals are a starting point, and complex topics may need revisiting more often.

Things to think about

Before and while you use it

• It only works if the older material genuinely reappears, which makes this a planning habit as much as a lesson habit. The guide puts it well: the calendar is part of the pedagogy.
• When content never returns after being taught, pupils conclude it no longer matters. This routine is the antidote, but only if you protect it when time is tight.

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
• 🔗 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 Retrieval Schedule Dunlosky's review ranked re-reading among the least effective strategies. Teach students the evidence: study, return after two days, then a week, then a month. Many students do the opposite. 01 Retrieval Practice · Spacing & Interleaving
• 📅 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

Technology second

Where technology fits

A low-stakes quiz tool, the approved one in your setting, takes the marking out of this entirely and keeps the routine sustainable; a spaced repetition tool can handle the intervals for you. What no tool should do is soften the retrieval itself. The struggle stays with the learner.

Drafting three questions at three distances, every lesson, is exactly the kind of repetitive drafting AI is good at, through the approved tool in your setting. A STAIR-shaped prompt does the heavy lifting:

Act as a secondary geography teacher. Create retrieval questions for a Year 8 class: one on yesterday's lesson (river landforms), one from last week (the water cycle), one from last month (map skills and grid references).

Keep every question answerable from memory in under a minute, focused on one precise idea, with no hints in the wording.

Keep the wording concise and do not include answers, explanations or extra detail.

Swap in your own subject, class and topics, and expect to go back and forth before it's right. That's the I in STAIR: iteration is essential. You choose the questions; the tool just drafts them.

The wider thinking

Where the evidence sits

The spacing effect runs from Ebbinghaus through Cepeda's work on optimal gaps; Dunlosky's reviews rank distributed practice among the most effective techniques available. The card’s attribution stands as published: Rosenshine; Bjork.

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