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Comprehensive Definition
Cumulative Review or spaced repetition is a teaching strategy that involves revisiting previously taught skills and content at regular intervals after the initial instruction. Instead of treating a skill as "finished," cumulative review integrates past concepts into current lessons. This approach directly counteracts the forgetting curve. The well documented tendency for newly learned information to fade from memory if not revisited. By reactivating knowledge before it decays, cumulative review strengthens retention and builds toward automaticity.
In Structured Literacy, this is vital because reading is cumulative; mastery of advanced concepts depends on the automaticity of foundational skills. PLD embeds cumulative review directly into the Daily Review cycle.
Practical Example
A Year 2 teacher is teaching 'ai'. During the lesson, the teacher ensures practice activities also include words containing previously taught skills, such as consonant digraph ‘sh’ and CCVC words ‘spit’. This ensures retrieval practice.
FAQs
Q: Why is cumulative review important for automaticity?
A: Automaticity requires deep embedding in long-term memory. Cumulative review provides the spaced repetition and retrieval practice necessary to strengthen neural connections, leading to faster word recognition.
Q: How often should a skill be revisited?
A: The most effective models use spaced repetition: revisit the next day, the following week, two weeks later, etc.
Q: Should cumulative review replace dedicated daily instruction time?
A: No, it supplements it. A dedicated portion of the lesson (e.g., the first 5-10 minutes) should be used for review, while the majority of time is spent on new material.
Q: What is the difference between cumulative review and massed practice?
A: Massed practice concentrates repetition into a single block by practicing one skill intensively before moving on. Cumulative review distributes that practice across multiple sessions over time. Research consistently shows that distributed practice produces stronger long-term retention than massed practice.
