Spiral or blocked practice? A quick quiz
Spiral review mixes earlier skills in with the current one, so they keep coming back. Blocked practice is one kind of item, usually right after it was taught. Read each one and pick.
Question 1 of 8
After a lesson on the 7 times table, students do twenty problems, all on the 7 times table.
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The best answer to every question, and why
- After a lesson on the 7 times table, students do twenty problems, all on the 7 times table. Blocked practice. Every item is the same kind, from today's lesson. That is blocked practice, which is fine right after teaching a new skill.
- Morning work in week 10 of 3rd grade: three items on this week's times table and two subtraction facts from 2nd grade, mixed in. Spiral review. Mostly this week's skill, with earlier skills mixed in so they stay fresh. That is the shape of a daily spiral review.
- Spelling: ten -ight words on Monday, practiced every day, tested on Friday, and never seen again. Blocked practice. One pattern, practiced in a block and then dropped. Bringing a few -ight words back in later weeks would turn it into a spiral.
- A daily warm-up with one question from each of the last four units. Spiral review. Every day reaches back across earlier units. That is spiral review in its plainest form.
- Homework: fifteen problems on today's lesson, then three problems from earlier units. Spiral review. A block on today's skill with a spiral tail. Even a few older items keep earlier skills alive. Mixing them in, rather than putting them last, makes it stronger still.
- Fact practice: the 2s on Monday, the 3s on Tuesday, the 4s on Wednesday, and no table ever comes back. Blocked practice. Each day is one block, and none returns. Add a few 2s to Wednesday's page and it starts to spiral.
- Fix-the-sentence warm-ups where a comma rule from September comes back in October and again in January. Spiral review. The same rule returns after gaps, mixed in with newer ones. That is spiral review for language.
- The day before the fractions test, the whole period is spent practicing fractions. Blocked practice. A whole period on one topic, just before the test, is blocked, massed practice. It has its place, but spreading some of that review over earlier weeks keeps fractions around after the test.
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